ABSTRACT
Throughout the 1930s–1980s, Kodachrome achieved widespread commercial success in both amateur and professional markets as a still photography and motion picture medium. Analog Kodachrome film began to fade into outmoded obsolescence when the market turned to inchoate digital imaging technologies beginning in the mid-1970s, which ultimately culminated in the discontinuation of its production and photo-lab processing by 2010. While Kodachrome no longer exists in its original form today, it has been revived as a nostalgic visual throw-back to an analog past and still functions as an escapist vehicle. Kodachrome’s past, present, and future are even richer than the photographs or motion pictures created with it, and this essay will illuminate the multifaceted, prismatic aspects of its colorful legacy. Indeed, Kodachrome was deemed “vulgar” by art photographers not just for its garish color schemes, but for its “low-brow” and “common” mass appeal.
