The Impending Death of The Great Yellow Father

Associated Press

The last few days have been depressing in a personal sort of way. I had to buy out the shares of my colleague due to his inabilities to perform in the assigned job scope. I turned on facebook, only to see a link that informed me Kodak is going bankrupted. Funny thing was, I ordered 60 rolls of Arista Premium(Rebranded Tri-x) in 135, 5 rolls of Portra in 120 2 weeks back. I was planning to perform my personal documentary work with black and white film---Tri-x to be exact.

I went to sleep after hearing the gong sounding Kodak's eventual death. I woke up feeling like a good friend died, even though great companies like Ilford and Fujifilm are still producing them films. The fact is: Fujifilm discontinued some old favorites in various formats. That to me, is another nail in the coffin for film.

I still bought 2 Minolta XD11, Mamiya Sekor 80mm f2.8, Rokkor MD 28mm f2.8 and a Gossen luna-pro f lightmeter off keh.com a few hours ago. I hesitated for a minute before closing my eyes and hitting the submit button for a grand total of $500++. That's dirt cheap. I would never had been able to afford so many cameras with just $500 in the past. Even as the users of film dwindles, I'm making a come-back with my personal work---stuff that matters to me, I'll record it on silver.

I'll be using film for as long as I can find it and as if the cost isn't exorbitant. Until then, they can only pry my Kodak from my cold dead fingers.

For now, it's about time to experiment with more Ilford HP5+ and find a replacement for HC-110---just in case Kodak isn't coming back.