Flashback Friday

I don't know about other people's archives, but open my family's photo albums and you have almost exclusively black and white pictures.  Color doesn't seem to be the norm until the mid to late 70's.   

The above picture represents the oldest color picture in my family albums.  It was in a very small photo album, a purse sized album, which belonged to my grandmother, Mona, who was my mother's mother.   This small album contained only pictures of her 3 grandchildren from Seaton,  and I suspect it was in her purse when she died in 1964.  

The other side of the picture has only this:

This is a Kodachrome Print

Made By

Eastman Kodak Company

Week of Dec. 10, 1951 

Before we get to the subject matter, let's chat a bit about Kodachrome.  A quick check through history tells us that in the 50's processing color film was more expensive.  In fact, Kodachrome was strictly prepaid-processing.  For 20 years Kodak would include an envelope and the customer would enclose the film and send it to be processed in one of their own labs.  In 1954 this was challenged in court, United States v. Eastman Kodak Corporation, as a monopoly and deemed to be illegal as anti-competitive.  

Kodak would lose that court case and it allowed customers of that film to send their rolls to local photo shops for processing - which was probably faster and cheaper, too.   

As for the subject matter,  this is brother Philip, when he was about one and a half years old.  Where it was taken and by whom is mere speculation, so I won't even try to guess.  There are too few clues to be able to even surmise its location.  What is certain, however, is that it was in the fall, thus the long sleeves.  Add mailing to and from the nearest Kodak processing plant and perhaps some time to get the entire roll snapped, hmmm, maybe around October/November is a reasonable guess.  A good guess as to where this was taken may be down in Quincy where the grandparents lived.  Mona may have sprung for the more expensive film and since it was in her purse album make sit possible.  I am not sure if there are any duplicates of this picture with the other boys, but next time I'm in Northlandia I'll go through the Wombie's stash and see what he has.   

As it is, it is a pretty neat picture of Philip winding up and tossing a ball. Looks like he has pretty good form and certainly has the look of someone zeroing in on his target.  Phil, who happens to be in the top two or three funniest guys I know will probably have a classic line about this picture and since I know he "sometimes" catches the Flashback Friday posts, I may even hear from him.  

They stopped making Kodachrome in the early 2000's long after everyone started using Ektachrome which was easier to process.  Of course digital has now taken over most photographic needs.  I think you can still find film if you still have an old obsolete camera, but since digital is free, why spend the money?  Like vinyl, some old masters may still use film, but they are a dying breed.  Digital is here to stay.  

We sometimes, in our mind's eye, see history in black and white, because of the pictures we have.   Kodachrome gave rise to consumer color and millions of photo albums across the country became dazzling over night.  Phil, too.