June 25, 2006: One of the last photos I took with film, near Gitchie Manitou State Park
It’s been over five years since I bought my last Kodak product, a pair of disposable cameras in Mitchell, S.D., in 2006, when I feared my digital camera would leave me stranded again. Also, at the time, I found that film worked a little better than digital in dim conditions and facing the sun.
Before that, though, my family went through rolls of film like they were ice cream cones at the State Fair. The film camera I used in the late ’90s was a Kodak. My early years are captured in the square photos of the disc camera. I was George Eastman for Night of the Notables.
But with hiccups and exceptions, for the past decade but especially the past five years (after we stopped needing prints for the 4H record books), the images have piled up on hard drives instead of in boxes. Thus, I feel twinges of both nostalgia and guilt to learn that Kodak has filed for Chapter 11.
I didn’t use the cameras on that trip. Perhaps I should use them on the next. Time may be running out — the Southridge Target stopped processing film months ago.