No company shaped photography like Kodak. For most of the 20th century, to take a photo was to shoot Kodak film. Its story runs from a single inventor's workshop to a global giant, through a painful decline, and into today's unexpected film revival. Understanding that history explains why the stocks in your camera exist at all.
George Eastman and the birth of Kodak
The company began with George Eastman, who started manufacturing dry photographic plates in Rochester, New York in the 1880s. In 1888 he launched the first Kodak camera with the famous slogan, You press the button, we do the rest. It came pre-loaded with roll film; customers shot it, mailed the whole camera back, and Kodak developed the images and reloaded it. This single idea took photography out of the hands of specialists and put it into everyone's.
Kodachrome and the colour era
In 1935 Kodak introduced Kodachrome, one of the first successful colour films. Its rich, archival colour made it the choice of professionals, National Geographic photographers and generations of families for decades. Kodachrome became so beloved it entered popular song. Its complex K-14 development process was eventually its undoing, but for over 70 years it defined what colour photography could be.
The golden age of film
Through the mid and late 20th century Kodak dominated. It produced everything from cheap consumer films to professional stocks, and names still shooting today were born in this era. Tri-X, launched in the 1950s, became the black-and-white film of photojournalism. The professional Portra colour negatives arrived in the late 1990s, engineered for flawless skin tones. Kodak film was in nearly every camera, cinema projector and family album on earth.
Decline and bankruptcy
Then came digital. Ironically, Kodak engineers built one of the first digital cameras in 1975, but the company was slow to embrace a technology that threatened its film business. As digital cameras and then smartphones took over in the 2000s, film sales collapsed. Kodachrome was discontinued in 2009, and Eastman Kodak filed for bankruptcy protection in 2012, emerging as a smaller, restructured company.
The resurgence
- Demand for film has grown steadily as photographers rediscovered its look and process.
- Kodak has kept its key stocks in production — Gold, UltraMax, ColorPlus, ProImage, the Portra family, Ektar, Tri-X and T-Max.
- In 2018 Kodak even brought back Ektachrome, a colour slide film, a move few predicted during the decline.
Today Kodak remains the largest film manufacturer in the world, and a new generation is shooting the same emulsions their grandparents used. That living history is part of what makes loading a roll so special. If you want to be part of it, Boston Camera stocks the full current Kodak lineup and can help you start shooting film today.
