Totally Unauthorized

The last frame from the last roll of Kodachrome. copyright Steve McCurry

For 70 years, the premier color slide film was Kodachrome, but the digital era changed the film industry irrevocably.  Last year, Kodak ceased production of Kodachrome, and last week the only lab in the world that could process it, Dwaynes Photography in Parsons, Kansas, shut down their lines forever.

Kodak gave the last production roll to Steve McCurry, a photographer who made his career shooting Kodachrome all over the word–the photo of the Afghan girl from the cover of NatGeo was his.  He has over 800,000 slides in his files, all Kodachrome.  McCurry then flew around the world, exposing the final 36 exposures, and last week hand-delivered the roll to the processor.  The photo above, the very last frame, was shot in the town cemetery in Parsons.

Go to his blog to see more of the final roll.