Shooting the Last Roll of Film

Award-winning photojournalist Steve McCurry, world-famous for his 1984 National Geographic image of a 12-year-old refugee from Afghanistan, got the last roll of Kodachrome* manufactured at Eastman Kodak's plant in Rochester, New York. The half-hour documentary below follows McCurry as he shoots the last-possible 36 shots with what he describes as a film that carries its poetry within it.

McCurry donated his 36 slides to George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester. 

Of Related Interest

* Kodak announced in 2009 that it would discontinue production and sales of the color film, after concluding it was "no longer viable" because of the prominence of digital photography.

David Friend, "The Last Roll of Kodachrome—Frame by Frame!", Vanity Fair, February 9, 2011

Claire Suddath, "A Brief History of Kodachrome", TIME Magazine, June 23, 2009

"How Film Was Made: A Kodak Nostalgia Moment" at Open Culture, January 18, 2012

"Robert Burley on the Disappearance of Darkness" at Writing Without Paper, January 19, 2013

"Tacita Dean on Film" at Writing Without Paper, November 10, 2011

Richard Nicholson's "Analog — Last One Out" Photographic Series