Kodachrome.

I just finished a film that touched me very deeply.  There were many similarities to my life.  It was one I will never forget.

Kodachrome is a movie starring Ed Harris, one of my top three favorite actors. The movie was about a photographer Ben, played by Ed Harris, who had a strained relationship with his son and was diagnosed with liver cancer with only a short time to live.  His last wish was to drive across country to a town in Kansas to have four rolls of film developed that he recently found containing pictures he took decades before.  This photoshop is the last shop to develop Kodachrome film and they’re going to stop processing film in a few days.  He asked his son to come along.  The movie is about that journey.

As I mentioned there are many similarities in this movie to my own life.  First I didn’t have the closest relationship with my father, though I love and respected him a lot.  Similarly, I do not have a close one with my son.  In my mind, I know my son loves me, but I fear he sees me as Ed Harris sons did throughout most of the movie. Often him perceiving me as a ‘prick’ or ‘jerk’, and definitely as one who does not care for him.  All of these, of course, is furthest from the truth. The main thing that struck a chord with me is cancer.  I watched my father, a giant of a man, whittle away to skin and bones in 6 months after being diagnosed with cancer.  My dad looked scarily similar to how Ed looked in the movie in my dad’s final days on this earth.  I miss my dad!

The other aspect of this movie that struck a chord with me was the obvious aspects of photography.  “We’re all frightened by time.  The way it moves on and the way things disappear.  That’s why we’re photographers.  We’re preservationists by nature.  We take pictures to stop time.  To commit moments to eternity.  Human nature made tangible.”  That was a powerful line in the movie Kodachrome, which hit a nerve with me.  As I mentioned in one of my first blogs, I have a superpower.  One where I can freeze time.  I guess it was validated in this movie.

My recent internal debate on whether to print my work or not and even worse to sell it continues to go on.  The main character in this movie pointed out that everyone these days takes pictures.  More pictures are being taken today than throughout time, but as he put it, today’s pictures are all just data.  Rarely do people print their pictures out, nor frame them, nor sell or even pass them on to others in physical form.  I plan to change my thinking about my work.  Though my wife may not like it, I plan to print a few shots each year of my ‘best’ work and display them in my house.  I will also be less apprehensive to print and sell some of my work for others if they are interested.  We all have a legacy to leave, maybe this will be mine.  Hopefully, my son will also someday enjoy and appreciate my superpower.

I highly recommend if you get a chance to watch Kodachrome, do so.  It is a powerful and emotional movie, one I will not long forget.  My son had already seen it and commented “it’s a good movie”, I just hope the message got through to him. I also hope that someday he and I can become close, something I never got the chance to do with my dad.  Cancer sucks.

Until next time,

Tim