Goodbye, Kodak

J

John Rountree

Nothing is what I want
Local time
9:05 PM
Joined
Mar 17, 2006
Messages
340
Location
Black Mountain, NC
View My Gallery
I teach photography on the college level. At the end of September I ordered developer and fix/bleach for our color print processor from Kodak. Well, not exactly since we (the school) were told over a year ago that we were too small of a customer for Kodak to fool with us directly any longer.
But Kodak chemicals were ordered. The chemicals have still not arrived! I have been told that Kodak closed its Atlanta distribution warehouse and for whatever reason they can't ship it out of the Rochester warehouse. With this situation and others, it is clear to me that Kodak wants out of the photo business altogether. So, I will help them in their quest. Starting next semester I will no longer alow my students to use any Kodak film or paper. I am in the process of switching over to Fuji chemicals for the color processor and the black and white lab will be using Sprint chemicals from now on. After Kodak missed the digital boat I bet old George Eastman was spinning in his grave. And now to see the company piss away its few remaining customers would kill him anyhow.
 
Kodak has changed their distribution model, that is all. They are now going through independent distribution for all photo items (at least the chemical-based products), and not doing any direct business. This is not unknown in the industry, and is hardly the end of the world.

To state "With this situation and others, it is clear to me that Kodak wants out of the photo business altogether" is both wrong and highly irresponsible. They still make film. They still make chemicals. They still make digital photo products.

Call them and talk; don't cut off your nose to spite your face. More importantly, don't close off options for your students. They are innocent pawns being hurt by your pique.
 
Solidarity, brother. We've been using sprint for years now at Evergreen, mostly because we wanted to get away from having student aides mix powdered chemistry, and we're all fuji in color; RA-4, C-41, and E-6.

FWIW, fuji also sells concentrated liquid fixer that works just fine for b&w, they call it Startone. Comes without hardener, but compatible with some (all?) liquid hardening agents. Outside of that, we're using Heico Permawash and photo formulary indicator stop.

Good luck with the transition.
 
Dektol Dan said:
You are too small.
Are your students too small to find a drugstore big enough?
Kill the messenger, by God!
Click to expand...

Dan, please explain to me what my students will learn by going to a drugstore for film processing and/or printing.
Anyone, what's wrong with Fuji? What's wrong with Sprint?

Since the college is so small, Kodak has already decided that our money is not important to their business model. I am just supporting their decision.
 
Have you thought about just ordering it from the Kodak distributers? Kodak was happy to send me their list and I am smaller than a college.
 
^ I agree. Seriously, it's kind of silly to go off about Kodak simply they've got a new guy who handles sales 😕 What difference does it make to you whether it comes straight from Rochester or via Kansas City?
 
John Rountree said:
Dan, please explain to me what my students will learn by going to a drugstore for film processing and/or printing.
Anyone, what's wrong with Fuji? What's wrong with Sprint?

Since the college is so small, Kodak has already decided that our money is not important to their business model. I am just supporting their decision.
Click to expand...

John:
I have an MFA in art, painting major, photography minor in a broad area art degree (I'm very old). I never once considered color photography important to my education other than reversal film. There is far more to be learned about color theory in mastering Photoshop and Design 101. I never could afford to practice color printing in my own dark room (a long way from a Big Machine). True, I learned many ancient photography techniques such as albumen prints, blue printing, and gravure but in the end they're all curiosites now to me. Time marches on!
 
John Rountree said:
...Starting next semester I will no longer alow my students to use any Kodak film or paper.
Click to expand...

??!!! 😕 That's ridiculous. Are you going to fail a student for going out and buying a roll of TriX? Or, are you going to refuse to show them how to process it?

.
 
Dektol Dan said:
I never could afford to practice color printing in my own dark room (a long way from a Big Machine).
Click to expand...

? I print color. It is not that much more expensive than b&w. A Jobo CCP2 is not that big either. It takes far less space than a tray development darkroom.
 
I wondered that too, but Black Mountain College closed years ago. I'm sure Kodak would have supplied them with whatever materials were necessary!
 
Trius said:
More importantly, don't close off options for your students.
Click to expand...

This is the key point here.

You don't have to buy Kodak products if you're really that hacked off about them. There are other chemical makers. (Or you can find other distributors).

But don't limit the artistic choices your students have. If they want to buy TriX it's their dime, and their photograph. Your job is to give them the tools to give support to their art. Not to use them as a tool to punish (barely) a company for an unfortunate decision the current market has forced on them.

I will say though. Thank you for continuing a darkroom program. Many schools (including my alma mater) have gone totally digital in their photography courses.
 
Last edited:
What an odd conclusion for a * * teacher * * to draw. This partly is why I had such an unfulfilling experience at a university, professors with equally vision-less deductive reasoning abilities. What kodak is trying to do is stay IN the photo business and has restructured who they are going to employ and what they are going to do with those employees. Filling PO's for smaller orders, in the face of their current distributors obviously isnt profitable or they would clearly be doing it. Its not like you cant just place your order through a different distributor, geesh. Throwing a temper tantrum on the internet about it really lacks the vision that a professor who should be inspiring photography ought to have and certainly blessing impressionable students with the childish baggage of "boycott this company because we arent special enough for them anymore" is a crime if you could only get over yourself to realize it...

Kodak, despite what people who load 36 exposures into leicas think, isnt going anywhere anytime soon. When you look at how the price of superspeed prime super 16 lenses dropped through the floor when HD came out and then reversed itself within maybe 3 years is proof enough. All that episodic that went over to HD is back shooting super 16.

Some of the comments I read on the internet really remind me that its the internet.
 
As another college photo professor who still teaches silver photography I'm seeing more Ilford than Kodak. Our bookstore couldn't get Kodak Multigrade filters anywhere this semester, so we went with Ilford. Not a single book to be had. Our only local shop sells Ilford and Fuji, no Kodak. Does seem to me that if Kodak isn't trying to get out of silver photography they certainly aren't working at keeping customers either. No more b&w paper seems like the biggest mistake to me.
 
I agree that Kodak's distribution strategy is not perfect and that Ilford currently seems to be eating Kodak's lunch in that regard. But Kodak does have more irons in the fire than Ilford. I'm not justifying, just sayin'.
 
Kodak is a has been.............

Kodak is a has been.............

Kodak's top management are former excecs from Hewlitt-Packard's printer division. They couldn't care less about analog photography and if they did, they don't have the cojones to make the business work in a niche market.

My thirty plus years of loyalty went out the window when Kodak's current management closed the B/W paper division. That was two years ago.

The HP turnaround team currently at the helm has wasted a lot of money zig zagging their way through digital products, many of them now orphaned. They abandoned a dye-sub printing line after a sizable investment. Their digital cameras line up hasn't made as much money as was predicted. The camera line has yet to progress beyond the point of being a low end consumer brand.

It's shame, because a lot of talent and know how have been flushed down the drain by the HP team.
 
it seems to me kodak is in trouble. There customers are primarily elderly and dying (not just film users but the digital users as well!) I sell kodak digital products they're the focus of the store I work at the brand we are behind the most the problem is only older folks buy them. This goes especially for their film.

Not a big fan of their cameras but I like their films and printers. They closed their portland processing center as well so now prints take longer to get done for my customers which sucks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom