another one bites the dust…

“ROCHESTER, N.Y., June 22 — Eastman Kodak Company announced today that it will retire Kodachrome Color Film this year, concluding its 74-year run as a photography icon. Sales of Kodachrome Film, which became the world’s first commercially successful color film in 1935….As part of a tribute to Kodachrome Film, Kodak will donate the last rolls of the film to George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, which houses the world’s largest collection of cameras and related artifacts. Steve McCurry will shoot one of those last rolls and the images will be donated to Eastman House…”

Cornell Capa, Political advertisement, 1960

Cornell Capa, Kennedy supporters line the train route nears Marysville, California, September 8, 1960

Cornell Capa, Michigan, September 5, 1960

Cornell Capa, Kennedy speaking to voters from the back of the campaign train, September 8-9, 1960

Cornell Capa, New York City, October 19, 1960

Happy Birthday Igor

W. Eugene Smith, Igor Stravinsky, ca. 1951

Arnold Newman, Stravinsky, 1946

Cornell Capa, [Igor Stravinsky, Venice], 1951

“I know that the twelve notes in each octave and the variety of rhythm offer me opportunities that all of human genius will never exhaust.” – Igor Stravinsky

“My God, so much I like to drink Scotch that sometimes I think my name is Igor Stra-whiskey.” – Igor Stravinsky (possibly apocryphal)

D-Day (Digital Day) 2009

Cornell Capa, The fourth and last of the Kennedy-Nixon debates (held in New York City), as seen on the television of a New York bar, Oct. 21, 1960

Cornell Capa, Television comedian and talk-show host Jack Paar at home, watching the show he had taped earlier in the day, 1959

Roger Mertin, Untitled, from the Plastic Love Dream portfolio, 1968

Weegee, Television Antennas – Upper Manhattan, ca. 1960

Weegee, [Empire State Building and antenna], ca, 1960

The date for the final transition of broadcast television from analog to digital is June 12, 2009…

Weegee, a long time critic of television (see The Idiot Box, ca. 1965, 16mm, 5 min.) and the celebrities who appeared on it, presciently, and perhaps psychically, knew, as the FCC writes on their website: A good antenna makes all the difference in the world…

Forty-eight years ago today

Cornell Capa, [Washington, D.C., Inauguration Day], January 20, 1961

Congratulations to Barack Obama, the forty-fourth president of the United States. On a wintry day much like today, Cornell Capa captured the chilly but hopeful crowds at the inaugural parade of another young senator-turned-president, John F. Kennedy, Jr.