Perhaps you remember or have heard of film, specifically the film called Kodachrome? Well tomorrow is the last day to get it developed, and you'll need to get it to Dwayne's Photo Lab in Kansas to have it done. Starting January 1, 2011 any pictures taken on undeveloped Kodachrome film will be lost forever. This got me thinking about the angst over digital storage, when file formats become obsolete and unsupported the information in them will effectively disappear. This is the first time I recall that something similar is happening to photographic analog storage.
Black and white film or other color film has always been fairly easy to develop in a small darkroom at home but the Kodachrome development process is complex and requires very strict process control. There has never been a Kodachrome home development kit, and there never will be. In this way undeveloped Kodachrome film is like digital media: it requires a complex infrastructure to retrieve the image data. However unlike undeveloped film (with its invisible latent image1) developed Kodachrome film is like any other photographic film, all that's needed to "retrieve" the image data is light. Magnifying the image helps too.
Of course there are many photographic capture processes that are no longer available. The difference between all those other processes and Kodachrome is popularity. Kodachrome was the first color process widely adopted by both professionals and consumers. It was also the primary media for capturing color images for decades. Millions, if not billions, of rolls of film were sold and I am fairly certain that thousands of rolls that were exposed but never developed exist around the world.
The well-known "Zapruder Film" of the Kennedy assassination was taken with a movie camera loaded with Kodachrome2. If there is any undiscovered footage taken on that day in that location it was also probably captured on Kodachrome film. If such a film is found in the future it will be difficult, if not impossible, to see those images. And there is no chance of any such film being discovered accidentally simply because a roll of film was found in a drawer and developed.
There were earlier commercially viable color processes, but none were as robust as Kodachrome. For example if you see any color film or photos taken during World War II you are more than likely looking at very early Kodachrome which was only available to the military. Widespread adoption by consumers started after the war giving Kodachrome a lifespan of about 65 years. Any photographs captured on it during that time, but undeveloped will effectively cease to exist in two days. For photographers I think there is one obvious lesson: make prints. Regardless of capture media, film3 or digital, you should print any images you want to be seen in the future. I acknowledge that prints can fail as well, either through physical damage or fading. But if you use good quality ink and paper and store them reasonably the prints have a chance of at least outlasting you. Just keep in mind that viewing prints doesn't require any complicated hardware or software, just light, and that's pretty much guaranteed to be abundantly available for the next five billion years.
1 - Encarta (http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861693039/latent_image.html)
2 - I just assumed that it was, but here's a citation: Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapruder_film)
3 - Yes I know there are a few of you still using transparency film and that you don't need prints to see them but almost all exposures these days are digital, and should be printed.
