Kodachrome, Chroma, Jules Verne

Entropy (philosperically): the inevitable, irreversible tendency of systems toward disorder, decay, and equilibrium, acting as a "silent teacher" on the nature of change.

I’m going to shoot another roll of Kodachrome 64 in this often ugly and topsy-turvy world of 2026. I’m using a Nikon FE with a beautiful 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor lens. What’s the point shooting a film, revered colour film, that prompted Paul Simon to sing about it, and a film to be made commemorating the fictional moment of the last roll to be developed at Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kansas…With Ed Harris.

I digress. Why still use a defunct film with no original way of developing it? Because it exists. And that will always be important and vital, for me.

I set my camera’s ISO to 25 (to compensate for the film expiring in June 1999), make a note in my book to remember to pre-soak for 2-3 minutes, development at 6 minutes and 30 seconds, and a gentle fix for the same time, followed by a long wash (and probably a little bit of inky carbon massaging to get rid of any remaining goo…).

Walking back to the studio, I popped into the Oxfam Bookshop. I’ve picked up some great books, film-related items, and analogue cameras from there in the past (including this Nikon FE I’m using today). It’s also where serendipity struck, too. An immaculate condition large three-reel development tank, with the reels and the spindle in place, for just £6, so that was grabbed. I also spotted a first-printing copy of Chroma by Derek Jarman, and an early 1950’s copy of Jules Verne’s ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’. And, I had a moment.

Less than 30 minutes before, I’d been writing about using Kodachrome and the entropy associated with photography using expired film. I suppose there is control too, as the developing process is fresh and almost assured (in a cross-processing, black-and-white sort of way).

My ‘new’ copy of Around the World in Eighty Days, originally published in 1873, was reprinted in the 1950s with this rich Kodachrome-esque cover, in an era of post-war optimism, travel-as-dream, slightly romanticised adventure that, for me, fits beautifully with my thoughts with expired film. A book and a roll of Kodachrome, all about movement and time.

Let’s have a passing thought for Jarman’s Chroma, too. I already have a modern copy of this book, which I bought during various eye issues and surgeries over the last year or so. My vision began to deteriorate during this period. I lost the full colour spectrum from my right eye (fun fact: I can only ‘see’ everything as blue or yellow from that eye). Expired films, fading colour, entropy...Light as something temporary.

What I took from Chroma is that Jarman isn’t trying to preserve colour, he’s trying to understand it as it disappears.

From having a coffee and loading a roll of Kodachrome 64 into my camera, making notes, my walk to the charity shop, my purchases, and now sat here in my studio writing this, I have accidentally built a really strong conceptual pairing: Movement through the world vs. the fading of how we see it.