View Full Version : Goodbye, Kodak
John Rountree
11-13-2007, 18:06
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.
Dektol Dan
11-13-2007, 18:29
You are too small.
Are your students too small to find a drugstore big enough?
Kill the messenger, by God!
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.
tetrisattack
11-13-2007, 19:08
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.
John Rountree
11-14-2007, 03:53
You are too small.
Are your students too small to find a drugstore big enough?
Kill the messenger, by God!
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.
ChrisPlatt
11-14-2007, 12:10
Lots of educational institutions use Sprint.
Chris
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 :confused: What difference does it make to you whether it comes straight from Rochester or via Kansas City?
Dektol Dan
11-14-2007, 18:26
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.
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!
...Starting next semester I will no longer alow my students to use any Kodak film or paper.
??!!! :confused: 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?
.
I never could afford to practice color printing in my own dark room (a long way from a Big Machine).
? 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.
nikonhswebmaster
11-15-2007, 04:48
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!
Gezzz we are twins. MFA painting MFA media and photography, ditto on all the old techniques (including even etching). And since 1960's I have been sending my color film to labs...
Anyway back to the question at hand are we talking students at Black Mountain College here, does Bob R use film still?
I wondered that too, but Black Mountain College closed years ago. I'm sure Kodak would have supplied them with whatever materials were necessary!
rogue_designer
11-15-2007, 04:56
More importantly, don't close off options for your students.
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.
nikonhswebmaster
11-15-2007, 05:12
I wondered that too, but Black Mountain College closed years ago. I'm sure Kodak would have supplied them with whatever materials were necessary!
Well he could be a time traveler.
By the way, on another point, George E would have loved digital, his goal was to make photography available for everyone, not sell chemicals. In fact he wanted to make it possible for the little guy NOT to have to touch any chemicals.
By the way, on another point, George E would have loved digital, his goal was to make photography available for everyone, not sell chemicals. In fact he wanted to make it possible for the little guy NOT to have to touch any chemicals.
Exactly. He knew how to combine a consumer need with building a company. His success came because he was in on the ground floor and he treated his employees very well.
What difference does it make to you whether it comes straight from Rochester or via Kansas City?
Hey, what's wrong with Kansas City?!?! :D
WoolenMammoth
11-15-2007, 14:39
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.
sepiareverb
11-15-2007, 14:52
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'.
WoolenMammoth
11-15-2007, 16:07
isnt ilford's whole world primarily, if not exclusively, black and white?
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.
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.
I take resent to that, I don't consider myself eldaerly and I burn through Kodak products.
wlewisiii
11-17-2007, 21:53
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.
While I do believe that Kodak is engaging in long term corporate suicide, I also have to say that this is the most important thought in the thread. Kodak will be gone soon enough, don't let your students miss out on Plus-X, Tri-X or Kodachrome 64 in the meantime just because you have a case of ass at the great yellow father.
Soon enough your students will have to buy Fomapan or Arista. But not yet.
William
landsknechte
11-17-2007, 22:08
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.
It's one thing to decide that you aren't going to use anything Kodak for the school, but it's pretty damn petty for you to step on your students creative freedom just because you have a grudge against a particular manufacturer.
kshapero
11-18-2007, 03:11
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.
Whew, I am glad I am not one of your students. Kodak supplies are readily available. Try Feestyle Photo.
John Rountree
11-20-2007, 19:24
Over reacted, sorry. Of course they can use good old Tri-X.
MichaelHarris
11-20-2007, 19:36
John now is a great time to discover just how great Freestyle online is. I order all my film and chemicals from them and am treated like a pro. They also have a wonderful program for educators.
Over reacted, sorry. Of course they can use good old Tri-X.
that's OK. I swore off Walgreens forever when a pimple-faced stock boy accused me of stealing a combination lock back around 1992. I made good for a while, but in a pinch, ,when you need underarm D, Airborne, or toothpaste.... :)
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