The Penn Stater Magazine

A sign of the times: Kodak announced today that it will no longer manufacture its legendary Kodachrome slide film. Hardly anyone is buying the stuff—everyone’s shooting digital these days.

What I didn’t know is that the world-famous photo of an Afghan girl by Steve McCurry ’74 was shot on Kodachrome. Fittingly, Kodak is asking McCurry to help mark the end of the Kodachrome era:

Photojournalist Steve McCurry’s widely recognized portrait of an Afghan refugee girl, shot on Kodachrome, appeared on the cover of National Geographic in 1985. At Kodak’s request, McCurry will shoot one of the last rolls of Kodachrome film and donate the images to the George Eastman House museum, which honors the company’s founder, in Rochester.

Meanwhile, an exhibition of McCurry’s photography, including that famed image of the Afghan girl, opened at the Palmer Museum of Art yesterday.

Thanks to John Rafacz, a staffer over in the College of Arts and Architecture, for calling my attention to the Kodachrome story.

Tina Hay, editor