Another post, another Paul Simon tie-in... In 1973 the singer, who preformed in Istanbul last week, asked his momma not to take his Kodachrome film away - "They give us those nice bright colours / They give us the greens of summers." Well, in 2009 Kodak called time on the product. The following year they bequeathed the last ever roll of Kodachrome to Steve McCurry, the man behind some of the most iconic images of recent years. McCurry is perhaps best-known for his work in Asia, particularly in Afghanistan and the sub-continent, and it is there that he took the responsibility of marking a symbolic transition between two eras in photography - analogue finally giving way to digital. On his back to New York, McCurry stopped in Istanbul and photographed Ara Güler (below) in front of the city he has captured countless times on camera.
Finished and developed, the film returns to Istanbul next month for its world premiere. The portraits from the film perhaps gain an extra poignancy from their status as the 'last' of the medium. It is a preciousness that McCurry was all too aware of - as if to reinforce the reason why Kodachrome stopped being made, he took each shot first on a digital camera to make sure it was exactly right.
