Kodak victim of the economy

An American Company bites the dust
How many of you have taken a photograph?, I will be willing to bet that ninety percent of the people over eight years old have taken a photograph. I know when my children were small they always wanted to help me take pictures.

Then when they came back from processing, they all wanted to see “the picture I took”, in those days we used film that had to be developed and printed. Usually using KODAK paper and film, I had a favorite photo store it was Tyler’s on Mill St. in Grass Valley, California.

On that block on Mill Street where Tyler’s was located there was a big fire that devastated several businesses including Tyler’s, so that is why they built the new store on Main St., later when they built the new store on West Main St., they had lots of room and everything photographic you could imagine.

My friend Phil and I used to buy everything we needed from them, we used to travel around the back country and take pictures of what ever caught our eye. We shot up a lot of Kodak film. I tried some Ansco film a few times but did not like the color rendition, so I always went back to Kodak.

Now what has happened is that Kodak did not advance with the times, and did not shift fast enough from film to digital, which is ironic in itself since Kodak invented the first digital camera. In 1975 a Kodak engineer named Steven Sasson made the first digital camera using electronic sensors made by Bell Laboratories, the camera weighed in at eight pounds.

We don’t know why they did not continue and develop the design and be first on the market, Kodak could have been the one to revolutionize the picture taking industry

Now they are restructuring and getting a loan from Citigroup so they can keep operating. Will $650 million be enough to keep them working and get out of the slump, I hope so.