By: Stephen Terlizzi
Photographer: Gary Fong

Yesterday, Kodak announced that they are getting out of the camera business. It was like a piece of my childhood died.  I remember as a young child taking photographs with my parents' Kodak Brownie 127.  However, photography really came into its own for me when my parents got me my own Pocket Instamatic 110.

I remember composing my photos of civil war cannons on the battlefields of Gettysburg, the places that George Washington slept in my home state of New Jersey - I once asked my mom whether or not he had his own home, my photos of planes in the aerospace museum in DC, etc. It was a fun time waiting until the film came back from processing.  None of them would have appeared in National Geographic, but they were mine and my memories nonetheless.

Of course, I graduated to a 35mm film camera and to my eventual Nikon DSLR, leaving Kodak behind for new friends from Japan. With my iPhone, the need to a Kodak digital camera became even less necessary. I guess it was inevitable that my old friend would eventually be gone. Nevertheless, it is sad to see him go.

Goodbye Old Friend.