Followers

Saturday 23 March 2013

Sepia Saturday 169; Kodak camera;


My dear mother and her camera;


She used  a camera like this;  Kodak camera from 1930


The letter k was a favourite of Eastman's; he is quoted as saying, "it seems a strong, incisive sort of letter." He and his mother devised the name Kodak with an Anagrams set. Eastman said that there were three principal concepts he used in creating the name: it should be short, easy to pronounce, and not resemble any other name or be associated with anything else.
It has also been suggested that Kodak originated from the suggestion of David Houston, a fellow photographic inventor who held the patents to several roll film camera concepts that he later sold to Eastman. Houston, who started receiving patents in 1881, was said to have chosen Nodak as a nickname of his home state, North Dakota (NoDak). This is contested by other historians, however, who cite that Kodak was trademarked prior to Eastman's buying Houston's patents.


The Kodak factory and main office in Rochester, circa 1910
From the company's founding by George Eastman in 1889, Kodak followed the razor and blades strategy of selling inexpensive cameras and making large margins from consumables — film, chemicals and paper. As late as 1976, Kodak commanded 90% of film sales and 85% of camera sales in the U.S., according to a 2005 case study for Harvard Business School. This seemingly unassailable competitive position would foster an unimaginative and complacent corporate culture.

I guess they sat on their Laurels while other companies surged forward with the digital cameras.

click here for the Kodak history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Kodak

Enjoy Sepia Saturday 169; click here


www.sepiasaturday.blogspot.com


19 comments:

  1. Those impressive sales figures imply that 85% of the prints of snapshots that you find nowadays are likely to have been taken with a Kodak camera ... unless of course the prints produced from Kodaks weren't very good and haven't survived as long as others, and I dount that's the case.

    Nice photo of your mother and her camera posing on a bridge. Do you know where it was?

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  2. Brett, It looks like they had a licence to print money; nearly went broke! The picture with my mother was taken in Switzerland, in Chur, the capital of Graubünden, languages, German, Rumantsch and Italian. The river is called Plessur.

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  3. Good old Kodak. Many of our family phptos were taken with a camera not too dissimilar to that one. Your mother wears it as an accessory, and quite right too!

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  4. I had never thought about what kind of camera produced all the family photos I have inherited. And I had never thought about who Kodak's competition might have been. I still use a Kodak, come to think of it!

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  5. My mother had a folding camera too.

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  6. Like your mother's pose. I see a camera like this occasionally at the local flea market. I shall pay more attention in future.

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  7. I like this photo, it almost reminds me of my own mother when taking her photo, which years later she wouldn't even allow it. I think my mother even owned shoes like that, I remember that heel! Great photo!

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  8. In so many ways the story of Kodak is the story of traditional film-based photography. I know many criticise them for failing to keep up with technological change, but in photography it was such a rapid sea-change that few could have predicted it. What a great photo of your mother

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  9. Yes,A Fine Photo of your Mother.& I never even thought about the origin of the KODAK name.Nice One.

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  10. I love that snappy photo of your mother.
    I'm so worried that Kodak is going to go away. My daughter's whole business is dependent on Kodak film.
    It's interesting how Kodak got it's name. I never knew that.
    Nancy

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    1. It was a household name for photography. I think they could secure a loan to continue. One mus ask oneself, how could this happen, I mean they earned so much money. Hopefully they catch up, it would be a shame to see an old reputable name to disappear.

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  11. Your Mom looks like a character ... pretty, smart and spunky. I enjoyed your post and the history about the Kodak company.

    Kathy M.

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  12. Lovely picture of your mom.
    As for Kodak, they had a good run for OUR money!!
    :)~
    HUGZ

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  13. A great shot foe the sepia theme. Well done.

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  14. Great photo of your mother. And yes, I think Kodak, such an institution in the camera business, really missed the boat in the digital camera business. I think they were just stuck in the past and refused to "see the light.

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  15. Teresa, sitting on the laurels does no good, they should have been more alert what was happening around them.

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