Much of photography’s early history took place in villages and small urban centers off the beaten track, so it was not surprising that the end of the medium’s longest running product, Kodachrome film, would play itself out in Parsons, Kansas, a small town in the American Midwest—a three-hour drive from the closest international airport. A family-run business, Dwayne’s was the last photography lab in the world to process the iconic transparency film that had defined the standard for color photography. Invented by two classical musicians, Leopold Godowsky Jr. and Leopold Mannes, Kodachrome was first introduced by Kodak in 1935 as a movie film, but soon became indispensable for still photographers who sought to record their world in color. Over the course of its seventy-five-year life, Kodachrome became a part of popular culture: figuring in the music of Paul Simon, in the name of a national park in Utah, and in the countless color photographs that appeared on the covers of every major magazine, shot by some of the world’s most renowned photographers.

Unlike other color films, Kodachrome required specialized equipment and processing chemistry, that was discontinued by Kodak in 2009. One year later, on an unseasonably warm day at the end of December, Dwayne’s accepted Kodachrome for processing for the last time, with a cut-off time of noon. Film arrived from around the world by mail, courier, and in person, while overwhelmed lab employees struggled to keep up with the high volume. Concerned that they might not have enough chemistry to process the thousands of rolls that came in that day, the lab manager called the Kodak Company to assist with calculations in relation to their remaining stock. He quickly discovered that the lab was short of one crucial chemical component: the cyan dye. Kodak was able to find the last available container of this dye — one that had been used in the research labs — and shipped it to Parsons. The last rolls of film received that day were run through the Kodachrome processor at 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, January 19, 2011.