This is something I always wanted to do since I moved to NJ, it is a 6 hour drive, not something you can do back and forth at the same say, but ideal for a 3-5 day road trip. Not to stay all the 5 days in Rochester, but to take the opportunity to visit Canada, which is what I did after.
I brought the Mamiya 7ii with rolls of Kodak film stocks, I used 3 rolls of Portra 400 and one roll of Ektar 100 for this whole visit (and more films for the classic Kodak building). The interior was a little bit dark, and most exposures were at about 1/8th of a second,I regret not bringing a tripod, I should always bring one. That’s why some shots are a bit blurry (especially indoors ones), but I think the result went OK!
From Wikipedia:
George Eastman (July 12, 1854 – March 14, 1932) was an American innovator and entrepreneur who founded the Eastman Kodak Company and helped to bring the photographic use of roll film into the mainstream. After a decade of experiments in photography, he patented and sold a roll film camera, making amateur photography accessible to the general public for the first time. Working as the treasurer and later president of Kodak, he oversaw the expansion of the company and the film industry
The location is divided in three areas: the museum, which is surrounded by photography history, and then the mansion, which is the boss’ house, and the garden, which is outstanding and beautiful. I photographed all these three in medium format (Portra for the museum and mansion and Ektar for the gardens), and I will do one post dedicated to each one.
You are in the Museum post.
When walking around, I saw a wall of jars, and took a (very tilted lol) photo of it. I miss the Hasselblad here, it has a crosshair in the focusing screen that helps me composing better horizontal shots.
Can you guess what this wall is just by looking to the shot?
Surprisingly and interestingly, these are powdered synthetic dye samples collected by the Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation during 1929 and 1975.
Since its inception in 1915, the Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation engaged its team of scientists worked to create a sophisticated dye-transfer printing process, using many combinations of different dyes and solutions available from a number of international chemical companies. The museum holds a magnificent set of 3,037 (1,788 showed in this picture), collected by Technicolor over 45 years and displayed for the first time. Only a small number of these dyes were selected for the celebrated “look” of Technicolor films, including The Wizard of Oz, and Gone With the Wind.
The whole museum was very dark for my Portra 400 and I didn’t want to risk some very blurry shots, the Mamiya lens at f/4 was already showing me half-second exposure, which is risky for handlend. I should had pushed it to 800, or even had brought a Portra 800 and pushed it to 1600. That’s my ultimate recommendation if you want to take photos of the place.
I only had the idea of pushing the film when I was half roll in. So I took some iPhone shots as well, because I couldn’t let these pass. I hope you forgive me!
With special attention for these two below:
Can you believe this? I bet it still works! A camera more than 100 years old, precisely, 131 years old!
This camera came loaded from factory with enough film to make 100 exposures, more than 100 years ago.
And this one, which I believe is one of the first photographs ever made. The place was so dark, that even my iPhone with all the software IBIS wasn’t able to do the job very well, but here it is:
My feedback to Kodak Eastman Museum folks is to increase the lights a little bit, the whole place was quite dark, so people can go there with their film cameras and achieve some success, or even better, have some people going there with a light meter, measuring the scenes, and adding little plaques showing the ideal exposure to capture that shot. That would be super cool!
The photos I took from the garden have superb light (the day was beautiful), and I got duplicated exposures of the other shots from the interior of the mansion, so I could elect the less blurred ones.
Eastman had also built a mansion, located at the same place, 900 East Avenue in Rochester. Where he entertained friends to dinner and held private music concerts. I also took pictures in there, which I will feature in the next post. I want to keep those divided and short so it doesn’t clutter too much of your mailbox, while also being easier to digest here in Substack web, so this will be a series of three posts.
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