The Minolta Years - Heidelberger Messplatz, 1976 & 1977

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Travelling back in time, I bring you all the way up to Heidelberg, Germany.

That's one of the funny things photography let us do: go back and forth in our lives, for free!

On this particular occasion, we are rewinding about three and a half decades back in my existence.

Enjoy the voyage!

All images above: Minolta SRT cameras

Kodachrome 64 film

Heidelberg, Germany, May 1977

The above images just remind me how much I miss that wonderful film made famous by a Paul Simon song: Kodachrome!

In fact, Kodachrome is one of photography's biggest losses!

It is sometimes hard to believe how vivid and natural, almost alive, the colors look on those chromes after so many years (not to be confused with some other exaggerations present in some other films that came to life in more recent years).

They just want to jump on the light table!

If I had done this images with today's digital technology, do you believe that I could still be showing them to you? Now?

Do you really think that the digital images that we are shooting today will be compatible with any technology that we may use in some decades from now?

Sorry, but I do have my serious doubts... Hope time proves me wrong...

Minolta SRT 303b + 2.8/135mm Rokkor

Ektachrome High Speed

Heidelberg, Germany, May 1976

Minolta SRT 303b + 1.8/35mm Rokkor + Pol Filter

Ektachrome High Speed

Heidelberg, Germany, May 1976

"Kodachrome"

When I think back

On all the crap I learned in high school

It's a wonder

I can think at all

And though my lack of education

Hasn't hurt me none

I can read the writing on the wall.

Kodachrome

They give us those nice bright colors

They give us the greens of summers

Makes you think all the world is a sunny day

I got a Nikon camera

I love to take a photograph

So mama don't take my Kodachrome away.

If you took all the girls I knew

When I was single

And brought them all together for one night

I know they would never match my sweet imagination

Everything looks worse in black and white.

Kodachrome

They give us those nice bright colors

They give us the greens of summers

Makes you think all the world is a sunny day

I got a Nikon camera

I love to take a photograph

So mama don't take my Kodachrome away.

Words and music by Paul Simon

From the album "There Goes Rhymin' Simon", 1973.

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