It’s funny how our memory works. Why I would remember the address of a Kodak film processing lab that I have not used in almost 30 years? But I remember it like I had worked there for years. In truth, I had never seen the place, but I had mailed many rolls of slide film to that address over the years.
In the era of film photography.
In that era of film photography, the film had to be sent to a lab before you could see the photos. For years, these labs were large “factories” that processed thousands of rolls of film a day. Drugstores and camera shops offered film processing. You would drop your film off one day and return a day or two later to pick up the prints.
When I worked for JCPenney in Visalia from 78-84, photo processing was a big business for us. People who were shopping at Penney’s would just bring their film in for processing when they went for other things.
Soon, those big labs began offering overnight processing, reacted to the one-hour mini labs that had begun appearing. Mini labs were just that, small labs, often located in shopping centers and owned by local mom and pops. Now you could have your prints in an hour. It took a bit out of the big boys business but it didn’t totally replace the “factories”. The one-hour lab was more expensive and not everyone needed to see the photos right away.
The vast majority of photos were taken on negative film.
In those days, most people shot negative films. That negative image was turned into a positive print by the photo lab. But, the print was often not of the best quality. For the serious photographers, that was just not good enough. The print was never what you had envisioned when you took the photo. The vast majority of people taking pictures didn’t care. They had no “vision” of what they wanted in their photos. They just wanted photos of little Johnny playing with little Suzie in the park, or on vacation at Disneyland.
So, if you were a “serious” photographer, your shot slide film. A slide produced the purest form of the image. You had no middle man in a print. That film that went through your camera was the slide that you held in your hand. The king of all slide films was generally regarded to be Kodachrome. It was not only brilliant, natural colors. It was also the longest-lasting of the color films. Other films would fade over time, but Kodachrome had an extremely long life.
Kodachrome was processes at 925 Page Mill road
Kodachrome was what the lab at 925 Page Mill Road processed. It was a complicated process that was never available to a hobbyist. If you were interested in working in the darkroom, you could buy kits for processing other slide films. Not Kodachrome, it had to be sent off to only a select group of processing labs who had the expertise and equipment to process it.
You could buy Kodak film with processing included. It came with an envelope that you could send the film to the lab closest to you. They would process it and mail the finished product, slides in this case, back to you. The closest lab to me, here in California was at 925 Page Mill Road in Palo Alto.
That Kodak lab in Palo Alto was built in 1953 and closed sometime in the early 90s. By 1995 the building was purchased by a biotech company and remodeled.
What is there in 2021
My wife and I recently took an overnight trip to go to the Ikea Store in San Jose. We found a quiet little hotel in Palo Alto, just a few minutes from Ikea. When I realized, on our way to the hotel, that we were on Page Mill Road, I began thinking of that old Kodak lab. Checking out the map I found we were right around the corner from it. So on our walk to get dinner at a nearby Chipotle, we walked down to the site of the old lab. Today, there was not much to see at the site. The building had been remodeled and others built near it, but it brought back memories of bygone days of sending the film off to a lab and the excitement of getting the slides back in the mail a few days later.
Kodachrome 25, with an ISO of 25, was my favorite film, with brilant, lifelike color. I sent almost all of it to 925 Page Mill Road. I have a memory of hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail in Washington in 1976. At a post office in Lake Chalan, also a spot where I picked up a food drop, I dropped off several envelopes of film to the Palo Alto Lab. When I returned home the slides were waiting for me.
The best photo I took is still in my camera.
I am often asked about film photography and how it relates to digital. I will say that there was magic with film. At not being able to see what you had on the back of your camera. You would go out and shot, then come back and send that film off to be processed. Only then did you see what you got. Many times, not what you had expected. There was an old saying in those days: the best picture I ever took is still in my camera. What it meant was that I always thought it was going to be better than it ended up to be. When I got it out of the camera and saw it, it was never as good as I had hoped.
Nice article, Roy.
I used to be The Dork Who Always Had My Camera with me. Now I have stacks of slides that I never look at, and 29,000 photos on my computer that I refer to daily.
Thanks for the memories.
Thanks, Jana. I have been scanning all my old slides and B&W over the last year and a half. Easer last year when I was stuck at home and I would scan three rolls a day. Now that I am back at work, it’s harder to get to.
Oh. My. God. I thought I was the only person who remembered that address! My dad introduced me to the joys of filmmaking with his Super-8 camera when I was 10, and once I started I couldn’t stop. I can’t tell you how many cartridges of Super-8 film I mailed to 925 Page Mill Road over the years, nor how excited I was when that yellow return package finally hit the mailbox. Thanks for sharing that story!
Thanks for your comment Jeff, glad to know I am not the only one. Yes, I always say that some of the magic has gone out of photography in a world where you see the image instantly. It was always Christmas then a box o slides would come back from 925 Page Mill Road. But I would not want to go back to film. So much I can do with a digital file.
Roy – thanks for the nice article, it brought back memories. I used to work at the Kodak Processing Lab in Hollywood, CA back in the mid 80s. It was smaller than the Palo Alto lab but we had a very busy Kodachrome line with two processors running around the clock. My first job in Los Angeles and we were very busy back then. Also processed E-6 but not nearly as much as Kodachrome.
I remember that address as well but for different reasons. I used to be one of those who worked in the One Hour photo labs. I worked at the PDQ One Hour Photo in the Sunnyvale Mall (no longer there!) and then another photo studio off of University Ave. in Palo Alto, only a short drive from Page Mill Road. I sent many, many rolls of 220 and slides to be processed there and my boyfriend at the time, went to work there. I moved back home to IL in 1999, but I recall that area as not much around there. It was set back up from the road a ways. It’s been 23 years since I’ve lived in the Bay Area and I still remember that location!
Pam, thanks for the note. It’s funny the things we remember. The building is set back from the road a little, but lots of buildings around there.
I worked there for a year back in 1991, processing E6 and K14 film. The facility was closed down due to environmental issues (chemicals seeping into the ground water). All film processing was transferred to Texas and Southern Cali. Good times. End of an era.
Greg
Thanks for the comment. I have an unused roll of Kodachrome 25 sitting on the shelf in my workroom. Wonderful film. I understand that was a complicated process to develop Kodachrome.
I used to work at 925 Page Mill in 89 and 90. I processed Kodachrome in the slide and film department. Lots of great times with that crew. We processed about 10K rolls a week in there. We worked second shift times on third shift days. I would go in about 5 pm on Sunday. Was off on Friday and Saturday. It was a great schedule for a wanna be rock star from TN. Ektachrome was a simple process as you film processors know. Kodachrome was entirely different. The process re-exposed the film to one of three basic colors with a development process in between each one. Red, Yellow and Blue. What was left was a blend of the three to make the color and the contrast of gray hues. I think we ran at 60 feet per minute on 35mm and 360 feet a minute on Super 8. It was they 80’s and they said we had fun lol. A sample had to be put on and tested twice per shift and a color sample every shift as well. The 89 Loma Prieta quake was a trip for a hillbilly. We took pride in what we did. The professional photographer to the amateur were all the same to us. Great times. I still have mailers too.
Thanks for the comment, and sorry it took me a few days to reply, I was on vacation. Sounds like some great memories. Kodachrome was the best, I love Kodachrome 25, my favorite film. Now, when some one shows me a slide from the 40s or 50s with color that looked like it was shot yesterday, I knew it’s Kodachrome. I ran a little E-6 machine for a mini lab for a few years, but the process was simple compared to what you describe with Kodachrome.
Over the years I’ve collected a lot of orphaned Kodachrome slides and I’m trying to decipher the location codes on the individual slides. The process dates are obvious, but the single letter codes are not as clear. P- is for Palo Alto, your Page Mill Road location, I think. R is for Rochester, home of Kodak. I’ve been told a few others, but I’m trying to figure out what H might stand for. Maybe You know
Over the years I’ve collected a lot of orphaned Kodachrome slides and I’m trying to decipher the location codes on the individual slides. The process dates are obvious, but the single letter codes are not as clear. P- is for Palo Alto, your Page Mill Road location, I think. R is for Rochester, home of Kodak. I’ve been told a few others, but I’m trying to figure out what H might stand for. Any ideas?
David, thanks for the comment. I don’t know the answer but there is a couple comments from people who worked at the Kodachrome lab in Palo Alto that would probably know. Check them out and reply to those comments and you may get the answer.