Condemned South Street Apartments, Vicksburg, Mississippi

South Street Apartments, 1201 South Street, Vicksburg.

The Triple Six apartments at 1201 South Street were built in the mid-1960s. At the time, they were probably clean and decent, and even today, from a distance they do not look too bad - just totally boring. There was even a swimming pool once, but now it is concreted over. But over time, the apartments descended down the food chain and became nasty.

Passageway leading to Adams Street

Typical kitchen unit, South Street Apartments.

According to the Vicksburg Post (Dec. 24, 2013) the City condemned 40 percent of the 41-unit complex in 2012 under the City's slum clearance ordnance because of neglect. Empty units have been vandalized and stripped of metal, and are havens for drug activity. Another apartment complex on Crawford Street, owned by the same company, has also been condemned. A January Post article said both complexes have been sold and will be renovated - let's see if anything comes of it. We so often hear these promises in Vicksburg.

It is odd how some of the former tenants left piles of clothing and possessions when they vacated. Don't they need them wherever they moved?

I met some of the local youngsters, who were glad to wander around with me while I took photographs.They were friendly and polite - the poor kids seemed bored.

1124 South Street, Vicksburg

South Street has some early-20th century apartments. The units at 1124 belong to an organization that helps homeless people.

1122 South Street, Vicksburg.

I think the old house at 1122 belongs to the First Presbyterian Church at the corner of Cherry Street. Notice the odd arched covering over the 2nd story porch. I am glad that buildings like this have been preserved.

Photographs taken with a Fuji X-E1 digital camera, tripod-mounted.

UPDATE August 28, 2022. The South street Apartments are still unoccupied and have been seriously vandalized. A Vicksburg Post article noted that Habitat for Humanity owned the complex after 2016. Now, a developer has bought it. 

Recovering and Rebuilding: Athens in 1951-1953

Background

1951 - Greece was finally at peace and rebuilding after a terrible decade of invasion, occupation, and civil war.  The Civil War had ended in 1949, during which tens of thousands died from starvation and Communist death squads. And the brutal civil war had followed invasion and occupation by German and Italian troops during World War II.  By 1950, a constitutional monarchy was in place, with backing from the United States and NATO. Athens was the capital, the economic and political center of a recovering country. Rebuilding the economy and putting people to work was a critical element of the Truman Doctrine. As written in Wikipedia, "The Truman Doctrine was an international relations policy set forth by the U.S. President Harry Truman in a speech on March 12, 1947, which stated that the U.S. would support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to prevent them from falling into the Soviet sphere."

In many ways, the Cold War began in Greece. The United States played a heavy-handed role in running Greek affairs from the late-1940s through the 1960s. As a benefit, Greece experienced its first two decades of peace in the 20th century, as well as an unprecedented economic boom. But there were many critics. For anti-U.S. views of the post-war era in Greece, I recommend Papandreau (1970) and Roubatis (1987).

This short introduction to the political situation in the 1950s sets the stage for my family's residence in Athens. Many American companies set up offices to design and construct civil works and infrastructure development projects, mostly funded by U.S. foreign aide. My father was a hydraulic engineer and accepted a job to help conduct watershed and hydraulic studies as part of major water supply projects. He moved to Athens in February of 1951. Planners expected Athens to grow in the post-war era, although I doubt they anticipated that it would eventually be a metropolis of 3.09 million in 2011 (General Secretariat of National Statistical Service of Greece).

Athens in 1951

In the early 1950s, Athens was still a very "European" capital, with tree-shaded streets, parks, and elegant early-20th century houses. The following photographs document some of my father's wanderings in this historic city.

This is the view from Mt. Hymmetus, a mountain range east of the city. Athens was a compact urban area with fields and olive groves on the outskirts.  Today this scene would reveal total urban sprawl, concrete, and smog. And notice the clear blue sky. My father noted in his diary that he had never been to a major city with such clean air.

Athens in 1953, Kodachrome film

The contemporary Acropolis viewpoint (Kodak digital file)

This is the view northeast from the Acropolis. In 1953, Athens was a city of 2- and 3-floor stone buildings with sloped tile roofs and just a few taller modern buildings. Fortunately, Athens was not bombed in World War II (although the Port of Piraeus was). Many elegant mansions and townhouses from the late-1800s were still standing. But most were torn down in the pell-mell burst of post-war uncontrolled urban growth. Only in recent years have Athenians realized how much of their architectural heritage they destroyed. Now much of Athens is a boring concrete mess with massive traffic jams.

Temple of Zeus with Mt. Hymmetus in the distance

Temple of Zeus

The Temple of Zeus and Hadrian's Gate have always been popular tourist sites.

In the early 1950s, you could walk right into the Parthenon and clamber among the rocks. Now tourists are restricted to wood boardwalks.

Syndagma Square and the Grande Bretagne Hotel

Changing of the guard, Syndagma Square.

Syndagma Square, in front of the Parliament Building, was the tourist and political center of Athens. Parades were held here and families brought their children on Sundays to walk around. The hotel in the background is the Hotel Grand Bretagne (Ξενοδοχείο Μεγάλη Βρεταννία), in business since 1874. On Christmas Day, 1944, while Winston Churchill was a guest (the German Army had been driven out only three months previously), British army engineers discovered a huge dynamite bomb in the sewers below the hotel (Churchill, 1953). British sappers successfully defused the bomb, sparing the hotel and its illustrious guest.

Note the yellow tram. I remember when the tracks were taken out in the late-1950s, one of those misguided "modernization" steps to substitute smelly diesel buses instead. I wonder if General Motors had a hand in this as in U.S. cities?

The older parks and city squares were beautifully planted with palms and gardens. Many now are paved.

Omonia Square, Athens, 1953

Omonia Square was the heart of the commercial city, close to markets and factories. The Metro to Piraeus and Kiffisias ran underneath. Notice the blue sky....

Paltea Kotzia, in front of the National Bank of Greece Building

From Omonia, you could walk south on Athinas Street towards the Monastiraki District and the Acropolis.

Central Market, Athens

Central Market, Athens

Walk south from Omonia, and you soon reached the famous Central Market. It has not changed all that much to this day. We have explored the Central Market before (click the link).

Athens Flea Market, 1953

Athens Flea Market, 1953

Further south, one would have entered Monasteraki Square, in the Plaka district. On a narrow street to the right was the flea market. It is still there, although rather modernized. We have explored the flea market before:

1951 (black and white film)
2013

Somewhere in the Plaka, Athens (Kodak digital file)

The Plaka area also has not changed too much, but it has been gentrified over the decades. For a more recent view, click the 2013 link.

References

Churchill, W.S., 1953. The Second World War, Volume VI, Triumph and Tragedy.  Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, NY., 717 p.

Papandreou, Andreas, 1970. Democracy at Gunpoint: The Greek Front.  Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 365 p.

(Note, this is the same Andreas Papandreou who was Prime Minister of Greece in the 1980s. He had a troubled relationship with the United States when it suited his political needs, even though he served in the U.S. Navy, had U.S. citizenship, married an American wife, and taught economics at Berkeley.)

Roubatis, Yiannis, 1987. Tangled Webs, the U.S. in Greece, 1947-1967. Pella Publishing Company, New York, NY, 228 p.

Camera notes

My dad took the 1953 photographs with a Leica IIIC rangefinder camera with 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens (I still use this lens regularly). The Kodachrome film was processed in the United States or France with difficulty because of the undependable postal service in the early 1950s. I scanned the Kodachrome slides on a Plustek 7600i film scanner using Silverfast Ai software.

Round Barn of Chatham, Mississippi

Mississippi has an unusual semi-round barn in Washington County. This one is in Chatham, near Lake Washington. Take the Eastside Lake Washington Road north of Lake Washington, and at the 3-way junction with Leota Road and Stein Road, you will see the barn.

Round barn, Chatham, Mississippi

It is called round but is really 16-sided. According to Preservation Mississippi's 101 Mississippi Places to See Before You Die (the preliminary list), the barn dates from the 1920s:

SHARECROPPERS' COTTON STORAGE BARN Stein Rd. toward Lake Jackson

Chatham MS

Sharecroppers' shares were kept separate in this structure which was divided into compartments. Cotton trailers were backed up to the high openings and the cotton was unloaded into the individual farmer's section. 

Update January 2017.  Mississippi Department of Archives and History has placed a historic marker in front of the barn. 

Cotton fields, Chatham, Mississippi

As of a few years ago, these fields were still being used for cotton production. But, depending on commodity prices, they could also be used for soybeans or something else. 

Drive on Lake Jackson Road, and you can see some old sheds and crumbling houses.

True round barns were pioneered at the University of Illinois, in Urbana, Illinois. The round barns were supposed to be easier to erect, use less material for the enclosed volume, and withstand Midwestern wind storms better than the regular rectangle design. The round design became popular in the decades between 1880 and 1920, with hundreds being erected in Illinois, Indiana, and adjoining states. Experimentation with this unusual architectural style ended during the agricultural depression following World War I. I have eaten in a restaurant that was situated in one of these round barns in Champaign, Illinois. As I recall, the roof was supported by a single strong central pole, leaving much open space around the periphery.

There is a nationwide round barn inventory you can explore. 

Another true round barn is in Arcadia, Oklahoma, along Route 66. 

Not far away from Chatham is another architectural curiosity, the Italianate and now-crumbling mansion Mount Holly. 

These are digital images from a Sony DSC-W7 compact digital camera.

Not a Kodak Moment - Demise of an Industrial Empire

Kodak boxes for mounted medium-format 6x6 cm transparencies (as per Rolleiflex or Hasselblad use).

Dear readers, those of you who were photographers before 2005 or so remember Eastman Kodak Company, the industrial Goliath that dominated the photographic world during the film era. The name "Kodak" and the yellow box color were ubiquitous symbols of American industrial might throughout the world. You could see the Kodak logo on shop signs and film packages everywhere, from the local WalMart to a mom and pop store in San Jose, Costa Rica, to a kiosk in Athens, Greece. Everyone knew that Kodak's products were high-quality and reliable. The "Kodak Moment" symbolized how easy it was to capture a moment in your life and share the moment with friends and family.

But in the early 2000s, Kodak faltered. Digital cameras using charge-coupled devices (CCD) began to appear at a price suitable for general consumers. Kodak's well-funded research laboratories invented much of the mathematics and technology for digital imaging. Their professional-oriented digital cameras were based on Nikon or Canon bodies. But they never successfully made the transition to mass-market digital imaging and kept hoping that film sales would persist. In January of 2012, the company filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection. People were shocked - how could this possibly happen? How could management have so totally fouled up an astonishing legacy?

There had been plenty of warnings. In 2011, a Forbes Magazine contributor wrote about How Success Killed Eastman Kodak. On January 4, 2012, the Wall Street Journal wrote:

Was it a failure of imagination? Was it entrenched convictions and provincial thinking? Was it one restructuring too far?   

For Kodak—perhaps the iconic American brand of the 20th century—it was all those things.

In an age when global competition has radically altered business overnight, when companies have had to be fleet of foot, Eastman Kodak was the unblinking deer in the headlights. Wednesday, the extent of the roadkill became fully apparent, with the news that Kodak is readying its papers for Chapter 11.

This company failed long ago. Kodak, based in Rochester, N.Y., claims to have invented digital photography but ceded that market to competitors such as Nikon, Sony and Canon. It hung onto its identity, film, and watched it fade before its eyes.

Then there were the restructurings, one after another, a thrashing-about that found Kodak selling unrelated products and finally pitching headlong into the savagely competitive printer business. It got savaged.

An analysis in Forbes underlined the real issue:

Answer:  The organization overflowed with complacency. I saw it, maybe in the late 1980s. Kodak was failing to keep up even before the digital revolution when Fuji started doing a better job with the old technology, the roll-film business. With the complacency so rock-solid, and no one at the top even devoting their priorities toward turning that problem into a huge urgency around a huge opportunity, of course they went nowhere. Of course strategy sessions with the BIG CEO went nowhere. Of course all the people buried in the hierarchy who saw the oncoming problems and had ideas for solutions made no progress. Their bosses and peers ignored them.

I recommend this article from the ieee usa's today's engineer, titled, "The Kodak Moment is Dead; Long Live the Kodak Moment" for a short summary of George Eastman's pioneering brilliance in popularizing the photographic process for the ordinary consumer and then how the great Kodak corporation missed the conversion to the digital era.

Examples

Let us take a short walk through photographic history and see some examples of how Kodak changed all our lives. Here are some professional examples.

Atlantic City, New Jersey, March, 1920.  From U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey

This is a  photograph of Atlantic City, New Jersey, part of a pioneering aerial photographic survey of the coast of New Jersey, performed by pilots from the Army Air Corps for the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey in March of 1920. Aerial photography had proven its worth during World War I, and the early-1920s were a period of great experimentation in the new and exciting form of remote sensing. Many people had never seen their homes from an aerial view, and had no idea how they fit in relation to surrounding neighborhoods and topographic features. Kodak was a pioneer in high-resolution roll film and lenses for aerial photographic surveying. I scanned this frame from a paper print in the archives of the US Army Corps of Engineers' Beach Erosion Board, now at the Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory in Vicksburg, Mississippi. (To consider: will your descendants be able to read your your digital files in 9 decades? You know that answer....)

According to the metadata:

From the Annual Report of the Director, U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey June 30, 1920 (p. 88): "In March 1920, the Army Air Service photographed the coast line of New Jersey from Cape May to Seabright. A single flight was made, using the k-1 camera. The plane flew at an altitude of 10,000 feet, and under very good air conditions. The camera was mounted in gimbals, with a lead weight at its lowest point to assist in maintaining the optical axis of the camera in a vertical position. Level bubbles were placed on the camera to aid in keeping the camera in the proper position. The photographs are being used to revise the charts of the coast of New Jersey. The individual photographs are 18 x 24 cm. in size, and the approximate scale is 1:10000. The photographs are mounted in strip mosaics, for convenience sake, not over 4 feet in length. The length is generally determined by the position of control points. This composite photograph is compared with the topographic sheet of the same area and control points identified. The scale of the photographic mosaic is determined, and by means of pantograph the data are reduced to the scale of the chart and transferred from the photographs to tracing paper."

"The photographing of the 120 miles of coast line took less than 2 hours time in the airplane. The development of the films and printing took 2 days’ time of one man. Two rolls of film were used, a total of 183 photographs. The work of interpreting the photographs, assembling mosaics, comparison with topographic sheets, and reduction to the scale of the chart of the outside shore line required 15 days office work by one engineer."

Hurricane damage, Atlantic City, New Jersey, Sep. 15, 1944. From Beach Erosion Board archives, US Army Corps of Engineers.

Damage of the boardwalk at Atlantic City, New Jersey, Sep. 15, 1944. From Beach Erosion Board archives, US Army Corps of Engineers.

Aerial photography also was invaluable to document storm damage along the coasts. The 1944 hurricane caused significant damage along the Jersey shore, Long Island, and Rhode Island. This was during World War II, and Kodak was manufacturing an astounding amount of aerial film for the Allied military forces to use in the war effort. 

Kodak also made film for "miniature" cameras, meaning 24×36mm frames on 20 and 36-exposure rolls. My father took this photograph of the Daughters of the American Revolution's Memorial Continental Hall on 16th Street in Washington, DC, in 1939. The film was nitrate-based but is still stable. He used a Perfex Camera, made by the Candid Camera Corporation of Chicago, Illinois (at that time, he could not afford a Leica).

Time Magazine cover, November 2, 1953.

In late 1945, the war was over. America prospered. The Great Depression had ended with the war, Americans were working, the Middle Class was growing as never before, and everyone was taking photographs. Time Magazine prepared this cover for its November 2, 1953 cover, Vol LXII, No. 18. A Kodak yellow box (probably Kodachrome) is supporting a Leica IIIC rangefinder camera, with eyeballs in the finder windows.

Book describing use of the German-made Retina camera.

Kodak never succeeded in matching the superb Leica and Zeiss Contax rangefinder cameras. But Kodak's better cameras, the Retina series, also came from Germany and were equipped with Carl Zeiss or Rodinstock lenses.

In the 1940s and 1950s, GAF, Ansco, Dupont, and 3M competed with their own films, but Kodak continued to dominate the market. Overseas, Agfa, Ilford, Orwo, and Adox rebuilt from the war and offered excellent black and white emulsions. But for personal use, Kodachrome was Kodak's crowning achievement in color photography. Kodachrome slides had brilliant color (maybe not "natural," but vivid). The early Kodachrome was only ASA 10 speed, and later 12, but photographers managed. I laugh when fanboys on camera forums complain that brand xx digital camera "only" works up to ISO 6400 or so. Obviously they never practiced photography with film.

Personal Photographs

On a  personal note, my family's early photographs were almost surely taken on Kodak film and printed on Kodak paper. We would not have had access to German or French products then.

Revere Beach, Massachusetts, approx. 1911. Photographer unknown. Scanned from a paper print.

The family in an open touring car, approx. 1915. Scanned from a paper print.

My father also used Kodak film in the post-war era. 

At the Parthenon, Athens, Greece, 1952 or 1953. Kodachrome transparency.

Harbor of Genoa, approx. 1954. Kodachrome transparency.

The frame above shows an early trip to Italy with Leica in hand. He used his Leica IIIC camera with 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens, exactly like the model in the Time cover. Some photographers said Leica tailored the color response of their post-war lenses to Kodachrome, although I doubt you could verify this. I still use that camera and Summitar lens.

Ctesiphon, Iraq, 1957. Kodachrome film.

My father took this Kodachrome of the ancient ruins at Ctesiphon, Iraq, during a work assignment in Baghdad. Our family never moved to Iraq because of a coup or revolution - a familiar story in that part of the world.

Shwedagon Pagoda, Rangoon, Burma, 1957 or 1958.

Bangkok, Thailand, 1957

Kodachrome followed us to Asia. Processing Kodachrome was a challenge. In the 1950s, Kodachrome came with a mailer that represented the cost of developing and mounting in cardboard mounts. Because of the complex and precise chemical nature of the process, the laboratories were in the United States, France, and England. International mail service was often undependable, so my father would give the exposed rolls to a coworker or friend who was returning to the USA. He would send the films to Kodak and collect the developed rolls. Then he or another American on the way back to Greece or Asia would bring us the films. Turn-around time: about 4 or 6 months. It was a treat to see what we had photographed so long before. There was no instant gratification back then.

Vendor on a beach, somewhere in Attica, Greece, 1963

Waiting at Ellinikon International Airport, Athens, Greece, 1964.

Black and white film recorded other family moments. Notice how much data is still in these frames. Will digital files last 5+ decades? (You know the answer, certainly not.)

New York harbor, 1967

This is a frame from New York in December of 1967. The technician at L&L Photo scanned it from Kodacolor 100 film, badly faded but effectively recovered via Photohsop. Many of these early color emulsions have faded, but at least the image data are still present.

The railroad cut from Belmont Street, Vicksburg, Mississippi, 2002. 4x5" Tri-X film.

Tri-X sheet film, commonly 4×5" or 8×10", was a standard for US landscape photographers for decades. Many fine art photographers used it exclusively, developing it in Kodak's HC110 developer. Both sizes are still sold.

Residence room, St. Francis Convent, Vicksburg, Mississippi, 2003. Kodachrome 25 film.

This is a 2003 photograph from one of the residence rooms in the St. Francis Xavier Convent and Academy in Vicksburg (now the Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation). The room was dark, and I used a tripod to support a Leica M3 with 35 mm f/2 Summicron-RF lens. Kodachrome 25 was not a usual media for this type of scene, but the unique palette and extra fine grain worked well for architecture.

Shotgun shacks, Vicksburg, Mississipi. Ektar 25 film, Rolleiflex 3.5F camera.

I thought Ektar 25 color negative film was one of Kodak's amazing products. With good lenses, the detail was astonishing. It was contrasty, but perfect for overcast days. I took this view of shotgun shacks with a Rolleiflex 3.5F camera with 5-element Zeiss Planar lens (tripod-mounted).

Camel in Üçhisar, central Cappadocia, Turkey, taken with a compact Kodak LS743 digital camera.

Kodak's early consumer-oriented digital cameras were decent. The jpeg compression was too great, but all manufacturers were experimenting in those days. I am not sure why Kodak could not compete with the other electronics companies.

Kodachrome 25 packages, last production before discontinuation.

I used Kodachrome 25 until the last processing in 2010. To its credit, Kodak supported processing of Kodachrome for 65 years. The 25 required slow and methodical work, but the color palette and fine grain suited me, and Leica lenses brought out its best characteristics. For decades, National Geographic magazine's photographers used Kodachrome almost exclusively.

1950s and 1960s Kodak film cans

Kodak's packaged 35 mm film in these high quality cans. In the 1950s, the cans were steel, with different color paint inside versus outside. The lids had a rubber gasket to keep the film dry and fresh until use. This was top-quality packaging. Later, the cans became aluminum, and finally plastic around 1975. People found innumerable other uses for these little cans.

Super-8 Tri-X film packages.

Kodak also made many emulsions in movie formats. Home movies were largely replaced by video recording in the early 1980s. Unlike still photography, the quality of each movie frame was low, and video was more than suitable for most casual home use. But if you are a film-maker, you can still buy Kodak color negative and black and white films in Super-8, 16mm, 35mm and 65mm sizes. Amazing.

Final Thoughts

Some of Kodak's great new ideas were so poorly conceived, you wonder what corporate talking mouth approved them. The Instamatic camera and film system of the 1960s was a great success, with millions and millions sold. Then they tried 110 - a smaller format film that produced mediocre optical results unless you used top-quality lenses. Then they introduced the disk, with an even smaller size film. Consumers were even less impressed. And finally, there was APS (Advanced Photo System but really the Amateur Photo System), which had a smaller film size then traditional 35mm but minimal benefit in equipment size. Ken Rockwell has a scathing article on the APS fiasco. As Mr. Rockwell wrote, "APS gave crummier results, cost more to buy the film, and there were fewer places to get it developed. Who cared? No one did, so it died on the vine." Do major corporations develop boneheads in-house? But the term APS lives on as the size of the smaller sensors in digital cameras (now you know where the name comes from).

The good news for still photographers: you can still buy excellent black and white film from Kodak, Fujifilm, Fomapan, and Adox. Adox is the world's oldest film company, in production since 1860. Some of the emulsions are derivatives of the classic Dupont thin-emulsion films from the 1940s and 1950s. For many years, they were produced in Yugoslavia/Croatia by Fotokemika via a complicated set of transfers and licenses, but Fotokemika ceased production in late 2012. The Adox web page will provide information.

I still occasionally use 4×5" Tri-X in a wood Tachihara view camera and 120-size Panatomic-X film in a Fuji GW690II rangefinder camera. The Panatomic-X is 30 years expired but has been frozen and is just fine. I develop it in Agfa Rodinal developer. Those of you who have never used film: buy a used camera and go analog - that will be the most educational thing you can do to improve your photography. You can't call yourself a photographer if you have never used film.

This was written on December 31, 2013.  Happy New Year to all readers, and thank you for reading!

Update Dec. 2014

During a recent trip to Rangoon, Burma, I decided to use Tri-X to match the old-fashioned ambiance of the setting. I exposed it in my 1966-vintage Leica M2 and developed the rolls in Kodak HC110 developer. The current Tri-X is finer-grain than before, but it still retains the classic Tri-X look. A coworker even thought these were vintage photographs until I showed her that they were only a month old.

My advice once again:  Buy and use film!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Appendix A.
Excerpts from a Kodak article in Forbes Magazine, September 7, 1998. 
(Added Feb. 6, 2014)

Eastman Kodak Co. Chief Executive George Fisher, 57, leans back in his chair, relaxed. Kodak has just announced its second-quarter earnings, which far exceeded analysts expectations.  Wall Street responded by picking up the stock 17% in just three days, to over $86.  Earnings per share rose 43%, to $2.20.  Though the 1998 showing is impressive, it comes as a bounce-back from terrible 1997, when earnings went from $3.82 a share in 1996 to only one penny a share after charges for all of 1997.

Is it for real this time?  Few big companies have disappointed investors more in recent years than this Rochester, N.Y.-based $15 billion (revenues) photographic giant. His biggest move was simplicity itself.  Almost afraid to compete in its basic business-photography-pre-Fisher Kodak had diversified all over the place--into pharmaceuticals, office equipment, batteries.  Fisher told employees that images, not aspirin, were their business, and that long-feared digital imaging was an ally-not an enemy.  He pointed to the huge potential of emerging markets like China and India... Out went such businesses as Sterling Drug, clinical diagnostics and household products, like Lysol.

The Kodak company Fisher took over was very much in the hold of the older U.S. blue chips: it was heavily integrated, preferring to make as many components of its products as possible.  Fisher is slowly changing the mold, mainly through joint ventures:  with Intel, to produce sensor chips for digital cameras; another with AOL, to send processed photos to customers and digital form over the Internet.

Kodak has introduced digital cameras ranging in price from the below $1000 to $15,000, as well as a host of consumer and professional films in the last year. Fisher says Kodak has improved cycle time in some product areas tenfold in the past four years.

To improve coordination at top, Fisher created the chief operating officer. Joining him is Daniel Carp, president and chief operating officer.  Carl Kohrt and Eric Steenberg serve as assistant chief operating officers. Kohrt is responsible for the Asia-Pacific region-particularly China, where Kodak has scored big against its Japanese rival Fuji.

With almost 11,000 jobs still slated for elimination and, according to Steenburgh, plenty of costs still to cut, you can look to Kodak to continue to improve profit margins rather than build revenues for the immediate future...

Maybe Fisher wasn't the miracle man everyone expected him to be.  Though it took longer than people thought it would, he's definitely turned the super tanker around.

(Well, no, he did not turn the super-tanker around.)


UPDATE Jan. 2016: The Online Photographer blog had an interesting description of a visit to the treasure vaults at the George Eastman House. The author described how Kodak was a pioneer in digital technology and had predicted the fall in film sales, but was unable to make money on digital hardware. 

Update June 2019: The Online Photographer blog featured an interesting article in 2012 about Kodak filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Read some of the comments from readers who shared their experiences with Kodak products or customer representatives. 

The Economist magazine wrote about how Fujifilm was more nimble during the tumultuous switch to digital imaging.