The title of this article on a Kodak news story I read was going to read,  ”Kodak’s drawing Big Bucks from revolving credit: Has this Photographer thinking of  photography’s and his glory days.”  But let’s face it.  That would have been lame and the headline I finally chose got you here reading my site.

I was reading the news late last night on Kodak’s stocks recent rough patch got me to thinking about the glory days of film photography and mine as well.  My Professional Photography came Alive daily with the fine Kodak products.  I loved the skin tones on my Kodak prints.

Bloomberg Business News reported. “That the borrowing came less than a month after Antonio Perez, president and CEO, said the patents Kodak is trying to sell have generated interest from potential bidders. The company is trying to raise cash to continue funding ink-jet printing and other digital businesses that it has projected will generate operating profits by 2013. The report said investors are skittish about the need for cash.”

Sign Up for our Free Photo Coach News Letter

Kodak was my favorite film brand of choice in the 80′s and 90′s and on, so reading that  ”Kodak” was possibly in tough financial shape kinda hit me hard?   Please, say it isn’t so!

Kodak was the first film I ever bought, shot, developed, and printed in all my photography life.  Kodak film got me out of many high school classrooms to do special assignments for the yearbook and was a brand of film(s) that I bought a lot of.

Many Camera Retailers sold many a good Kodak cameras and still do today, from cameras for people new to photography to pros.  People just starting out in Photography and learning photography.

Today people can buy many Kodak products but mostly Kodak brings good cameras and Film to mind.  My wife owns a pink digital camera.

All the cameras from the early 70′s seemed to be Kodak: right?

Shares plummeted considerably from $2.38 a share at the close of trading this past Friday to closing yesterday at 1.82.  As a potential Kodak investor, yes sir. I’ll be keeping my eyes on this stock and doing some studies on the subject.

Strikes me as odd as well, to see this Iconic photographic power house I love looking to borrow the big bucks, to the tune of 161 million dollars when it boasts about having some major bidding going on for patents the company owns.  Is Kodak’s future headed down the same path of another American Icon, Budweiser Beer?  Can you say buy out?  What the hell happened to America, for real?

Is someone at Kodak playing a game of photographic patent poker with shareholders? Or is someone bluffing and just using this money until the cash they know is coming, flows again.

Is the company we all grew up with in America, and loved just totally strapped for cash?  Time will tell.

Everyone seems to be asking if the Kodak Company really is going to sell patents in the near future and make lots of money?  Does Kodak really have buyers for these patents?  These are the questions being asked, based on the above mentioned report.

Ken Luskin, CEO of Intrinsic Value Asset Management Inc., who’s company owns 3.6 million Kodak shares is a bit frazzled the last day or so saying “Here this guy (Kodak CEO) says he is going to sell these patents for a lot of money and now he is borrowing from the bank, What is going on? The communication is horrible.” this slice of news from the Bloomberg News Report.

I’m rooting for you Kodak!

My Kodak Story from the glory days.

In the 90′s when my photography studio was at its peak, I drove to Rochester in a rental van to pick up the largest photographic print I’ve ever ordered; a huge 4′x 8′ monster of a photograph of my then favorite NASCAR drive Sterling Marlin.  (What? NASCAR was cool back then.)

Many a photography customer dropped their jaw and gasped when they entered my photography studios showroom. It was the first print you seen!  POW! It just knocks you out! Kodak and that mega photographic enlargement helped seal many a deals and contracts with my clients.

My problem when I decided I wanted such a print was that printing a super large photograph the size of a sheet of plywood does not happen every day and cannot be printed by just anyone (especially a quality photographic enlargement of this nature.)  Super large photographic prints are expensive.

So, I made the long journey to save shipping handling costs which would have doubled the mega large prints cost, Kodak wanted to wrap it in a 2×4 crate they were planning to make up, but I found a much cheaper way.

The cost of my mega large photographic enlargement was $1500.00 (Kodak wanted 1200 plus for shipping and handling.)

It rained the entire trip and I’ll never forget my visit to the hub of Kodak, in Rochester N.Y.  It looked so huge, but from a much better managed and old time. I remember driving the van into and under the building to the loading docks.  So cool!

Pouring rain the whole way up and the whole way back, the kind of rain you had trouble seeing in, I just kept praying the rental van was leak free (It was) I had to pull over a few times for safety. The trip was exciting, boring at times but insanely dangerous.

As funny as this sentence sounds, here is a picture of my 4×8 foot picture.  I’ve gotten so much fun out of this image over the years, thinking of the back to back Daytona 500 Wins for Sterling Marlin and more, to me it’s priceless and one of my favorite possessions.

Here is the largest photograph I've ever had printed. Kodak seemed thrilled to print it and to this day I love it. The print cost me $1500.00 US and a 12 hour round trip ride in a rental van.

Let’s hope the photography giant Kodak weathers the storm and comes out ahead.  Kodak is much more than film, making all sorts of products.