Located in Rochester, New York, Eastman Kodak was one of the world’s leading manufacturers of photographic film for 125 years. Following the company’s bankruptcy filing in 2012, photographers Alex Webb (b. 1952) and Rebecca Norris Webb (b. 1956) traveled to Rochester to capture images of the city during the twilight of Kodak’s existence.
Memory City responds to the uncertain future of Kodak film as a photographic medium by presenting a view of Rochester that reflects both the city’s prosperous past and its current struggles. Generally known for his color work, Alex Webb used his final rolls of Kodachrome for this project, a color film that can now only be processed in black and white, to capture the grandeur of Rochester. He also photographed the city’s streets in digital color.
Rebecca’s photographs consist of color portraits and still lifes of Rochester women, both young and old, made with Portra, one of Kodak’s last remaining films.
For this publication, the artists also created a timeline of Rochester’s cultural history, tracing the evolution of a complex and once vibrant city. The book also includes quotations from many of the renowned writers and thinkers associated with Rochester and its surrounding area, including women’s rights activist Susan B. Anthony, abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and poets John Ashbery and Ilya Kaminsky.