Kodak Carousel Mystery Slides Revealed!

March 25, 2024

Kodak Carousel Mystery Slides Revealed!

Gathering dust for nearly three decades, deep in the back of one of my closet, lay a familiar black and orange Kodak Carousel Transvue 140 slide tray. The contents were a mystery until today, when I decided to digitize them, and see what the heck I had.

A growing part of my professional photography business is digitizing and restoring old photos; I've been advocating for people to get their photos digitized so they can enjoy and share them. It only made sense that I should follow my own advice.

The photos were from 1993, when my wife and I spent a week in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where we had been suckered into buying a timeshare. (Don't worry, it's long gone.) The stress of being talked into something we should never have purchased overshadowed the fact that I took some darned decent pictures.

I shot with Kodachrome, and this morning I found them to be in excellent condition with no fading (30-year-old Kodachrome slides that have been kept in a cool, dry place should be fine). The first few dozen slides were photos of foliage, but eventually we got to the street photos, a time capsule of life on the beach with the tourists, and the more impoverished locals just a short walk away.

Here are a few photos that I feel held up well. Most were taken in Puerto Vallarta, although a few were shot in Yelapa, an isolated beach town whose most direct access was via a boat from another beach town a bus ride south of Puerto Vallarta named Mismaloya. Yelapa was best known in US culture as the location where "Night of the Iguana" was filmed. They had mangoes, tourists, and tourist traps everywhere.