The Last Roll

"A few days before Christmas, 2004, I was diagnosed with lymphoma," writes photographer Jeff Jacobson (born 1946) in his preface to The Last Roll. "Some present. After each chemotherapy session I retreated to our home in the Catskills to recuperate. I began photographing around the house as I was too sick to go anywhere else. As my strength returned, my photographic universe slowly expanded." Shortly thereafter, Kodak discontinued production of Kodachrome, the stock that had shaped Jacobson's vision as a photographer. He bought up as much remaining Kodachrome film as he could, and exposed his last roll a few days before Christmas, 2010. The compelling body of photographs made on Kodachrome provides a nuanced, first-person depiction of a cancer patient's changing perspectives on life, death, art and the world at-large.