Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to take visual note.

1896		Daily Tel. 21 Dec. in Ware (1909) 154/1: We are watching him (Sir Henry Irving, Richard III), our eyes are riveted on his face, we are interested in the workings of his mind, we are secretly kodaking every expression, however slight.
1935		‘Patrolman Craven’ Hell Riders 25: ‘There he is! The guy in the tarboosh and stovepipe cotton trousers. Sure! I’ve got him Kodaked! Kim on!’.

2. (US) to pose, as in a photograph.

1930		G. Milburn Hobo’s Hornbook 261: A bum from Buffalo, New York, who was kodaking as he went.
1934		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 392: He hangs around the drug store all winter posing, and he kodaks on the beach in summer time, combing his hair.

3. (US) to photograph.

1889		American Amateur Photographer I 119: I hope Mr. Eastman is duly sensible of his great responsibility, as the primal cause of these horrid parts of speech, ‘to Kodak,’ ‘Kodaked,’ ‘Kodaker’).
1890		A.C. Gunter Baron Montez 221: Then he suddenly giggles: ‘She was in a devil of a temper till I kodaked her!’ ‘You — did — what?’ ejaculates Harry, for the term is a new one. ‘Yes, snapped her in — photographed her’.
1898		E. Alec-Tweedie Through Finland in Carts 256: My sister kodaked here and kodaked there ; she jumped out of the little cart and made snap-shots of old peasants and older houses, of remarkable-looking pigs and famine-stricken chickens.
1938		W. Winchell On Broadway 24 Aug. [synd. col.] Gene Raymond will be kodaked with a bend in his neck.
1940		W. Winchell On Broadway 10 Apr. [synd. col.] If he gets kodaked in a night club looking foolish [...] he doesn’t count it as a mark of prestige.