You mean people used to print out -every- photo?
Posted by boombadeus on January 31st, 2008 in hobbies, photography
In my last post, I alluded to getting some photos I’ve taken printed out. And today, they arrived in the mail. Cool!
I gotta say, I’m very happy with the results, especially for the price. There’s one 4×6, seven 5×7 and two 8×10 prints in the set pictured on the left. They cost $0.19, $0.39 and $2.29 apiece respectively, which I think is darn cheap. Especially since it’s Kodak photographic paper, not inkjet. Five of them genuinely get a “wow” reaction, which is pretty neat.
It’s almost a foreign concept to think that just six years ago, every time I took a photo, I always got at least one printed out copy of the image, because it was on film. Digital is a different world. I take dozens of photos that I’d never consider paying to see, which means I take all kinds of “risks” with my photography that I know I never would if I knew I had to pay for both film and developing. I’d love to say that the photo on the right (that I also mentioned in my last post) was totally pre-planned, an exercise in photographic skill, or something like that. But it was a totally off-the-cuff shot. I put the camera in aperture priority mode, set the lens for f/2, focused on the beer and almost accidentally captured my favorite photo in recent memory. It’s a shot I guarantee I’d never have bothered with in film… which would have been a shame.
Now, it takes a conscious decision on my part to print out a photo I’ve taken. Which is also too bad, because while that’s a fun bunch of photos I chose, there’s plenty others I’ve taken that deserve at least $0.39 be spent printing them out! I’m going to try to get into the habit of ordering prints a little more often from here on out. How old school of me!
3 Responses to “You mean people used to print out -every- photo?”
By alexis on Feb 25, 2008
I recently just had some photos printed as well. I was finally using my lomo photo sampler camera-no viewfinder and 35mm film-so big change from my digital. I forgot about the film developing experience as I dropped off the film and suddenly 1 hour development felt painful in comparison to digital instant download.
It was truly strange to hold so many of photos-I have not had that experience in quite some time. It felt so much more tangible and live-with the paper in my hand. I forgot what it was like to be gentle with photos.
also-the woman at ritz camera assumed I wanted a cd of my photos and asked me if I wanted prints too. I can recall where the question was reversed a few years ago-and the cd was the extra, not the prints.
I love love the beer photo-and wish I could take photos like that-but alas I have a simple digital camera and one fun lomo sampler (interesting photos) and no photography skills.
I also enjoy using kodakgallery-very nice job and framing options are cheap.
p.s. thanks for the comments on my blog-glad you liked my poem!
By craftyangie on Feb 26, 2008
Hi Alexis,
I know! Along with Thad’s -Boombadeus- pictures above we got our wedding pics and it was quite strange to hold actual photos once again after about 4 years of not doing so.
The only reason I went digital is because I, unlike him, I foolishly take the risks…I always run through film. Unfortunately I have the tendency to take plenty of pictures of everything; whether it’s digital or not.
As you can imagine, picture taking was getting expensive, specially with my Advantix (the prices never really went down) and I ended up taking lots of “blanks” :-).
By boombadeus on Feb 26, 2008
It’s definitely weird how now the prints are optional and the CD is expected.
I really enjoyed going through the prints. Nice to hold them in my hands, like you say. It’s a lot different than the computer screen.
Hey, don’t dis your camera… You can take great shots with anything! “your camera doesn’t matter” http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/notcamera.htm