Friday 30 December 2011

Does anyone else still do this?

When I started keeping a photographic record of my travels with Starcross I was still using a film camera and sticking prints in photo-albums. (Younger readers should ask their parents). By the time I acquired a digital camera with enough battery power to take away for a week on board I had several years' worth of prints so, as well as keeping digital copies, I've chosen to keep on getting most shots printed out.
These days I use Truprint. Having downloaded the relevant, free, software I can upload the jpg files, edit them and send them off to the great photo-processing plant in the sky and the prints arrive in the post a few days later.
The price-per-print falls dramatically as the size of the order increases, so I usually wait until I have a hundred or so waiting to go. The hundred prints then sit around at home for several months until I get around to sticking them in the album, by which time I have to consult the log book to work out when and where I took them! It's all incredibly archaic but it does mean I have a complete single-format record - and one that is rather more future-proof than digital formats provided that I don't lose the prints and that I can continue to buy the photo-corners to stick them in with, which are becoming increasingly difficult to find in shops.
I've just spent one of those "non-days" between Christmas and New Year, when everyone's lost track of the day or the date, bringing my album up-to-date and covering the period from June to November (later ones are still in the camera). Here are some of the highlights of 2011.
I'm not likely to forget last winter in a hurry!
Spring saw us entertaining Starcross' previous owners: Mark and Mandy (right) with daughter, Mika, who's come along since.

Summer brought the Braunston Working Boat Gathering
Chertsey is in there somewhere.

One of the highlights of the latter part of the year was this display of Autumn colours in Grub Street cutting.

So, does  anyone else still get prints, or am I alone?

5 comments:

An English Shepherd said...

Will have a go at the printing :-) (thanks for the tip)

Andy Tidy said...

Jim
I had to print some photos a couple of months back for a photo competition (keep an eye on the blog for the results!) and realised it was the first time I had a hard copy for years. I used the main home printer with photo paper and cartridge which was OK - but not great. How does Truprint (blast from the past) compare to the proper home photo printers?

Anonymous said...

Andy, I did briefly experiment with home printing but found it far too time-consuming and not especially cheap. Truprint is one of several offering this service but the first one I found with user-friendly software. My shots are photos of record rather than works of art so I find the quality perfectly adequate - at least as good as the old-style High Street photography shops and bearing in mind that the stsrtibg point is a cheap compact digital camera.

Andy Tidy said...

There is something very pleasing about real printed photos. Maybe the years top 100?

Halfie said...

As a present for someone fairly recently I printed a number of photos from a memory stick at Jessops. If you were willing to pick them up after 24 hours (and I was) they worked out quite cheap. And the rate per print came down dramatically the more you wanted.