Picture Crazy

No, there are not a ton of pictures in this particular blog. I have found it is not that easy to add photos to blogger so I don't do it nearly enough and anyway, this blog is more about the taking and printing of pictures. Sorry. :-)
It used to be so easy to get pictures developed. Just pop the film out of the camera, drop it at the drug store and pick up your pictures an hour later. Well, I guess it still could be that easy to get them developed, but now there are so many more ways to get the task done. And the bigger issue is that with digital cameras, you can take a million more pictures, the film doesn't stop you at 36 pictures and then you get them developed, thus a million more pictures to be developed. My Dad really loves to take a lot of pictures. He has a really good camera (a much better version of what we have right now) and has a really good eye for taking pictures...he gets some great shots. My sister is the same way. I guess taking a million photos could be a genetic thing??!! My Mom gets really annoyed that with all the pictures that my Dad takes, there aren't near as many hard copies of those photos. I do really like to look at the pictures my Dad takes and loads onto his computer or iPad, but there are some shots that I would love to have a hard copy of....it is just a much more time consuming task to get photos printed these days.
I have been using Shutterfly to print all my photos for quite some time now. The one negative to Shutterfly is that if you want your pictures sent to a store to go and pick up yourself, they send them to Target. Doesn't sound too bad, right? Well, the one time I tried that....well, let's just say our Target is less than on top of things and not only was there no one at the photo area, the manager that I called over knew absolutely zero about the photo area. Or the whereabouts of my pictures. So we can safely assume that I will never pick up my own photos and will just opt to have them sent to me. It does take longer to get the pictures in your hand though, and while I am not really a patient person, I have learned that it is much more worth the wait rather than having to argue with some incompetent person at Target.
Which does bring up the issue of shipping and handling. NOT cheap. Being that I almost always have a large order of pictures (this time was just over 500....it's because I wait so long between the times when I want them printed), shipping can be well over $20....and I am just not going to pay that. It isn't too hard to find a free shipping coupon code and I tend to place my orders based on when I can find one of these codes. Another option is to make disks of your pictures and then go to the drugstore and print them yourself....but with so many pictures to print (in my case) that could be a loooonnnggg trip to the drug store.
I store all my pictures on my laptop in Picasa.....and there seriously are a million of them. Then I choose which from Picasa to upload to Shutterfly (thankfully now there is an ultra fast upload option) and then I select those that I want to have printed. I have done this approximately 3 or 4 times since Sophia was born (almost 11 months ago, if anyone is keeping track) and I think I have printed about 1200 photos total (this is counting my order that I placed tonight of 508 photos). I know, it is a lot. And it can take a good number of hours to load pictures from my camera to Picasa, then to upload to Shutterfly, then finally to the cart in Shutterfly to be ordered. As tedious as it can get, I find it to be well worth it to have my pictures stored in several different places, as well as getting that hard copy in the mail.
I really love to take pictures, not that I am great with a camera or anything. We just have a point and shoot camera, nothing special, but I tend to upgrade my camera every two years or so and I like a lot of megapixels and good zoom and that sort of thing. I REALLY love to take pictures of my little girl. And she happens to be pretty darn cute, so even when I have taken 4 or 5 of what looks like a very similar shot, I often can't narrow it down to printing just one and will usually print most of them. I can't help it! One, she is just too adorable and two, I feel like I have to have a physical printed copy of the pictures, not just a file in my computer. I like to put the photos in a book and then flip through the pages over and over and over. I wish I could say that I was more organized and kept them all in neat order....and I definitely used to.....but all the pictures of Sophia have gotten a little overwhelming and it is still a work in progress. One that I definitely intend to get control of....when I am not chasing the baby around and taking more photos of her!
I do love and appreciate all the ever-changing options in photography as far as the taking and storage of pictures goes. But call me old-fashioned if you'd like....I still love a photo album full of memories to page through whenever I get the urge. And so I will continue to spend the time it takes to upload and transfer and select and all that, not to mention having to wait on my photos to be delivered....it's not going to stop me from taking a million pictures, that's for sure!!