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A note on CostCo printing

Written by Eric W on March 10th, 2010

As mentioned in a post the other day, we did some low-quality prints for my daughter. I suppose I should have mentioned: after my previous review putting CostCo down as a poor print shop, I want to re-emphasize: CostCo just doesn’t do it.

What I’m seeing: I really spiked up the colors & vivid settings before printing. Hey, a five-year-old likes colors, right? So I did this, and made everything nice & bright. When getting them back: just as before, the colors were slightly off and (more importantly) everything was much, much *darker*. To the point that you lost details in the shadows.

So, as mentioned the other day: acceptable quality for a five-year-old. Not acceptable to me. Kinda the last straw; gonna avoid them in the future…

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Something fun to do with your five-year-old

Written by Eric W on March 9th, 2010

Or four-year-old, or six-year-old, or… well, you get the picture. Being somewhat bananas about photography (has anyone noticed that I call myself the “photo-chimp”?), a good way to spend time with two of my favorite things is to go on a photowalk with my daughter. She enjoys it, I enjoy it, we both end up with pretty good photos.

But then, what? In my daughter’s case, she’s seen plenty of photos printed out large. She wants prints too. But she’s small, and quality isn’t really a concern yet.

The answer? print out some 4×6″ pictures for her. But, put two pictures on each photo, sized to 3×4″. Print & get home, and you’ll end up with unusually-but-perfectly-sized photos for a smaller person!

Prints in the hands of a five-year-old

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Tags: child, photograph, prints

Taking photos with your small child

Written by Eric W on March 7th, 2010

The title may be misleading. I don’t mean taking photos of your kids, but with them. As in: go on a photowalk. You might be surprised what you get – for example, this: Click to continue »

Posted in Observations, Photographs, Uncategorized | 1 Response »
Tags: child, photograph, photowalk

The most interesting part of a Photo

Written by Eric W on March 6th, 2010

I was reading a missive only recently (sorry, have absolutely lost the link), and came across a nugget of semi-wisdom: it was posited that the most important (or interesting) part of an image is the background. This struck me, as I’ve heard similar thoughts from a variety of photographers. Shortly after the article came out, I came across a black-crowned night heron.

Now, here’s the thing. I had a decent (400mm) lens with me, and actually had a decent opportunity to catch a good shot. So, first thing: just catch the guy, right? Here was the initial result: