Niff

OK, now here’s the thing – what do you do when you have a manager that you can tell is in the office just by opening the door? Suggest deodourant? Breathe shallowly? Pray?

Photo-Geekery pt. 3

The prints arrived in the post this morning. Less than 24 hours since being ordered. I can’t help it – I’m impressed by effieiency like that.

And the print quality? Let me explain in two sentences.
1 ) I’m going to be looking for frames this weekend
2) I’m definitely going to use Photobox again.

Question answered. *Grin*

UPDATED : Well, not so much an update, just some extra information. I’ll probably, as per Gordon’s request, include a photo of the prints – but A2 is roughly 60cm x 45cm (24″ x 18″) so yeah, they’re pretty large prints. All the more impressive to have received them less than 24 hours after being ordered.

A reminder

Just a quick note to remind anyone who’s interested, the first Manchester blogmeet of 2004 will be taking place this time next week. Thursday 22nd January, FAB Cafe on Portland Street, 8pm or any time after that. Stupid t-shirts and fluffy toys welcome…

Photo-Geekery pt. 2

Many thanks for the recommendations, particularly those a) referring me towards Peak Imaging, and b) recommending I don’t use Jessops on-line developing stuff. (Can’t find a link to the actual developing stuff, but there we go).

Unless I’m reading Peak’s site incorrectly, I don’t think that the images I’m using (2832×2128 pixels – i.e. approx. 6.0megapixels)) are actually big enough for them to do the print size I want (A2 or above) without some resizing, which isn’t really what I wanted to do. So for now I’ve ordered two blow-up prints at A2 size from Photobox, which have cost me the princely sum of £30. See how they look, and work from there.

Personally, I still find I’m wavering on whether getting these prints done for myself is vanity or just being pleased with a good photo. Vanity, and that level of – to my mind – ego and self-centredness aren’t things that sit comfortably with me, and it’s taken some serious persuasion from friends and family to even get me to the point where I’ve ordered these prints. I’ll admit, I’m looking forward to seeing them at full size on glossy photo-paper – once that’s done, I may even get them framed, if I still like them.

One friend suggested that for ones I’m really pleased with, and that have received praise/comments from other people, is to possibly get a small set of prints done, and then I can self-justify having a print myself as “being part of a very limited edition” – although of course there’s also the side issue of the ego required to send out one of my own photos as a present to others. Heh. Ah well, we’ll see.

Yes, Karen, you can… (and yes, the larger images are still just under half the size of the originals – they’re fairly large all the same though)

UPDATED : I ordered these photos at about 10.30 this morning. It’s now 13.30, and I’ve just received an email saying “We’ve sent out your order”. I really hope the quality of the prints is up to the quality/speed of the service.

Cutting Down

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking about reducing my intake of certain things. First and foremost among them at the moment is caffeine. Anyone who knows me will know how much coffee and diet Coke^® I drink in any given day. I’m not being stupid and just stopping it totally – if I didn’t have to work with people, I probably would cut it out in one go, but as I have to be in an office, it’s better to just cut it down massively. It means there’s also less chance of bloodshed.

I’ve already halved the intake – and managed it without the joys of caffiene headaches, which is even better. Coffee’s been completely cut out, and the diet Coke is on the wane. Only time will tell on the success of it all, but for now I feel OK.

Photo-Geekery

One thing I want to get done fairly early this year is to get some big – and I mean poster-size – prints of some of the photos I’ve done. Now, all these photos are done on a digital camera, and as such don’t have negatives. What I want to know is this : can anyone recommend somewhere that’ll do good prints of digital images, ideally from a CD, and is capable of doing them to a decent size?

I’ve had a couple of things suggested, but they sound like a complete pain in the arse.

The first option was to get a photo-print done to about 6″x4″ or even 7″x5″, then get a negative made from that so that it can be blown up to the large size I want. Of course, that’s through the shonkmeisters known as Boots photo centre, so I’m sure there are better options out there. I’ve looked at Photobox‘s services, and they seem pretty good, but I’d be interested to know if anyone’s used them, or has any recommendations of who to go to.

Shameless – Channel 4, Tuesdays 10pm.

After a small amount of fanfare, and a middling amount of advertising, Paul Abbott’s latest drama Shameless hit the screens last night. Abbott has written a huge number of successful TV dramas now, so anything new by him is likely to hold promise – and Shameless doesn’t look like it’ll be breaking that reputation.

Set in a run-down Manchester council estate (and yes, I do keep on thinking “I know that place” – I think I can even identify most of the location for the estate), it features the Gallaghers, six children whose mother left years ago, leaving them in the care of the father, Frank, and the eldest daughter Fiona – who does far more to keep them all together than her father, who mainly appears to drink himself comatose. Most of the other children weren’t really detailed in the first episode, although “Lip” appears to be the other main protagonist, along with his gay-but-not-out brother. There’s a lot of other plot-threads still to appear, I’m sure – but Shameless looks like it’ll be worth keeping an eye open for.