pendell

Current Hyperfixation: Wizard of Oz

  • He/Him

I use outdated technology just for fun, listen to crappy music, and watch a lot of horror movies. Expect posts about These Things. I talk a lot.

Check tags like Star Trek Archive and Media Piracy to find things I share for others.



currently getting an opportunity to make use of some of my Nerdy Proclivities. In December 2021 I took some group photos of my grandmother and aunts. They had come from across all of Texas for what everyone agreed could be their last complete get-together, four sisters with so many decades of history, and I honestly felt pretty honored they would have chosen me to take their pictures. I used a Sony CyberShot DSC-F717. I did have a Canon T3i I could have used, but I didn't have any photo editing experience, and I felt the F717 produced JPEGs with a finer, film-like quality than the T3i could. I wanted the pictures to feel warm and nostalgic, and for the most part they did - a couple indoor shots had a sickly green hue thanks to faulty auto white balance, but I got enough coverage that there were workable shots of every situation captured.

After filtering for obvious flubs (blurry shots, mis-framed shots, accidental captures), I sent off for prints. The service I used was Mpix and overall I'm pretty happy with the quality and pricing; they even had a specific print size for the 4:3 photos the F717 took, a modification of the standard 4"x6" to 4"x5.3", which proved perfect for my use. Each shot was only 36¢ a pop. When I got the full set in the mail, I personally drove it out to the closest aunt, and asked her to send it around to all the sisters and write down how many copies of each picture they all want.

A few weeks ago, at a birthday party, she handed me a roughed up bubble mailer with all the pics, and distinctive handwriting on the back of each picture with the name of each sister and how many copies she wanted. So I sent off for a precise order of the total quantity of each print - this time paying 86¢ per print to get an additional "luster" coating that supposedly protects against fingerprinting and UV exposure. I received the order, separated each set out for each sister, and now I've got their addresses, and I'm gonna personally pack them up with little notes thanking them for choosing me for the task, and hoping they look at my pictures as fondly as all the others I'm sure they have.


You must log in to comment.