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11-11-2003 - 7:58 a.m.
One-Hour Photo When anyone asks me about digital photography, I always mention that one of its virtues is that it is so inexpensive. After all, you don�t have to buy all that pricey film and pay Walgreen�s to do your photofinishing. Yeah, I know you need that little media cards, but that is a one time investment. It�s re-useable. Of course if you are going on a long vacation, with no access to a computer, you might want more than one media card. I get them on-line for around $30/each So we go on this fabulous vacation to some mighty pretty places and I take a LOT of pictures. Golden Gate Bridge at dawn. Golden Gate Bridge in the mist. Golden Gate Bridge at sunset, etc.
You get the idea. Hawk gets annoyed with all the pictures. He says that I am seeing the world through a viewfinder. Mikey says �Put the freakin� camera away and enjoy the moment.� I suppose they are both wise. My sister, Lacy is the most cooperative. She strikes a super model pose and smiles in front of the landmark du jour. Goddess Bless her! She's prettier than the boys are anyway, so there! Now we have been back from this vacation for over a month and it turns out I took over 500 pictures. I spent almost a month �editing.� That is another great thing about digital photography. You can tweak and crop all your lousy shots into something decent. I was able to edit out all the tourists in the background when Lacy graciously posed in front of the Golden Gate Bridge. The 500 pictures get stored in my on-line album. You can see them if you ask nicely. The photo hosting company Ofoto�a Kodak operation gets 29cents/each for a 4x6 print. Just click the ones you want and they will arrive in you snailmail box in a few days. But OMG, that is something like $135. I am going to save money and print them myself! Ya right! The printer is out of ink (again) $27 for the color cartridge. $21 for the black And we need photopaper, and the cheap paper won�t do. You get what you pay for. Kodak Premium 4x6 paper is $19 for 125 sheets so I need 4 boxes. $76. I am a psychologist, not an accountant. I would do better on �Jeopardy� than �the Price is Right�. At this point it has not occurred to me that I am about to spend about as much as Ofoto will want for printing the entire �Our Pacific Northwest Vacation� collection. We have an adequate printer�not great or fast, but adequate. It takes about 2 minutes to do a picture. 1,000 minutes or over 16hrs. My time is valuable. Even young and struggling clinical psychologist gets a hefty per hour fee, even with my sliding scales. Figure $65 for 16hrs. And this is just the tip of the iceberg because one little color ink cartridge is not going to print 500 pictures. It�s back to Office Depot for ink. Foolishly, I decide to get the �I-Print Multi-brand inkjet cartridge refill kit� Only $14. 3 bottles of ink, a syringe and instructions: Fill syringe, inject into port. Watch ink ejaculate from cartridge all over you, desk, computer, clothing and your new photos. Ink even squirts into my coffee. My hands will never be the same. Send Ray to the store for a bar of LAVA soap. $1.29. Price of a new shirt: $40. Windex and paper towels we already have Have you bean counters been keeping track? Counting my precious time, $1,211.29. So listen to Uncle JJ and do yourself a favor. That was Ofoto.com
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