I May Very Well Jump Off A Bridge...

So... do you remember how we toiled in the hot summer sun for hours to photograph my art? And do you recall how during the entire first 50 pictures or so, the film was not advancing?

Well... we got the slides back yesterday... 78 in all. Of those, how many would you guess turned out? 70?... 68?.... Maybe 55?... Nope! ... Two. Now do you understand why I may no longer be with you? I have an application for a show due Saturday that requires four. And one due next week which requires eight. ARGH!

Picture this: Steve gets home with the slides last night after work. We look at them at approx. 5 pm and realize it's a disaster. Some are all white; some are all black; some are great except they have a big black fuzzy strip through the top, bottom, or middle. And two are fabulous. And this is over two rolls of film!

We make some calls and do some deductive reasoning. It seems that the problem lies in Steve's VERY old camera. So we run to Costco to see what they have. We are looking for a camera with a Single Reflex Lens (or SLR). This type of lens will give you WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) in the viewfinder. The above pic. was taken with our other cheap digital camera. It does not have SLR. You can see that the edges look rather trapezoidal and sortof fisheyed. A camera with SLR will not do this. You move close so that your artwork fills the frame. That's how you know it's straight and level. Then you pull back slightly so that just a little of the black dubateen shows around the edges. Then shoot. (The black looks great though, doesn't it? Thank God something worked.)

Anyway, back to Costco.... they didn't have any SLR cameras, so we raced across town to Best Buy. We were there for about an hour, talking to various people. After another hefty "investment," we walked away with a brand new Canon EOS Digital Camera. This is wonderful for several reasons. It has the SLR lens. It's digital - so no more buying slide film and keeping it in the fridge, worrying if it's advancing, fumbling with rewinding, and then taking it to be developed. No more taking 3-6 pictures of each piece of art in order to have enough slides to submit. Now we'll take one picture and multiples can be made from that master. AND we can see if it's good BEFORE we send it in to be developed. Plus, my digital pictures online will be better with the SLR lens as well (no fisheye, as I mentioned). It is an 8-megapixel camera, which means the clarity will be better as well. It has auto-focus and auto-exposure. We may invest in a better lens sometime in the future, but for now this one will be fine.

AND we walked away with another new toy - it's a PictureMate Personal Photo Lab. I can print actual pictures from the new SLR camera. I've had soooo many issues with getting pictures ordered this week online... you wouldn't believe it if I told you. The PictureMate prints these AMAZING quality photos, without ever needing the computer. They are fade-resistant and archival. You can rotate, resize, crop, zoom-in, make them sepia or b&w - it's amazing. Truly. And no more ordering 4 shots each of 15 booth photos to see which ones are good and make sure I have enough. I can print as needed. And best of all, no shipping! You buy the ink and the photo paper all in one convenient package. The ink is guaranteed to print all 100 photos that come in the package, so no wondering when you may run out. The ink/photo paper was only $28 - or 2 for $10 off. Not bad, if you knew what I've spent in ordering photos online and in shipping recently.

Okay, I know this is a lot of info. But I'm excited... and stressed. And many of you have expressed an interest in this. So now we only need to re-shoot my entire inventory and have slides made same-day... all so that I can get this application in the mail by Saturday. The temps. are supposed to be 105 or higher for the next week. And Steve's at work, so I'm on my own for this round. Please, please... if you're reading this, send me your good vibes! I need all the help I can get...