Projects

Right now, my biggest project — aside from getting this chaotic house in some sort of order (I have recently decided that I might actually like to entertain sometime, as bizarre as that might sound!) — is getting prints made of my best photos.

I have this tendency — and I suspect I am not alone, judging from what I have read — to save (almost) all of my photos, or at least the best ones (when I remember) to my hard drive, in various randomly labeled folders, to be printed “at a later date.” Trouble is, that “later date” never seems to arrive, and in the meantime I find myself occasionally printing out a shot or two, as needed for a frame or a collage or perhaps just because I am wondering how the photo will look, printed, as opposed to onscreen. And I still have inkjet issues; I mean, the Lexmark X83 does an adequate job WHEN IT CHOOSES TO PRINT, but I still wonder how these prints will withstand the test of time.

I know, for example, that one woman ruined a studio 8-by-10 that I printed for her by spitting on it (not because she did not like the photo, but because she happened to spit when she was speaking). Obviously, a random drop of water or perhaps even intense humidity, over time, will most certainly affect the quality of the ink on those prints from the inkjet printer.

Anyhoo, I keep debating whether to buy a dye-sublimation printer — which, apparently, is the process used by my beloved Kodak printer found at nearby Wal-Mart and not-so-nearby Target. In a perfect world, I would have one of these printers (and a lifetime supply of paper and cartridges and whatever else you need) sitting in my back bedroom/studio.

(Hey, some people buy arcade-style video games for themselves; why can’t I have a full-size discount store-style photo printer??!)

Oh, yeah: I can’t afford it.

: )

I also don’t think I can afford a regular dye-sub printer, at least when you compare initial investment and price-per-print: A buck-fifty for the printer and then supplies, which push the per-print price to a minimum of 50 cents, as opposed to somewhere in the 20-cent range at the photo labs ... the only real drawback being that I have no control, during the printing process, of exposure, contract, etc. — all those things that I like to be in control of!

: )

Wow, I am totally babbling. This I do when I have all kinds of stuff running through my head and really don’t know what to say about any of it. (Ever have days/nights like that?)

I know I am in the process of letting go of something, and while the thought of actually doing so makes me so very sad, deep inside, I know, somehow, that it’s for the best. For me. Yet I also know that this is something I can never truly hope to have, actually, until I am able to let go — which seems to me that it might just be a roundabout way of hanging on!

On an unrelated note: For someone who has developed an appreciation of all the pretty colors in different flowers, I wonder if it is odd that my favorite plant, still, is the pencil cactus?

Of course, it does have a little bit of color!

I found some more wildflowers tonight, but right now I feel like getting out of here.