Opinions Sought: Photo Printing

Firstly: has anyone used photobox.co.uk to get prints of digital images in the past? I think I’ve finally turned up somewhere that’ll do photo printing on demand like I want (ie. without requiring me to pay anything up front) but I’d like an idea of their quality before asking anyone to part with cash. If no-one’s tried them, I’ll order a few things myself, but I just thought I’d check first.

Secondly, and more importantly: of the photos I’ve put up to date on electricana, which are your favourites (if you’re not watching electricana, then by all means, take a quick look and tell me if anything leaps out at you)? Are there you would seriously consider buying, if they were a reasonable size/price?

No, I Really Will Shut Up About This Camera Soon, Honest.

So the first photo that I know for damn sure my other camera couldn’t have managed has just gone up on electricana.  It’s not anything earth-shattering – just a little exercise in light-bleaching, but I like it.

But more importantly, I have a question for those of you that I spend time around.  Up to now, I’ve largely restriced myself to taking photos of things, rather than people.  But now, I have a camera that’s rather better able to cope with things like being indoors, and I would like to start taking more photos of people.  At some point, yes, I’ll probably get around to trying to arrange actual proper shoot type-things with anyone that’s interested, but for now, what I want to work on is just catching people as naturally as possible (and yes, I accept that people will instintively pose a bit when there’s a camera about), and generally being the irritating bastard at the party who won’t stop taking photos – I really don’t have much feel for getting people’s “best side”, so I figure I’d better develop that a bit before I move on to wasting anyone in particular’s time.

But I know a lot of people don’t like be photographed, and particularly, don’t like having photos of them put on line.  (God knows, I’m one of them, hence the hiding behind the camera myself.)  And while I’m happy to give assurances that no-one will see anything I think is less than a vision of pure loveliness, and will never make anything available to the general public without the specific consent of the parties in the photo, I do want to put them on-line in some manner – I don’t like working for an audience of none.  So I figure the least I can do is give everyone that I’m likely to photograph a chance to weigh in with what they’d prefer.

My current plan is to create yet another photojournal, one specificially for photos of my friends, and friends lock it so that only people I actually know will see it, thus saving me from feeling like I have to get permission for every photo – they won’t be completely public, after all.  If there are ever any photos of people I want to put on electricana, I will ask specific permission for that, unless you tell me I don’t need to.

I hope that was all slightly clearer than mud.

So, a poll.  Please, if you think I’m likely to be pointing a camera your way at any point, tick the appropriate boxes.

Visuals 2

I’m just testing how well this looks with images slapped into it, before I make my mind up on a re-design. The photo is the alleyway opposite my office, heading toward the bus station. I’m sure you’re all fscainated to know that. I wouldn’t mention it, only I need some text to fill up the space, so I’m just churning out inane crap.

I probably ought to have done the sensible thing and used the Latin that newspapers use for sample copy.