My one-year-long tradition is to have our Christmas picture taken over the Thanksgiving holiday, when we are with family. My sister Laura is pretty good with a camera, so she gets to be the lucky photographer. However, this year, I got a haircut that I didn't like on the day before family pictures were scheduled. We took about 20 shots, and of course I hated them all.
So we found ourselves somewhat up a creek when the days of December began to tick by and I still didn't have a picture to send out with the Christmas card (not sending one, by the way, was not an option). Since getting my picture taken ranks right up there with buying new sunglasses for showing off my insecure side, and since I respond to this insecurity by becoming somewhat picky and demanding, I didn't want to impose the exasperating task of working the camera upon anyone that was not bound to me by blood.
Meanwhile, time marched on. Finally an solution presented itself in the form of my husband's conveniently long arm. Last night, we got dressed up in our Christmas-card finery , sat in front of the tree, and Stephen proceeded to take the obligatory thirty pictures college-girl style, by stretching out his arm and aiming the camera lens in our direction. So of course, we got a few shots that cut off important parts of our heads, but we got a few winners, too. Next, we bundled up in coats and repeated the scene on the front porch, in front of my celebrated wreath.
I narrowed down the pictures to those that were most flattering of me and let Stephen go through the motions of helping me pick out our official picture. We chose one, and I proceeded to discover the wonders of Wal-Mart's online photo store. In a mere two hours (okay, so the pages are slow to load), I had uploaded my self-cropped and edited photo onto the website, previewed the photo in several decorative card options, and placed my order. I can pick up our cards at the Wal-Mart in nearby H**o next week. Hooray for finished tasks!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
I chose "Retro Greetings," by the way, so no one else get it.
I like the convenience of Walmart's online photo center, too. BUT... their pictures come out really saturated, like the colors are unnaturally vivid. I'm sure your Christmas card will be fine, but I noticed it especially on pictures with blue sky and green grass. I thought this was just me and my pictures, but I have heard of it happening to others, too. Anyway, like I said, your Christmas pictures will be great, but you might not want to send rolls of film there with lots of outdoor shots.
I don't do film. This is really the only time of year that I even print photos at a store.
Film? What's that? :-)
Oh, I see where I mentioned "film," no I mean like your "roll" you took of the Whitney countryside on your digital camera. The experience I am speaking from is our North Carolina trip... the sky was like turquoise and the grass was bright green. So, based on that experience, the next time I want to print a bunch of photos, I will likely investigate Walgreens.
My other Walmart photo experience was doing custom calendars as Christmas presents last year. Even though I set it up way early, they still had a problem getting them before Christmas, therefore MOST of my Christmas presents were late! I had to scramble at the last minute to make sure family had something to open on Christmas day from me.
Anyway, not trying to overshadow your Walmart photos-in-a-pinch bliss. I really hope they come in next week like you expect. I just won't be recommending them to anyone. :-)
We used HEB last year, and they were fine, but boring. The best cards we got were from Wal-Mart, which is why I decided to try it this year.
Post a Comment