Sooner or later, if you take pictures, you are going to think that one of them would look nice on your wall. Or, you may have recently joined a photo club and decided to enter one (or more) in a contest. For the past two weeks, I have examined, adjusted and fussed over a wide variety of pictures to pick my entries. finally I made my decision and loaded my choices onto a memory stick and headed off to Wal-Mart. Today I went to pick them up. Once in the car I opened up the envelope and was completely unimpressed with my photos. The portraits had a grey cast, the faces were blown out and it looked over sharpened. this is my attempt to recreate the print:
So I decided to go the local photo/art store. I showed him the prints and asked if it was my photo or the process. I was so impressed with his professionalism. He took my memory stick and opened them on his computer. He determmined that they were salvageable and we worked on the print. the first attempt looked great to me but he was not happy. So he did them again. Ths time he was pleased. While we waited we talked about cameras, lenses, dogs, etc.,.. He showed me a Pentax SLR that seemed to be perfect for me. Of course I knew that if I came home with a camera after going out for prints I would be in serious trouble. However, there will be a SLR in my future soon. :)(Just don't tell my husband yet, I'll keep it a surprise ;)).
By the way, in the end, after working with me for 30 minutes the owner of the store said 'consider it a gift from me to you'. I argued a bit but he was adamant. So I know where I'll be going for my prints from now on. And I have learned a valuable lesson about quality and service.
On a happier note, here is a capture I managed to get.. I love the golden glow of the late afternoon light.
In this shot I was trying to get the leaves and the dang dog just would not get out of the way. I love his expression which is clearly saying "whaddya mean I'm in the way? I add visual interest". I kept it for it's humour :) 
