Modern Times

Yesterday and much of today has been dedicated to the prom. In fact, it wasn’t until mid afternoon that the last of the partygoers left our house (and I could finally go downstairs in my pajamas).

I got to thinking about the modern technological conveniences that were in play this weekend. As soon as Steffie allowed me to take a photo of her in her dress, I ran it upstairs, popped it in the computer, into Photoshop for cropping, and then into Thunderbird to be emailed to my folks in Florida.

Later, from the car, I called them to make sure they’d seen it.

Think about that for a second, because it has become so commonplace that we’ve already stopped being amazed. Within ten minutes of taking the photo, it was in my parent’s hands in Florida! This is a luxury never before available.

Even the wealthy didn’t have access to this kind of technology – and yet it’s there for everyone now (though mastering the technology probably keeps a lot of people from using what they’ve got).

The same goes for printing the photos. Stef and I sat in front of the PC this afternoon. She picked the shots she liked, I ran them through Photoshop, took them to the photo store&#185 on a CD I quickly burned. A half hour later she went to the photo store and picked them up.

When I was a kid photo finishing was done at some off site plant. It took days to get pictures back and then you never knew if they would be good, bad or indifferent. As a young adult, one hour kiosks and places like Fotomat had begun to spring up. It was convenient, but expensive.

Now we only process the shots we really want and even get a chance to improve on what the camera saw before we print them!

&#185 – Interestingly enough, this photo store (part of a change) does have a facility where I can upload photos top them. This technology doesn’t work, or doesn’t work well, because when suggested they always discourage me from using it.

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