Ok, so you guys think you've got it bad, well here's my story! (hehe, I love
to tell stories!)...
The city I live in is called Mount Isa, there are just over 20,000 people
here. There are about 5 chemist/pharmacies in Mt Isa, all offering film
processing/printing, and ALL of whom send their stuff to either Townsville
(12 hours away) or Brisbane (too far away to comprehend, about 20 odd hours,
I think). There are also two one hour labs. One is a Kodak lab that is
managed by a friend of mine and who thankfully will cross-process. Apart
from this fact however, their machine sucks. No matter how long they spend
adjusting colours (or not adjusting them as I usually request), the colours
are always yucky (for want of a better word!), they are always too busy to
get anything out within 3 days or so despite their "one hour" claims and
they charge $18.95 for a 24 exp roll of 6x4s!!! The other lab in town is
better, well, it depends on what you call better, I guess. They do manage
to get your prints out within the hour, the colour is generally good (but I
now stipulate that I want NO colour correction on ANY of my prints, its
better for me to learn that way anyhow...), they only charge $23.95 per roll
for a DOUBLE set of 6 x 8s. Sounds good you reckon? Well, yeah, to an
extent. However, every single roll I have ever had has had huuuuge pieces
of dust in it (which isn't too bad cause they reprint them for free), my
last lot I had done all had least 1 or 2 "splodges" per print that were a
result of water marks on the negs and EVERY set I have had back has had at
least two or three negs with a huuuuuuge scratch right down the centre. I
actually thought that it was my camera doing this at first, but took some
shots to the Kodak lab whereby they came back with crappy colour, took ages
and cost a fortune, but didn't have any scratches.
My dilemma is this; over the past week I have been offered my first paying
work - going to a couple of local restaurants and shooting shots of the
patrons to pin on their noticeboards and also to sell. I have also had a
number of parents approach me about shooting their new born babies after
they've seen some of my stuff floating around in the hands of proud mothers
whose babies I have shot before (friends of mine who I don't charge). So if
these people are going to actually pay me money to take their photo, I at
least owe it to them to have them printed in a fairly decent manner. So I
think this is what I am going to do... For B&W I am going to process the
film myself and just have the prints made of the shots that I like (I don't
have an enlarger to do this myself), and for colour, I guess I am going to
have to find a reputable "pro" lab that charges an arm and a leg, to send my
stuff to and hopefully get some better results. You know my friend in NY,
Chunglee? Well, he offered to hand print everything for me for nothing, just
because he thinks I have what he calls an "artistic gift" and wants the
results to be as true as possible, but I don't trust the mail enough to send
my negs to the other side of the world, I don't want him wasting his time
printing my stuff which looks positively childish next to his, and plus I
shoot sometimes 6 to 7 rolls per week, I could never ask him to do so much.
Next year, when I go to Uni, I will be in Townsville (the bigger city where
most places send their stuff to from here), we will be in our new house with
my very own especially built dark room, AND I will also have access to all
of the University's darkroom facilities, so the problem definitely won't
exist then. But in the meantime, what's a girl to do......?
hehe. ;-)
fairy.
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