Lessons

Once you have your photo,what are you going to do with it?

Store it on your hard drive,post on the web,put it in a digital frame,print it out?

Lots of choices these days. When I was a lad,we had them chiseled onto stone tablets. well perhaps not,we had black and white grainy fuzzy snapshots,then went into the giddy world of inappropriate colours,looked like they had been hand painted after a while.

But now,you youngsters have it all and your not grateful are you?

Seriously,its a great time to take up photography,look around you. buses.trains,t shirts, mugs,newsletters,shopping bags,sides of vans,trucks. all probably started on someones camera memory,then into a computer.

If you do want to print,be careful what paper you choose. Photocopy paper is cheap but has long fibres to catch the toner powder,inkjet paper has shorter fibres tighter together,coated with clay and less absorbent. Costs more but looks better,sharper,does'nt bleed like cheaper paper.

You can also print on other materials, you can of course get iron-on transfer sheets that go in your printer and can be transferred onto almost anything. But remember that the image will be reversed,so you have to flip it horizontally in your editor.

You can print directly onto cloth,which will not get reversed,by using freezer paper ironed on the back. Of course you can only use cloth that will fit in your printer and absorb the ink,silk or cotton.