Breaking up with Wally

I'm breaking up with my boyfriend! Yeah, I have a boyfriend, my internet boyfriend! I'm sick of him not living up to his end of the bargains and he's cheap. Sometimes cheap is good but in this case it's not. I've even going to out him on my blog because I don't want any one else falling for him like I did. His name is Walgreens. Aaron always teases me that I spend so much time on the computer that I must have an interenet boyfriend, I spend much of my computer time uploading and ordering photos so I told him that his name is Wally Greens. I am so annoyed by their photo processing lately. First their color is so off the wall, I've had photos printed by them then ordered from another place and the color is completely different. Then it seems whenever I order photos and go into pick them up, their processing machines are down and someone is on the way to fix them and they don't know when my order will be ready. Many times I make a trip to town just for photos, so annoying. This has happened the last two times I needed photos. Last time I ended up ordering them from another Walgreens and Aaron picked them up on his way home. Now the first store keeps calling me to pick up the photo order, I'm not doing it. Last night I ordered photos for some Father's Day projects. Heck, I even thought this is way ahead of the game (for me) since I still have 3 days to get some things made. I placed the order at 10pm last night and they should have been ready at 8am this morning. We did have a big thunderstorm last night and I didn't get an email saying my order was ready so I called just in case. No the machines aren't working which I could totally understand if it was because of the storm but the clerk on the phone said it had nothing to do with last night's storm. Okay, so who knows when I can pick up my photos, they said they would call me but I'm not holding my breath. I'm so done with Wally! I think I'll hook up with Shutterfly instead!

Camera 101

One of my main goals for doing my 365 Project was to take better photos. I've had my new camera for almost 6 months. I'm trying to figure it out but I really need to sit down and read the manual more and do some research online to figure out how to take better pictures. I think the key to taking better photos is like anything the more you do it the better you get. I am trying to get away from the auto settings and the flash. According to most photography blogs I've read flash is what pretty much ruins most photos and I totally agree. But have you tried taking photos without the flash. If you don't have enough natural light (which my home lacks so much) then they are dark and blurry and sometimes grainy. Then there's the ISO setting which I still am not sure about. Some people edit all their photos cropping, adding special touches to this or that. I really don't have much time for that sort of thing and that seems to be a whole new area to learn and when you're taking 900+ photos a month . . . come on! I think maybe if I could just get some really good shots, editing would be unnecessary but who knows if that's even a realistic goal.

So yesterday I thought I'll use the timer on the camera to get some shots of me and Reese playing. As you can see I really need some work in this area too. Positioning the camera seemed to be an issue every time.

Camera too low:

Camera too high (and oh yeah I didn't comb my hair yesterday!):

Way off center:

Good photo of me and the doll and the junk in the background while Reese goes to get the camera:

Another too low:

Way too low but a darn good shot of the dirt on my floor:

More dirt on the floor:

Camera strap or couch arm in the way:

This one would have been so cute since we were both looking at each other but how blurry can a photo get:
I really need to do some learnin', don't ya think?