Wednesday, June 30, 2010
We got Natalie's pictures done last month.
We didn't have a lot of money or a lot of time before I had to leave to head back to the US so rather than trying to find a portrait studio that wasn't going to cost an arm and a leg (the one we had gone to the year before had closed unfortunately), I decided to just take pictures of Natalie in the park and then I would just develop them. There were a couple of benefits to this: one, the park was right behind our house; two, the cost of doing this would be for getting the pictures developed and I wouldn't have to pay for the actual studio time which can be quite expensive in Korea; three, no having to deal with language barriers that would make it difficult for me to get what I wanted as far as pictures went; four, natural back ground; and more that I'm not thinking of. lol Admittedly, they aren't professional pictures and I just used my fairly simple camera but to be honest, having taken Natalie to Wal-Mart in the past, I think the pictures I took were better (especially since we have had the WORST luck getting some REALLY lousy photographers); they were outside so they looked more natural, and I didn't have to deal with her having shyness issues or a meltdown because she didn't want her pictures taken by someone she didn't know. She did get a little impatient at the end but one of the pictures turned out REALLY well and when it comes down to it, that's all we really need, one good picture but we got some other fairly decent ones too. And even better, since I didn't overly dress her up, she was just able to go and play once we were done! I didn't even bother to buy her a dress this time (to be honest, that's getting rather tedious anyway, buying dresses JUST for the pictures!).So here they are!
The top one I got developed into a small package including an 8x10. It's my main favorite. Natalie just naturally did this pose, I didn't have to do anything to encourage it and the background worked out very well. She looks so mature for a four year old!
The one above and the two below I got developed as well, though just in 4x6 size for the moment. I may get larger ones done later if I ever put pictures on the wall (first we'd have to live someone where I know where going to be long enough to make it WORTH putting pictures on the wall. *sigh*
The one below I didn't get developed but it's a nice picture of her with a different background.
I got these done just days before I was to leave so it was definitely at the last minute but I'm glad I did that rather than take her to the portrait studio nearby. While it would have been nice to get some pictures of her in a princess dress (the studio had a number of outfits for the kids to wear including gowns from the Disney movies), I just don't think it would have been worth paying the money we would have had to pay for just one post more than likely. Someday I hope to have more money to invest in nice professional pictures or at the very least, a camera that will take nice, professional pictures. But like I mentioned before, compared to Wal-Mart, I think I did a pretty decent job especially since one time we got them done there, the pictures actually came out blurry which did NOT impress me at all.
Now I'll just need to figure out what to do when the baby gets here as I left the digital camera in Korea with John and Natalie (that actually was a good thing as he did figure out how to use the video camera part of it, something I never bothered taking the time to learn to do--oops). I may look into getting a somewhat cheap digital camera until John and Natalie get back. Fortunately, camera prices keep going down while the number of megapixels and optical zoom go up. And I do have my film camera for a back up as well.
| posted by Janeen at 10:28 PM
