That One About…

Adam at 10

Almost every year of Adam’s life, we’ve had traditional portraits taken at the typical mall department-store studio for distribution to the family around his birthday. We’ve been pleased enough with the somewhat generic results, but the whole thing is costly and has produced nothing special.  Considering circumstances, I should be doing that job now, right? I made a first attempt last year, but I was not happy with the product at all. Pose, light, color – none of it made me feel like it was a worthy annual event.

This year, even though my personal expectations were low (confidence issues), I thought I came up with a much better set of photographs. We found a nice outdoor setting across from the local park, the light was pleasing, I took my time and Adam was relaxed. I have the say the 70-200mm f/2.8 did its part, too. That’s the “smiling” version above, and there’s a secondary “serious” pose to go with it.

Sure that I had a couple of good captures, I thought about getting them out on paper. One of the bigger frustrations last time around was the printing. I have a great wide-format Epson photo printer that usually surprises me with its output, but the images were so “off” that I couldn’t make a decent print no matter what I tried. This year’s photos didn’t have those issues, but I was still worried about producing a professional-looking package.

Thinking I might want to know the options for professional printing, I started investigating options a few months ago. As busy as things have been, I’d only gotten as far as reading reviews. I’d heard White House Custom Colour (WHCC) mentioned on the Photofocus podcast (they’re a sponsor of the show), and the blurb says they offer a no-strings-attached five 8×10 prints for free to listeners of the show. As it turns out, that deal is open to anyone wanting to check them out, regardless how you hear about it. They don’t even ask for a credit card up front, so I went ahead and put through a mix of color and B&W. I have to say, I was impressed – working for free, they hustled and turned around the order in two days. The quality was good, and the prints arrived with a set of paper and texture samples.

After that experience, it made sense to take the next step and work with them on the portrait package. I used their ROES software to do the image upload and configure things, and my order was ready in minutes. I went with the basic lustre paper and a variety of sizes to fit the needs of relatives. Free two-day shipping was the default, and overnight and custom packaging options were available. After a little set-up and the entry of my payment info, my order was on it way.

Since I ordered before mid-afternoon on Sunday, the order arrived via UPS from their facility in Fresno on Tuesday afternoon. The results were great. I didn’t do anything special with color management, but the color and brightness were true and consistent. The order was nicely packaged, with each size in its own sleeve. The wallet-sized prints come 8-up to a sheet, and were individually die-cut with rounded corners.

All in all, a very pleasing transaction. The family loved the photos, and I was proud to give them. I’ll definitely use WHCC again, and recommend them as well.