A Lovely Printer (Another)

 I had fully intended to post weekly on this blog, but that's not something I can fully achieve right now. It's not only a matter of "life happens" - which is an expression, I know, but really, what the hell with "life happens"? Life doesn't "happen", life is lived. Gods, sometimes expressions can irk me with their stupidity - but more a matter of me being busy and my head being twice as busy. We had presidential elections last week, and sadly, we had to find out just how profoundly stupid the population can be, how easily they fall prey to demagogues and manipulators. I know, I know, "you shouldn't call stupid the people who choose an autocratic, anti-democratic figure, because they have been let down by previous parties". Can you read that again please? Why would anyone sane enough choose someone who has proven to be abhorrently bad just because twelve years ago someone was somewhat bad? I tell you why? Because people want to believe lies, want permission to be violent and lash out, they take what they have for granted, expect promises of abundance to be kept and threats of exploitation to be "just words. And they vote in real life, with their heads in a bubble, and think that they would be spared of the horror they wish on others.

Explain to me how is that anything other than stupidity, if you were so kind.

Yes, I'm upset, BUT I'll cut that thought thread here and concentrate on pretty things. Like my new portable printer. Goodness, I am in love!

Property of Stormberry

If you are a journaling enthusiast, you may have come across the portable photo printers. A couple of years ago they were the rage. If you followed social media - which I used to do back in the day - you've probably saw the rise of the portable photo printer splashed all over your feed, with wonderful tiny pictures being printed from your phone, idea to be added to your journal, as a way to enrich your record keeping. This allowed you to print out not only photographs you made, but also pictures you've found, interesting quotes and so on.

The first ones I saw in social media were printers that used heat paper to print, and they were mainly monochromatic. The paper was thin and it didn't add bulk to the journal, but I was worried about the longevity of the print, which most influencers using these printers didn't talk about. 

But, how long does a heat print last? Well, if you are used to request and keep the vouchers of your card purchases - you know, that curling strip of paper you can get with your purchases - you may have noticed, that many of them have significantly faded by the time you have to do your tax declaration. I happen to usually keep my recipes for up to two years, thus I know that these prints don't last two years. This bothered me about the heat printed pictures. Why spend money, print and glue down a picture only to have a piece of paper in your journal two days from now that has nothing on it?

Portable photo printers are a luxury. No, not like a luxury bag, but definitively they are not a necessity. Thus, though I was tempted to get one - because being influenced is real thing - I spent years mulling over it, researching options, discarding the idea and then going back again to it.

At one point I found this Kodak P210R Mini 2 Retro printer in a comparison line up, and it came up like the one that produced the longest lasting and best quality photos. They are printed, and you can actually see each color - yellow, magenta, cyan - being laid on the page, and finally being coated, so the end product doesn't look like those pictures printed on photo paper, where the ink clearly sits on top of the upper coat, taking away the satin of the page.

It wasn't easy to synchronize with my phone, and you have to make sure it is on each time you want to print, but other than that, I am pleased (so far) with the printer.

Something I like is that it reminds me of old photographing experiences. Pictures were more precious when you had a roll of 12 or 24 or 36 pictures and you had to make each one count. You would think carefully of each shoot and make it count, consider how many pictures did you had left, and then go and have them revealed. You would sit from time to time with friends and family, or by your own with your photo album and relive those memories. It was so different from today's pictures-in-phone, where people scroll unseeing from loads of pictures to find one they need, and just for a moment. It's like we are so flooded with pictures they loose all their value, all their interest.

A portable photo printer is not going to change the perception people have of pictures, but for some of us it's a way yo go back to those days when photos were scarce, reserved only for special events.