DIY

Is it just me or is there a hell of a lot to moan about at the moment? OK, its just me. The grumpy old bugger that I am. Finding myself increasingly irritated by the smallest of things. Or maybe not that small. At the moment the Royal Mail are getting it in the neck. At one point a lot of people including myself thought this great British institution may be for the slide with the popularity, accessibility and zero cost of email and likewise texting. But to its credit it has stuck in there and no sign of it faltering. I for one was happy with that as it provides for a large workforce but no doubt its having to work hard hard. Apart from technology battle it also faces competition from any number of courier firms and even rival postal services.

So the gripe? The gripe is at the moment they are doing themselves no favours. In December my mum was surprised to find I had not received a birthday card from her but she was livid when my son never received one either protesting that she did actually send a card. Not that I ever doubted her but confirmation of the latter was recieved 2 weeks later in a letter from the Royal Mail stating they still had the card but basically a first class stamp was not enough so we'd have to pay another £1 to get it. What is the point 2 weeks after a birthday? Then it was my wife's turn to be angry. Knowing this my wife ensured she got a normal sized card and sent it to her mother for mother's day. Same thing happened. A week later this time her mother got a letter saying she had to pay to get it delivered as the first class stamp did not cover the postage.

Its a joke. For one first class stamps are extortionate nowadays and we find a card that that was fine before now needs more than a first class stamp. Jeez. I won't use them now- I will recieve but I won't send. That really gets my goat. And it leads me on to cards themselves and the whole process. I really cannot be bothered with it in truth. I never could be bothered with it and even less so now but have in the past only to appease the wife who thinks its important. For a simple small card you are talking anywhere between £2-£5 for what? A card that sits on a mantlepiece and is binned a few days later. Nah, no thanks. I am sorry to see the likes of Clintons go under but I can understand why less and less people are doing it. That money would be better put towards a better present. So I won't be buying any more cards and certainly won't be sending them.

Any more gripes? Tons, I could open an online store of gripes, irritations and agitations. It leads me to the kids school photos. When I was younger this happened once a year and consisted of an affordable class photo and an individual photo. Now its a mulititude of various sizes of photos, mugs, mouse mats, canvas, frames, DVD, USB and whatever else. And aside from that its no longer once a year but seems to be 2-4 times a year heaping on the pressure. What really pisses me off though is the pricing. These guys have exclusivity to the point where, as I posted about last year, they are telling parents they can't take photos of their own children in certain places where they have the right to do so. And the prices they charge are ridiculous.

What you have to keep in mind is a single person is taking photographs of class and individuals for every pupil in the school- and they don't just do one school. For our three kids we have 6 different prints to choose from. My kids' school and nursery consists of around 320 kids according to their website. That is a lot of photos but still equates to no more than a week's work. The cheapest print (its actually 2) you can buy is £14.50 for something that you can get printed off at the supermarket for 15p-25p. That is some mark up. You also have to consider that for every child it is not only the parent looking to buy but grandparents and other family and they also rarely purchase just one photo or one copy of it. Its a sickening mark up in my view. One that were I not agoraphobic I would contact the school and say I will do it for a fraction of the price and still contribute a percentage back into the school. And I would sell more photos because they would be more affordable and therefore more accessable to families where this is just too costly.

That will probably have the photography world up in arms but I have to say I am not devaluing the work of a photographer. In fact most photographers are plagued by people looking to have things done for nothing. I have a friend who is a pro and this is eternally the case much to his rightful annoyance. He posted a good advert from a photographer looking for people do work for him for free citing if they did they would gain experience, word of mouth and a ton of unpaying customers in return. He has had countless frustrations booking a studio and lugging his equipment there for someone not to even bother phoning to cancel but its the amount of young models that think they are doing him a favour if he shoots them for free that annoy him the most. So I get it and I know photographers don't need me, not even bordering on amateur, running them down too. I know there is a lot of work involved in this process involving setting up shoots, shooting, editing, watermarking, priniting off samples and distrubuting them, etc. Yes lots of time but still the markup is ridiculous. Its why I always talk my wife out of buying them.

So I have decided to do two things- one long overdue. I have decided to learn to use my new camera. "New" is actually over a year old but for whatever reason from having a real appetite for photography I just went off it. I have a good book with lots of tutorials and assessments so I have decided to work my way through it starting this week and hope to learn how to use my camera properly over the coming weeks. In a few weeks time I plan the second thing and that is to take a shot of the kids which may lack the quality of a professional but decent enough to pass- on the cheap. I won't though be able to do that until I get used to using the camera and remember how to do things.

For a quick start and a photo for the blog I had a trial run this morning with the boy after he finished nursery. Low key is not your usual kind of school portrait but they were included this time and these were the ones my wife and her mum seemed to like most. So that is what I am going to attempt. There is one with the oldest alone and one of the two girls together but none of all three kids together. That is my plan. So as I said a little trial run this morning. A long way off but considering I have never used this camera out of automatic mode and I had to rely on natural light its not a bad first attempt. Still plenty of work to do but I hope in a few weeks time I will have something nearer the original which I will post too. My wife is very critical so I will know if I have got it right or not.

Moaning over for now but I will be back! Off now for some learning and hopefully get my appetite back along the way. I am getting more around to the idea that to stop these complaints the only thing to do is to do it yourself. More self worth and satisfaction if you get it right.