We all seem to print less and less now as images rarely see the light of day and remain on our hard drives. Even for business clients, there’s a tendency for images to appear on their sites in an online gallery and get occasionally used for press or PR purposes. I’ve always distinguished between high street printers for multiple 7×5s and professional printing services for larger prints for clients and personal usage, the latter category being the hardest to source.

In terms of high street, I’ve had a below average experience recently with Photobox, who despite being quick, produced ‘murky’ prints (sorry Photobox); Which? tell me that Bonus Print is the best buy with good overall picture quality and speed. For the larger, professional quality printing, the options are getting limited as local supplier like K&S enforce minimum order quantities and insist on accounts. I read about Peak Imaging on an online forum which came highly recommended by some wedding photographers. The ordering software is basic but easy to use, prints ranging up to 16×12 arrived within four working days and the quality was excellent. On this subject, I should also mention producing bespoke books and the excellent ones I’ve seen produced using Blurb and their BookSmart software.

I plan to add to this blog when trying out other services or getting recommendations from you all – so please feel free to contribute. Thanks.

I had the pleasure of looking after Darcie the Springer Spaniel last week. Whilst our canine friends don’t make the most co-operative of models, she did stay still long enough (and a fast shutter speed helped) to get these pictures. Darcie’s owner Jo is a frequent traveller so she’ll be back soon, hurray…UPDATE… not that soon but over Christmas ’09 in fact.

Life (and work) does carry on despite the sweltering weather and this week I was the official photographer for the day-long East Midlands NIHR CLAHRC conference. In full, this stands for the National Institute of Health Research Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care and is essentially a five year programme to ensure that health research findings are quickly integrated into the day-to-day work of GP practices and health organisations.

The event, which took place at Kettering Conference centre, was well attended with over 175 delegates and was an interesting mix of talks, seminars and networking opportunities. Thanks to the organisers at CLAHRC and to the co-operation of all delegates throughout the day. All of the conferences images can be found here.