Don’t Grow Up While I’m Not Looking – or what I love most about Webshots
Written: Mar 31 '01
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The Bottom Line
Webshots is a great place to access beautiful photographs and to organize your own digital photos to view and share with others.
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The world is getting smaller. Modern technology connects everyone in a close cyberspace community. People relocate around the world to take advantage of great professional or romantic opportunities, and, as a result, we find that our individual worlds are getting larger. Friends and family members may live across town, across the country, or all the way across the world, and long distance is no longer “the next best thing to being there”. We can call our long distance friends and family on the phone; we can correspond easily via e-mail; yet there is still a need to share experiences in a more visual way. We want to watch children grow, and we want to see the events that we could not attend in person.
I love photographs. Through shared photos we feel connected with those people who we can’t see as often as we might like. Digital photography allows us to enjoy photos quickly, and programs like Webshots allow us to share and enjoy our digital photographs easily and inexpensively.
Webshots is a website offering free membership and access to an extensive library of beautiful photographs. Users can download a free desktop program that allows them to create personal photo collections for use as PC wallpaper, screen savers and e-postcards. I have read several other previously posted epinions about Webshots that go into great detail about the wonderful photo library available, and how to use the desktop program, so I won’t dwell on those topics now. Suffice it to say that I am not computer savvy, so if I found the program to be user-friendly - so will you. There is a myriad of photographs available in many categories so that you can to jazz up your PC screen with beautiful photographs of golf courses, kittens, travel destinations, seascapes or a almost anything that interests you.
While access to so many lovely photographs is nice, my primary use of this site is to view photographs of my nephew. Webshots enables users to create personal albums featuring their own digital images. These albums can be public – allowing unlimited access to everyone, or private – allowing others to view the albums by invitation only.
Last year, my sister, “theeye”, had a beautiful baby boy. I can’t even begin to express how much I love him, and how dear he is to me. I live in Florida – they live in New York - so anything that helps me feel close to him, and allows me to witness him growing up, is a blessing! Luckily, my sister and her husband purchased a digital camera. The day after his birth I received an e-mail with my first photo of him (he looked like me – cute kid)! I immediately printed it out and plastered it around my home and office. It would be several days until I got to meet him in person, and the few digital images that I received in that time were amazing! Unfortunately, while my HP Deskjet did a good job in printing nice color images, it couldn’t provide the photo quality that I wanted.
Luckily, my sister found Webshots and was able to create several on-line photo albums of the baby. I can log on any time and see new pictures of him, so, even though I’m far away, I get to watch him grow up. What’s more, is that having downloaded the free Webshots desktop program, I can use my favorite photos as wallpaper and screen savers on my PC. My screensaver is a poor substitute for time with my nephew, but I must admit that on a stressful day at work, my continually changing “slide show” of that beautiful little guy does make my day a bit brighter!
In addition to the desktop program, Webshots allows users to purchase individual photographs through ofoto. Photographs may be purchased in various sizes; 4x6s are $0.49, 5x7s are $0.99, 8x10s are $3.99 and a sheet of four wallets is $1.79. I have purchased many photographs of my nephew off of the site, and have been pleased with both the service that I received and the quality of the photographs. Users follow simple instructions to select the photos and sizes that they would like, provide credit card information, and finalize their orders. Each time I ordered I received an e-mail confirmation and notification at the time of shipment. My orders were all processed quickly, and beautiful photographs of my nephew were in my hands in about 8 days.
If you haven’t guessed by now, I highly recommend Webshots as a great venue to view and share photographs. Never the less, before sitting down and writing this epinion, I thought that I needed to try and create my own album to see how easy that part of the process is. As is happens, I have a beautiful niece in Indiana. Over the years, I have received several digital photographs of her. I saved these on my hard drive, but had no easy way of displaying them on-line. Last night, I decided to create my own Webshots album featuring these photos. Once again, Webshots provided simple instructions to walk me through the process. It was very easy to pull my pictures into Webshots and to create my first private album. My only complaint is that the process was time consuming. After pulling in my photos, Webshots gave me a message that it would take about half of an hour before my new album would be accessible. For those of us who like instant gratification, this wait may be frustrating, but the resulting album was available as promised, and was certainly faster than traditional film development. Now I can easily view photos of my nephew and my niece any time I want!
I know that my nephew won’t be a baby forever, and I know that I won’t be there to see him change in person, but, thanks to Webshots, I can watch him grow up before my very eyes.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
theworm
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Location: Indiana
Reviews written: 103
Trusted by: 58 members
About Me:
"You get endless second chances to take it one chance at a time" -Kenny Loggins
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