A Kodak Photo Printer

One tool I highly recommend for journalling is a photo printer. Seeing the photos on the pages, along with the stories and details, adds so much to the joy of journalling, and it’s even more meaningful when travelling. Sometimes seeing even just the image of where I was sitting when I was overlooking the hillside with my coffee and book, or on the TTC with the kids, or the view of a cat in my lap, brings me right back.

It’s also a way to get into your journalling session, when you’re stuck on where to start. These days, while I’m in Taiwan, I often start journalling by browsing through the days photos and seeing if there’s one I’d like to print and I start writing from there.

I don’t think you can go wrong with any photo printer, because the point of the photo is to help you remember and to capture just that specific slice of time in the universe that will never happen again.* Even really low quality ones sometimes give off a graininess that adds to the memory. In the totally casual and non professional photography I do, the crispness or brightness of the print quality is not as important to me as the people or the places inside of itself.

That being said, I’m sharing with you a bit about my new Kodak 4pass Mini 3 Retro photo printer. It’s available in different sizes, and I got the 3x3. It’s easy to use, and even the kids are able to go into my phone on their own, open the app, and select whatever photo they want to print.

I have long had a Fujifilm Instax camera and an Instax printer, and I love it and that’s the one that I use at home regularly. The film is quite expensive, but mostly worth it, maybe because I’m not a high volume printer and also because I’m really interested in having these physical photos in my hand and to look at with the kids and to have in my journal and to mail to my pen pals and to tape up on my walls. The only complaint I have about it is that it connects to my phone by wifi, which makes my phone disconnect from my internet wifi, and means that older photos that have been offloaded onto « the cloud » aren’t accessible: I have to disconnect from the printer, reconnect to the internet wifi, download the photo, and then reconnect to the printer. This is admittedly a pain when I’m not trying to print a recent photo. However, I still recommend Instax entirely, and have had no reason to get another one until this trip.

I got this new Kodak 4pass specifically for this trip because both of the kids would be (hopefully) journalling with me regularly, and if the three of us are printing out lots of photos, and especially if the kids are printing things willy-nilly, as they will, I wanted to find a printer with cheaper photo paper.

The print quality is not bad. It’s called the 4pass because each photo gets four passes over with the cartridge, each laying on a different colour. I think I prefer the ambient photo quality of the Instax, but I’m not really too fussed about it.

I heard a complaint about the Kodak 4pass that it doesn’t print very quickly, which is a result of these four passes, going back and forth over the print, but that doesn’t bother me too much, and the kids (the baby) enjoy watching the photo come out, the first time just the yellow layer, the second the red, etc. And the image gradually coming to life. We’ve printed a lot of photos and it hasn’t gotten old yet.

The cartridges are a little fussy. Every once in a while, I get one that’s popped out or something else, but if you’re even the slightest bit handy, you can mostly figure them out.

***

Here I am in Taipei, thinking about this printer, even going so far as to write a blog post about it—and ironically I’m not even able to use it right now.

I’ve run out of the cartridges. It has been a nightmare. That is probably overstating it. I ran out three weeks ago, and Jacqueline from YSTUDIO gave me some suggestions on where I could find some more. At the very first location she suggested, Syntrend, a mall for techy things, I found a box and so I was humming along, confident I had found an eternal source of printer paper.

Two weeks ago, I went back for more, fully expecting to find them and then head down to the food court for some noodles, and it turned out they were out of stock.

Not yet undaunted, over the next couple of days, I went to various other suggestions, schlepping along my entourage to Shin Kong Mitsukoshi malls and Film Uncle and Big Camera and various other analogue camera stores and tech malls and none of these places have it—some of them don’t carry it at all, other places are just out of stock. I even contemplated getting a new printer (!) with more readily available film or printer paper (!) except that it seemed excessive and expensive and there were no good options that would justify owning three different photo printers. The Canon Selphy’s print quality looked amazing, I will say, but I do have some dredges of restraint left in me.

A couple of days ago, I finally found this somewhat sketchy website, based in Taiwan (I think/hope) that allowed me to purchase some more cartridges, and then ship it to my local 7/11 to pay and pick up from there. Success! Not quite yet. Apparently there has already been a glitch with my order, yet another sad story for me, but I remain hopeful.

I await these new cartridges eagerly, and will keep you updated.

*Not trying to pressure anyone into joining me in one of my many existential crises but facts are facts.