Photographic bloopers

[santino]

Alright so here it goes 😏

Today I dusted off my trusty Nikon F90 and took it for a walk. I set the ISO because I knew I had a film without DX-coding and was proud that I was that precautious. Unfortunately after four shots I realized that the camera was in manual mode, but I thought I was in aperture priority! The results will be "slightly" overexposed. I guess people who mostly use mechanical cameras (like me) and only rarely shoot automatic cameras should be even more precautious than I was 🤣

Now you 🤓

 

[lynnb]

Too many to mention. Perhaps forgetting to load film was one of the biggest.

 

[santino]

I see. I have not said it was the only one, just the most recent 😉

 

[ABrosig]

Too many to mention. Perhaps forgetting to load film was one of the biggest.

I was working for a newspaper years ago and on my way back from an assignment when I came across a pair of horses frolicking in a foggy, frosty field. Shot a ton of photos before I realized I'd forgotten to reload the camera after the assignment I'd just finished. By the time I got it reloaded, the horses were just standing there, staring at me.

 

[x-ray]

The mistake I made wasn’t a photographic mistake but laughing at two of my clients trying to make photos.

The first was a call from a longtime client. He was an enthusiast at best and had owned a Nikon F3. Now in the digital age he felt he needed a digital camera so he bought an entry level Nikon.

It turns out rather than calling me to shoot a couple of ads he decided he could do it. Well that afternoon after his shoot I get a panic call. It seems he forgot to put a memory card in the camera and was asking, in a panic, if I could recover the photos from his camera.

I explained or st least tried to explain as I was laughing uncontrollably that it was like forgetting to put film in his F3. Sorry, no can do.

The second time with an executive from an architectural group I did work for, he thought he shoot photos next to me as I shot. Trouble was he forgot the battery for his Digital Rebel. 😂

My lesson learned, no matter how stupid the clients mistakes are, don’t laugh at them because they control who shoots their assignments. 😂😂😂😂 It was worth it!

 

[x-ray]

a wise old photographer once told me “ the longer you’re in photography the higher the probability of a catastrophic photo event will happen “. That’s very true whether it’s your fault or someone else’s.

Besides talent and obsessing over details, redundancy is crucial. Never leave yourself vulnerable to someone else’s mistakes like the processing lab. In the days of film I always shot backup film and held it back from the lab if the cost or conditions for a reshoot were too expensive or difficult.

 

[Mackinaw]

This didn't happen to me, but to a high school buddy who took a trip out west (from Michigan) after graduation. He just bought a new Spotmatic (never read the instructions) and thought you just dropped the 35mm film cartridge into the camera like an Instamatic, and it'd load itself. You can imagine his reaction when he returned home to find out that all of his Kodachrome's were blank.

Jim B.

 

[Richard G]

X-ray that is fantastic about holding back some rolls. Nothing left to chance.

 

[Richard G]

I once exposed Rollei Retro 25 like it was Tri-X. Rescued some of those shots still. I’ve made mistakes mostly with the Hasselblad. Digital I’ll takes nice shots with an unnecessary high ISO still set, and too late to redo at base ISO. I can still shoot with lens cap on, without even practicing. Lack of discipline and an SOP. Most important lesson: alcohol and photography don’t mix well.

 

[x-ray]

X-ray that is fantastic about holding back some rolls. Nothing left to chance.

It saved my behind once when the lab had their E-6 processor malfunction when 100 sheets of my film was in it. 8 sheets came through ok then half was pushed 2 stops and the other pulled 2 stops.

I double shot the job on 120 as a backup and glad I did.

It was a monster of a shoot for Bristol Myers. It involved paying a grocery store to close one night, restocking a large section with their products and models flown in from Atlanta. 2 art directors were there from BM along with makeup artist and a 6 person crew. I’d estimate the cost today to stage that shoot somewhere between $40-50,000.

That’s where backing everything up with another set of film and holding it back saved my behind.

You can’t believe the feeling when you find out the lab trashed a job of that size and importance.

 

[Keith]

Sitting next to a very interesting, attractive woman at a neighbourhood new year's day party. I had my Zeiss Ikon rangefinder with me and asked if I could take her photo, which happily she agreed to. As I was framing/focusing for the second shot she smiled and said ... "Maybe with this one you could try it without the lens cap?" 😳 😆

 

[x-ray]

I had another job on Kodachrome trashed by Kodak in Atlanta. It wasn’t difficult to reshoot the job because it was close by and no models were involved. But I decided to shoot Kodachrome and send it to Kodak in Atl. When I went to pick up the film there was a bag full of my slides and another large bag with fresh Kodachrome and an official letter on Kodak letterhead explaining they had a processor problem and my film was in the machine when it happened.

The job involved about 30 - 36 exposure rolls. Oh well!

 

[Moto-Uno]

Some may recall a rather special photo shoot from the CN Tower in Toronto decades ago , I believe there was a parachutist involved
and they had a few crews shooting it , (just in case) and then they sent all the film to the same lab ! It's easy to fill in the blanks 🙁 . Peter

 

[x-ray]

In my college days in the 60’s I worked as a photo journalist. When I got out of school I decided to go into commercial photography and apprenticed for a year and a half under a master photographer.

In those days color printing was pretty involved with some odd quirks around how long between the printing and processing would lapse. Color paper (CP5 chemistry & Ektacolor Paper) suffered from latent image fading. The time between exposing the paper and processing it was critical. Kodak recommended exposing your test prints and letting them sit over night before processing. Then evaluate and make your prints and allow them to sit the same length of time.

After exposure color and density shifted at a predictable rate for a certain period. Of course I was fairly new at color printing and didn’t understand that. I had something like 50 8x10 color prints to make and decided rather than print 4 up on a 4 way 16x20 easel and process one sheet at a time in our Kodak model 16 drum processor, I’d do my test then print all of them and then process them later.

Well I got a good looking test print and started printing all the prints. I then started processing so the last print I exposed was the first processed. The first couple looked great and then they started shifting color and getting darker.

About that time my boss walked in and asked what I was doing and when I told him he went through the roof. I had wasted a considerable amount of 16x20 paper and chemistry not to mention time. So I was a quick learner and never made that mistake again.

 

[MarkWalberg]

My sister had a business taking pictures of kids. There was one family that was very difficult, kids and parents both. She couldn't find the film afterward and discovered it had gone through the cloths washer ! After developing, it turned out fine. Amazingly, no problem.

 

[Retro-Grouch]

I once drove off with a nearly new Nikon F2 on the roof of my car. It finally slid off when I reached about 20 mph. Trust me, it did NOT come through unscathed; it was completely trashed. Yeah, they're tough, but not that tough!

 

[x-ray]

I once drove off with a nearly new Nikon F2 on the roof of my car. It finally slid off when I reached about 20 mph. Trust me, it did NOT come through unscathed; it was completely trashed. Yeah, they're tough, but not that tough!

The photographer I apprenticed upset drove off with his Hasselblad on the roof of his car. He said he saw it come off on the interstate but never found any evidence of it.

He also dropped his shoulder bag while climbing a smokestack at a power plant. He had a 4x5 Linhof Technika and set of lenses in the case. We estimated it fell about 20 stories. Nothing salvageable in the case.

 

[x-ray]

Here’s a photo from a reshoot of a job for HGTV. I had a 6,000sq Ft studio but it wasn’t large enough for the setup. So we rented a massive studio, brought in dump trucks of dirt, boulders, shrubs, trees, built an entire backyard along with a semi flatbed trailer of germinated wheat to use as grass, perfect lawn.

We brought in models that were elected by the art directors for HG. Everything was setup and approved and then the day of the shoot. I and my assistants show up and then makeup, wardrobe and models. The client shows up and the shoot went great. I shot 4x5 E-6 and 120 then backed it up again with digital.

Everything came back from the lab perfect and the client loved the shots and approved them. Next the bulldozers came in tore down the set and cleared out the studio.

A few days later I get a call from the AD saying we have to stage the shoot again that the execs thought the models were too young. Not my fault!!! So we setup the shoot with other models as shot a second time. In todays dollars the shoot probably would be over $60,000 by the time we were finished.

The attached shot was just a quick reference for lighting if one of the shots. You don’t see the expanse of the set.

 

[santino]

Once I had a Lubitel 2 mounted on a Cullman tripod. That tripod has a quick coupling plate without an additional „security latch“ (unlike the ones from Manfrotto eg). So I did not look, wanted to raise the height and boom there you go, it was the quick coupling. The camera fell on the floor and shattered into 1000 pieces since it was made of carbolite/bakelite.

 

[neal3k]

Conditions were perfect for my first night color shoot in light rain (and I have been shooting many, many years.) I rarely shoot at 1/20 but decided to use it since I was pretty sure I could hold the Leica III steady enough for most of the roll. I was walking the waterfront in Savannah, Georgia with lots of lights, puddles and reflections. I was really excited. When I processed the film, all images were missing. There were some small parts of frames but not enough to salvage a single picture. I thought my camera was broken but in examining it closely, found that the slow speed setting dial on the front of the camera was between two numbers rather than on 1/20. That had messed up the shutter in some way. When I switched it to 1/20, it performed flawlessly.