Confession time - your most embarrassing or humiliating photographic moment

When I first started working on my South Apopka (a small historic Negro community) about 8 years ago, I was just a 60ish year old upper middle class white suburbanite with nothing but confidence. I certainly did not fit or know the lingo and was the butt of many jokes but got along with everyone.

I was photographing a reportedly notorious family of about 20 people standing in the yard. Three generations were drinking beer, smoking weed, and generally having a good time. Everyone kept asking if I knew how good black women were. A 20ish young lady asked me if I wanted to photograph her kitty cat. I explained that I did not photograph pets. But she kept pressing me about her kitty cat until I said I would if she would hold it on her lap.

Finally she said "kitty cat", "kitty cat", "white boy that means my p*ssy." Everyone in the family laughed at my expression.

I still stop by the house to visit and photograph. I get invited to parties, funerals and special occasions. I have done family photos which they love because I do not charge. Still after 8 years some one will bring up that first day when Crystal asked me to photograph her kitty cat.
 
Bob Michaels said:
When I first started working on my South Apopka (a small historic Negro community) about 8 years ago, I was just a 60ish year old upper middle class white suburbanite with nothing but confidence. I certainly did not fit or know the lingo and was the butt of many jokes but got along with everyone.

I was photographing a reportedly notorious family of about 20 people standing in the yard. Three generations were drinking beer, smoking weed, and generally having a good time. Everyone kept asking if I knew how good black women were. A 20ish young lady asked me if I wanted to photograph her kitty cat. I explained that I did not photograph pets. But she kept pressing me about her kitty cat until I said I would if she would hold it on her lap.

Finally she said "kitty cat", "kitty cat", "white boy that means my p*ssy." Everyone in the family laughed at my expression.

I still stop by the house to visit and photograph. I get invited to parties, funerals and special occasions. I have done family photos which they love because I do not charge. Still after 8 years some one will bring up that first day when Crystal asked me to photograph her kitty cat.
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bob that's wickedly funny- - -- i guess i wouldn't have been thrown by that slang.....
 
On my first trip to Europe in 1979, I asked a woman in Chartres if I could take her picture, because she had such a beautiful coif on her head. She said quite unequivocally, "non!" I shot the photo anyway, and that look on her face haunts me to this day! I've never done that again.
 
hasselblad film loading
1. put film in forgot to wind it up
2. put film in the wrong way, film got all jammed up inside
3. removed film, hand slipped film unwound whoops
 
It was my first newspaper job and the photo was the typical "grip and grin" shot for the signing of a proclamation for Girl Scout Cookie Week. The mayor of the little town (a very nice, but somewhat large woman) was sitting at her desk, flanked by Girl Scouts and the flag. I had just bought my first 28mm lens and wanted to do something different. So, I asked the mayor to move her chair back from the desk and stretch her arms to reach the proclamation. I got down low to make her arms look even more elongated and fired away. Completely happy with my creativity I neglected to take a "safe" shot. When I developed the film I realized, to my horror, that her hands looked like hams stuck on the end of a pencil!
 
Hardly a contender for "most embarrassing," when compared to many other examples in this thread, but on Sunday I foolishly opened the bottom of my M6 and exposed a roll I had just finished shooting. Usually when I finish a roll I immediately rewind so as to avoid doing just that. But not this weekend. A few hours passed before I went to change film, so I had forgotten I hadn't rewound yet. I looked down and thought, that's weird; something doesn't look right--there is still a cartridge in there. It took me a couple seconds to realize what I had done.

I was alone, so I wasn't publicly embarrassed, but when I picked the roll up at CVS (I figured chances were good I'd ruined the roll, so why bother sending it to a good lab?) the guy running the photo dept, said, hey, by the way, I think your film was exposed. I sheepishly admitted I'd messed up and was aware of it, but hoped the whole roll wasn't lost. He assured me that only the last few frames were ruined.

When I got home and took a closer look I could see that just about every frame was ruined, or at least affected. I think he was trying to spare my feelings.
 
kdemas said:
My personal fav was when using my Nikon DSLR for an important portrait session. About halfway through I thought the viewfinder was looking a little blurry.

Yeah, I had the focus set to "manual" when I was using the AF button. About 100 shots toast.
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Ha, Glad I'm not the only one, I did this last week. Damn, I should have read this tread 2 weeks ago!

This makes me realise why I love the Leica, I never forget to switch it back to AF! -- or Auto exposure for that matter, which brings me to my other stupid moment...

Late afternoon portrait shoot, I think I'm in Aperture Priority, then about half way through wonder why the shutter sounds so fast for the low light. Ooo yeah, a whole lot of darkness in Manual mode!

Michael
 
I was once using a 100mm prime at a party. Took a single step back and knocked over several large metal plates full of dessert and a punch bowl. A lot of dress shirts were ruined that night:)
 
The Princess Anne story is close to my experience. I have the reputation of being 'the photographer' at my school and when Princess Anne visited a few weeks ago on an 'educational tour', first I forgot to bring in my camera, second I tried shooting with my iPhone and as I had very little experience of using it that way I managed only 2 or 3 captures, all at crazy angles and largely out of focus as she was walking out of the building.

My colleagues were actually quite gracious and still thought one at a truly abtuse angle was good enough for their 'mums' to prove they had met her. That's why I mainly stick to landscapes with no people!

LouisB
 
During last years Seafair Blue Angels show, I showed up with wife and friends fully loaded with my Oly E-M5 and my brand new four-thirds Oly big zoom. I would be able to get shots of the sweat on the pilots faces as they made their passes.

Minutes to go, I started getting setup and of course discovered that I had left my M43 to 43 adapter at home. Shooting the Blue Angels with my Oly 12mm just did not have the same impact!

:bang:
 
Had a day off work recently and off I went with 3 cameras, a L35AF, a Ricoh FF3 Super and a Kiev 4am with Jupiter 12. Snapped off a roll each with the P&S, then took lots of architectural shots and what I hoped would be some good candids of a couple of guys sitting in the window of a coffee shop having an animated conversation (from the outside of the shop).

Got home, rewound the Kiev and realised - that was too easy!

Of course, I hadn't loaded the Kiev properly and all the wonderful photographs I'd taken didn't exist. I hadn't exposed a single frame.

The embarrasment was confounded a week later when I had to ask my local lab to retrieve the film leader for me. After that, and having had them develop a completely unused roll of 120 film last year, I'm pretty sure they think I'm a rank amateur. They'd be right!
 
At a wedding that I shot, I slammed the car door on the bride's mother's hand, which was sort of awkward.

There was so much weatherstripping on the door that she wasn't hurt.
 
My saddest error was trying to learn developing on a roll shot on a travel to Brazil. Wrong procedure led to very poor, grainy development. The sad part was that I really wanted one of the shots to come out: It was a small town bus station in rural Brazil, 1980. The shot was of a chicken bound (literally) for market sitting on the floor with odds and ends of trash and the dangling feet of kids sitting on the bench.

I still remember the shot, just the way I took it!

Do you call that post-visualization?
 
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