How to ruin a short holiday by screwing up the one roll of film you shot!

[Keith]

A mate of mine has just bought a very nice customised bright yellow 1969 F100 in Melbourne and asked if I was interested in flying down there from Brisbane with him to pick it up and share the two day 2000 km drive back ... all my expenses would be paid.

I took my R4A and 15mm heliar with a roll of 400 colour film, along with my OM-2 with 50mm Zuiko and black and white 400 in it. The drive back through some of the most stunning country side you could see in this bright yellow V8 pick up was one of the highlights of my year ... and some of the photos shot in the cab on the move and at various locations with the hot rod truck in the foreground should have been absolute gems.

I've just come from my darkroom where I poured the blix into the tank first by mistake (over tired) instead of the developer ... I have a completely blank roll of film of course.

I'm absolutely gutted!

 

[Roger Hicks]

Aaaaargh. Bad luck!

Just don't beat yourself up too much over it. It's all too easy to get an attack of the 'If onlies...'

Cheers,

R.

 

[gavinlg]

Oh man that sucks. I once went to drop off my grandmother at Brisbane airport after having her stay for a week - she was heading back to south africa and I decided to shoot off a roll of neopan 400 at the airport - just some pics of her. I finished the roll, and later the night loaded it into my developing tank. Because it was so late I left it in there to develop the next day. The next day came and in my bleary eyed oaf-ness I went to open the developing tank for some reason, and bam! 1 roll mostly destroyed. I think there was about 4 pictures that weren't totally blank, and they were near ruined anyway.

Silly mistakes cost a lot with film. That being said though, I've had images magically disappear off my memory card after a paid shoot. That sucked.

 

[shyoon]

Sounds similar to what happened to me the other day! You have my deepest sympathies.

 

[Keith]

Aaaaargh. Bad luck!

Just don't beat yourself up too much over it. It's all too easy to get an attack of the 'If onlies...'

Cheers,

R.

So true Roger ... what's done cannot be undone!

But bloody hell, some of those images were burned into my mind immediately after tripping the shutter ... I'm sure you know the feeling ... and to not be able to show them to my mate Ash is very tough!

I haven't broken the news to him yet.

😛

 

[thegman]

See it as an opportunity to go on another trip? Bad luck though...

 

[P. Lynn Miller]

Sorry to hear about that Keith... you are not alone in making that mistake. Shoot digital next time... then you can accidentally delete the files!

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Oh! Sorry to hear about that, Keith... That happened to me once, and it's so frustrating... Hope you enjoy your other roll...

Cheers,

Juan

 

[Keith]

Oh! Sorry to hear about that, Keith... That happened to me once, and it's so frustrating... Hope you enjoy your other roll...

Cheers,

Juan

Thanks Juan ... the other roll only has about eight frames used on it which I pulled out, snipped off and developed this morning ... all shot with the 50mm on Legacy Pro 400.

The colour ones with the wide lens were the ones I wanted though ... this Ford is the most outrageous bright yellow and just turned heads wherever we went!

It was a fantastic three days that can't be taken away ... some pics would have been nice though. 😀

 

[oftheherd]

What a bummer! Saying most of us have some dumb story to tell isn't going to bring those photos back. There are photos in my mind as well, rather than being on film as I intended.

 

[btgc]

Isn't somewhere there another truck awaiting to be picked up? I mean, from perspective of taking second chance to take pictures not just spending time on road.

 

[Vincent.G]

Keith, painful lessons like this make us wiser. I am sure it won't happen to you again.

 

[kossi008]

I had a similar experience and my lesson was:
Never develop when you're tired or in a hurry...

I happened to be in a hurry, and what I did was mix 2/3 of the amount of developer needed for one roll... :bang:
What you get then is not pictures completely lost, but pictures that allow you to see exactly how great they would have turned out, if only... but we didn't want to go there, right? :angel:

So no, nothing's gonna help, but yes, I can relate...

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Thanks Juan ... the other roll only has about eight frames used on it which I pulled out, snipped off and developed this morning ... all shot with the 50mm on Legacy Pro 400.

The colour ones with the wide lens were the ones I wanted though ... this Ford is the most outrageous bright yellow and just turned heads wherever we went!

It was a fantastic three days that can't be taken away ... some pics would have been nice though. 😀

I get it, Keith... Real wide, vibrant colors, and on the road, would have been very nice, and great for sharing with your friend too...

I hate when those things happen...

One month ago I did some shooting with no results at all, and it didn't depend on chemicals but on this fool...

A couple of friends called me and asked me to go to his new house and make some shots of their sweet three year old daughter... I had never been to that house before... I took it seriously: took with me the 105 2.5 with yellow filter for sunny B&W with grain, the 150 on my Hasselblad with Astia and warming filter, my Sekonic, and my Fuji S3 with the 18-135 zoom...

When I got there the girl was happy... My friends (who live in a third floor apartment) said she liked the first floor internal garden a lot, and being a clean blue sky sunny day insisted in going there, so we went down...

Oh, that just shouldn't have happened... As soon as we got into the garden, there were other children inside the swimming pool, and all my model wanted from then on, and for the next three hours I remained there, was getting into the pool... She started to cry when her parents said no...

I tried everything, everywhere... She cried every five minutes. She even started to hate my cameras! When far from the pool, she was always trying to run to make her parents take her there... When close to the pool, she was always trying to get inside... When back up in their apartment she was shouting and crying to go down again... Oh, I really suffered! I tried lots of things... Toys, food, movies, gifts and promises, and it was impossible! And I have experience shooting children, but she had elephant memory! I was good for nothing...

I shot two Tri-X and two Astia rolls, and near 100 digital shots. I even gave my digital to my friends so they could shoot too as I used my Hasselblad...

After development I didn't get one single beautiful portrait. I hadn't felt that bad in many years... The girl was clearly sad in all frames, and looked longing for the swimming pool... Always!

It was a tough lesson to me... Children can be unusually hard to photograph! I seriously think a next time I'll do what children say...

And a few days later when I told my friends I got nothing at all, not even one good shot, they said never mind, but of course they were thinking "Isn't Juan a pro? This is crazy!"

I'll never forget it in my life...

Cheers,

Juan

 

[Ronald M]

I have done things of this nature, but nothing that disasterous. Golden rule is never work when you are tired because that is when things go badly.

 

[Cron]

sorry to hear this, similar happened to me some weeks ago as the SD-card sucks after ca. 30 shots and the last 40 pics or so couldn't be read whether from camera (Leica!) or PC