I voted yes but there are times I won't process other peoples forgotten film. Just in the last month or so, I've taken film from two old cameras. One was from a Kodak Tourist 12.5 taken from a passed relatives' home during clean up. Early 1960's Plus-X was in it, most likely when my Uncle left both his family and camera behind for greened pastures. Knowing the pain it would cause other family I did not process it.
The second roll was from a Yashica M42 mount SLR that a nurse from the Salisbury, NC V.A. mailed me, with some lenses, after she saw me carrying my Leica IIIC during a recent V.A. visit. When she found out I liked old film kit, she insisted I should have this camera. It arrived with old film in it and I didn't process it because I saw it as a possible intrusion against someone who did me a favor.
I have processed the film from several cameras that i bought online or at flee markets, including an eBay Iskra from Ukraine and a Minolta 16. The Minolta had Tri-X in it and was mostly too dark office stuff and blown out street shots of a business district, nothing too interesting by someone who didn't know how to take a picture.
The Iskra film was of a bunch of old guys in big suits, including one that looked like for all the world like Khrushchev, looking bored as some other guys in uniforms showed them the insides of what looked like a rocket factory. The soldiers looked pretty happy and a few even posed for the camera while holding up various missile parts. All and all, pretty prosaic stuff, at least for the Soviet Union.
I sell 8x10 prints from this roll to anyone whom asks, along with new title deeds to vintage bridges in Brooklyn for the low, low price of a new M8.2 with lens.😉
Seriously, all that was on the Iskra roll was a few snaps of some guys' wife or girlfriend sitting around in the kitchen. The film was badly fogged and I was surprised I got anything off it at all after processing it like Plus-X in HC-110.
True Story; the most interesting roll of a strangers film I ever processed did not come from a camera but was handed to me.
In 1977, I was 18-19 and stationed at Ft. Lewis, WA. where I was really getting into darkroom work. The base had a pretty good set-up and I liked that it was open fairly late into the evenings. One night I was working alone on some prints when a older, uniformed Special Forces Sgt. came in and started to make some prints of his own. I didn't pay any attention to what he was printing on the other side of the room and while we talked it was mostly about his being in transit to somewhere else. I was use to Rangers on base, they billeted up the hill from my unit, but Green Berets were a rare item and I was more curious about his recent travels in Central America, at least the little he'd share, than his photography.
After about 45 minutes we were joined by a young woman I knew from around the darkroom, who happened to be an officers wife. She started to set-up on the enlarger next to the Sergeant but suddenly tensed up and left the room. It turned out the Sergeant was printing some rude nude pics and she had caught a glimpse.
Gathering his stuff up, he was out of there in about two minutes flat, however before he left, he pressed an undeveloped roll of 120 film on me, a 'gift' and quietly told me to soup it when I had a chance to do it alone. I never saw him again. As I was doing my film processing in my spacious NCO room with its own bathroom, a room I shared with no one, I developed it the next day.
It turns out that Sarge had a real talent for racy photography. The roll was all of a good looking, semi-nude woman, black hair, black leather, high boots and a whip, in various poses on and beside a bed that was hung from the celling by chains.
It looked like a scene out of a magazine or movie and I got the impression that room was a set for customers that paid to make photos like this. If this was a good example of what he was printing, I can see why he hit the road when that officers wife fled the darkroom, if she summoned the MPs or her husband, it would have taken a lot of explaining, even for tough old warrior like him.
Sarge, if you're out there on the forum somewhere, Thanks, those pics really were a kick.
I know that some people are frightened of sending film to the lab that might have something bad on it, but if something like kid porn was found, IMO that would be worth the serious bother with the police on the off chance that the people doing it might get caught and the kids are helped.
Cheers
