What is Your Most Embarrassing Photographic Moment?

[dave lackey]

Ha! Just to lighten things up a bit.😛

 

[sevo]

I suppose that was having the camera bag with all exposed rolls stolen right after a Björk interview - due to hanging out in a bar getting pickled with the band rather than going about my duty...

 

[FrankS]

Every now and then, when I'm not paying attention to what I'm doing, I'll open a camera back in order to load film, only to discover a half finished roll already in the camera. Dummy move.

 

[rbelyell]

when, after unbundling my rather massive mamiya universal press cam to take pictures of the grand canyon with two different films on two different backs, thus holding up my tour bus, my wife noticed i had taken the entire series of photos with my lens cap on! :bang:

 

[Nokton48]

Keeping lens cap on and opening cameras with film in them.

 

[helen.HH]

Spending a Morning & into the Late Night with Tom & Tuulikki here in NY
Thinking I am Shooting a Roll and realize the Next Day
there was No Film in the Camera... arghhhhh !!!!!
Memories only in Memory not in Film ;(

 

[burancap]

Shot a roll on the M6 during a 2 hour walk-around.

No tension on a very short (too short) rewind.

The leader had pulled from the tulip on the very first stroke and I never noticed the rewind not spinning.

Oh well, got some exercise.

 

[chris00nj]

Embarassing (my fault) - After learning about the benefits of bounce flash (and seeing good results at home), I took my camera to a cousin's wedding, where the ceilings in the reception hall were 20 feet high. Yeah, nothing came out.

Embrassing (not my fault)- in Berlin, my old auto-everything Pentax SLR wouldn't tell you if the film improperly loaded. I got to frame 37, then 38, then 39, the 40, etc. I quickly ended my use of that camera.

 

[iamzip]

Unloading a roll of Kodak 220 full of Christmas pictures from my GA645, trying to figure out how to seal it ( because I'd only used fuji up to that point), only to wind up with one end in my hand and the roll on the floor, rolling away from me.

 

[sdotkling]

Was hired for my first commercial job, to shoot a political candidate with his family, to be all warm and fuzzy. Proudly turned in the contacts and prints and was met with looks of horror: I had shot the whole job very wide-angle, and managed to make the candidate look as venal, corrupt and thug-like as he probably really was, and his chubby wife and daughters very similar to barnyard animals. Just about my LAST commercial job!

 

[jsrockit]

Lens cap on the camera... I do this a lot with optical VF cameras during the first use of the day.

Roll of film not properly wound = no photos.

More stupidity than embarrassment.

 

[21-135 Apo All Good]

Was hired for my first commercial job, to shoot a political candidate with his family, to be all warm and fuzzy. Proudly turned in the contacts and prints and was met with looks of horror: I had shot the whole job very wide-angle, and managed to make the candidate look as venal, corrupt and thug-like as he probably really was, and his chubby wife and daughters very similar to barnyard animals. Just about my LAST commercial job!

This is so COOL! You ought to re-post this in the thread about the 135mm portrait lenses and why you don't use wide-angles to do portraits of people that are paying for them to be made! Talk about "life imitates art" LOL! Thanks for sharing!

Dave

 

[Brian Puccio]

On vacation in San Francisco three years ago, my first trip with a film camera and a rangefinder (previously used a 5D and before that a Digital Rebel). Shot nothing but slide film. I was very embarrassed by my poor exposure. I've gotten much better, but I figure why make it harder? I cheat now and use an incident meter. On this trip, I finished off a roll in Alcatraz. We went to a museum next and I went to load film only to realize that I never rewound the previous roll. Last two frames were fogged, everything else was OK. I thought the entire roll would be dead. Ever since, before I open the bottom, I see how much resistance I have on the rewind knob, whether I'm picking it up for the first time in weeks or whether I used it half an hour ago and think I took the film out. Every. Single. Time. ... Never. Again.

 

[bsdunek]

when, after unbundling my rather massive mamiya universal press cam to take pictures of the grand canyon with two different films on two different backs, thus holding up my tour bus, my wife noticed i had taken the entire series of photos with my lens cap on! :bang:

Or in my case, I forget to pull the dark slide! Wish I could develope it.

 

[kbg32]

Recently, while photographing the Chinese New Year parade, I turned my attention to some of the crowd. I thought, so many people being cooperative while photographing them. I kept wondering why they were laughing, only to turn around and see the fathers standing there with their cameras! To my chagrin, I kept stepping in the way of husbands and fathers photographing their families without noticing them.

 

[kehng]

I was walking through the red light district in Amsterdam during a friend's stag night. I thought I was shooting quite discreetly with my camera at my hip. Unfortunately my camera at the time was a Sony digital that projected a red light straight into the face of an angry working woman behind a window. Heard a horrible shriek and some rough sounding Dutch words before my mates told me to get a move on as she picked up a bucket full of muck from next to her bed and began to chase me down the street. The angry mostly naked woman finally got close enough to empty out the bucket over my head on a crowded street. Needless to say my friends got some great photos of me covered in God knows what...

 

[Spavinaw]

On my one and only trip to Alaska I double exposed a 36 exposure roll of slides. For years I have always rewound the film tongue completely into the can to prevent this from happening. How it happened this time I'll never know. Needless to say, when people asked to see the pictures of my trip I came up a little short (about 72 exposures to be exact).

 

[swoop]

I was on assignment covering a double homicide. I get there the CSU van is in front of this house So I start photographing the house. I get right across the street from it and grab a photo. I figure out 10 minutes later I photographed the wrong house and I was standing right in front of the actual crime scene house. I couldn't get anywhere near it again because the cops were keeping the line guarded after that. I guess I assumed since the cops were parked in front of that house that was the one and didn't even think of double checking the address. I also saw cops coming out of it but I guess they were just doing sweeping interviews. So frustrating. I felt like an idiot.

Another time I was photographing the Mayor's inauguration. They were saying they were going to let photographers up to the stage 3 at a time for 2 minutes to get photos during the ceremony. It turned into a huge screwup. When i got up there the front was littered with photographers. I couldn't get the angle I wanted and ended up doing a sort of crabbing belly crawl from one side of the stage to the other so I could get a shot without the podium in my way. After I was done I called my girlfriend and she goes "I saw you on TV dragging yourself on the ground."

 

[gb hill]

Realizing after the 38th frame the film leader didn't catch on to the take up spool. I also shot some scenes at a wreck site only to realize later there was no film in the camera.

 

[Jack Conrad]

Funny stuff!

This crummy photo got me caught red handed by the bartender for sneaking the shot of these strangers while the camera sat on the bar top in timer mode.
I was trying to cover the stupid red light with my hand, but it made my hand glow red, hence I was caught "red handed."
I was embarrassed.
Fortunately, the situation was lubricated with good spirits.