WTF

Sure it's not a scanning problem? Drag the black point down to normal and see how they look (or are they the densest negs you've ever seen?)

hello dr. croubie...no, the negs (at least half of them) are incredibly dense. holding two of them up to the light, i could barely even make out what they were. i've just run two quick rolls through the LMT again, this time shooting at iso800, and shot each roll with a different lens at the full range of shutter speeds with the aperture constant. i'll have them back in a couple of hours from the developer's, so that should give me a good idea if it's me or something else. thanks so much for looking and taking the time to comment/ask a question.

Looks like your shutter is stuck or otherwise defective. Can you confirm that this problem does not appear with B&W film?

i LIKE it!
it reminds me of kasmir malevich
john

This looks like a sunny day. On sunny days, verify that your meter is working correctly by comparing to the sunny 16 rule.

This looks like it could be film fog. If it were just an exposure problem, I don't think it would lower the contrast so dramatically.Fog usually has some pattern to it, but if the extraneous light is hitting the film evenly, it could look like this. I would check your bellows for pinholes and the seals around the lensboard and shutter.

hi y'all. thanks so much for all of your comments and suggestions. as i stated above, i quickly ran two rolls through the LMT yesterday and took them to my local film shop, where turn around for c-41 processing is usually about an hour. i got both rolls back last night, and i'm sad to report that the error was 100% my own doing. my metering must have been really way, way off. i shot two rolls last night, each with a different lenses, pointed at the same subject over about a 10 minute interval, changing only the shutter speed. from the scans of those shots, i can see that the posted shot above was simply overexposed (by how many stops, i'm not sure). thanks, again, for all of your input. i'm still quite new to large format photography, and as i'm reminded again and again, i've still lots and lots to learn. much obliged.

Joseph, this may be a rather backhanded complement, but thank you for showing that even a photographer so experienced and accomplished as yourself can make that kind of mistake. It makes putzes like me feel much better to know that we are not alone.

peter...i have been in and will most likely remain in the putzes club for a long time!

update: it was determined that my bellows had several light leaks in it!!! mystery solved!!!!!!