Missed Opportunities

[Jorge]

To continue RAP's theme, how about the shot it took you hours to get, getting up at 3 am, driving 3 or 4 hours. Setting the camera, everything goes without a hitch. You come back home and you mess up the negative developing it. To me this is thw worst! You get to see the wonderful shot right there, and know you cant print it. How do I know?..I am looking at a beautiful 12x20 landscape where I have uneven developing....stupid me tried to develope 3 negatives at the time instead of my usual brush developing....serves me right for being lazy!

 

[Donald Miller]

OH No!!!! So sorry to hear that. I was so looking forward to seeing it too. Oh well, someone once told me that is why erasers are placed on pencils. Too bad noboby has come up with a similar remedy for situations such as this. Better fortune next time.

 

[Ed Sukach]

Every time I struggle in the darkrom trying to pop a Kodak 35mm cartirdge apart (seems like they are that most resistant to dismantling) I'm reminded of a roll of *very interesting* spot news (read `papparazzi') exposures taken in Miami, Florida.

I removed the cartridge from my Olympus Om-4 - and dropped it. The #$^%#@ thing landed just wrong - on *that* end of the spool.

Ah - the painful memory of realizing that the film had unwound like a clock spring in the afternoon Florida sunlight...

 

[Jorge]

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (dnmilikan @ Jan 26 2003, 07:36 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> OH No!!!! So sorry to hear that. I was so looking forward to seeing it too. Oh well, someone once told me that is why erasers are placed on pencils. Too bad noboby has come up with a similar remedy for situations such as this. Better fortune next time. </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>
Donald if you come up with an eraser for bad negatives you would be a millionare and I would be your first customer!

 

[Robert Kennedy]

My favorite film blunder has happened a couple of times to me.

You have a roll of 120/220 either exposed or unexposed. You are loading/unloading it, and you drop it!

And watch it roll across the floor and completly unwind itself......

 

[Ed Sukach]

The late and terribly lamented Camera and Darkroom magazine once had a most entertaining article about the "dumb" mistakes of the most hghly regarded of photographers.
I remember two in particular .. Eisenstadt recalling how he loaded a roll of already exposed 35mm film... automatic double exposures; and Cartier-Bresson "decisive momenting" away with the .... ready for this? ... lens cap over the lens of his Leica.

One vivid one I remember illustrates just how dumb most models are (They AREN'T - as a group, they are probably the most intelligent and knowledgable I've ever encountered). It was the end of the session, lots of complicated posing (most times I find myself working in stream-of-consciousness mode) - I was enthusiatic -- everything looked good, until I went to take the film out of the last Hasselblad magazine - there wasn't any. I had forgotten to load it.

So... I thought ... Be smooth ... cover up...

I said to the model ... "Wait ... I just happened to think of a few more poses ..."

It didn't work - not even a little bit. She just said to me, " Yeah - right. You forgot to load the magazine., didn't you, Slick!"

So much for my "slickness".

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Now, see, if you would have been shooting a classic Bronica with a trusty "Filminder" back instead of one of those Swedish wonders, you wouldn't have been able to cock the shutter without film in the camera.

 

[Ed Sukach]

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (David A. Goldfarb @ Jan 27 2003, 01:13 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Now, see, if you would have been shooting a classic Bronica with a trusty "Filminder" back instead of one of those Swedish wonders, you wouldn't have been able to cock the shutter without film in the camera.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>
Go ahead ... rub it in. I'm willing to take all the ridicule in exchange for those instances where dumb errors turn into something llike Ansel Adam's "Fortunate Mistakes."

Come to think of it, I borrowed a video tape from my local Library - featuring Ansel.
There was one scene where, in front of a class, he exposed Polaroid film in a back installed on his 8" x 10" camera - with the lens cap on. He pulled the film - and said something like, "Aha! Thiis is what I mean when I talk about `Zone X'. "

Did you know that he routinely dried "test prints" in his microwave?

That model I wrote about - she is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence, had studied for a year at Oxford, and is an *accomplished* Cello player.
Hmm... all the female Cellists I know (five) also model "au natural". I wonder - something in the genes?

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I've tried the microwave trick. It works!

 

[Les McLean]

My most embarrasing moment happened on a landscape workshop that I was leading in the English/Scottish border country. I was demonstrating how changing exposure and development when working with only two stops of contrast will increase the contrast. To illustrate the differences I expose and develop one 4 x 5 sheet of film normally, followed by a second where I underexpose and overdevelop. I talked through the procedure with the 12 participants as I made the exposures and returned to my darkroom to process the film, which I did as they enjoyed the lunch prepared by my wife. When I processed the sheets of film they were both clear.........I had not pulled the dark slide before I made the exposure........not once but twice.

A few years later I saw a TV documentary about O Winston Link where he revisited many of the locations of his best remembered train photographs. The final part of this very interesting film showed Link setting up a shot using the remaining supply of flash bulbs to photograph a train pulling into a station. The shutter was released, there was a blinding light as the 100's of bulbs went off followed by an expletive from off camera............he had forgotten to pull the dark slide. I have to admit that I felt a little better in the knowledge that I was in good company.

 

[Aggie]

..

 

[Robert Kennedy]

Ah yes....the evil dark slide!

For me the worst was working with THREE models....THREE. All first timers, all friends. So it was VERY easy for them to gang up on me if they noticed a mistake! I was shooting I think the third roll of the session on my ETRsi, when I went to changeout the roll...and noticed the darkslide was in. In just ENOUGH to cover the image, but not enough to trigger the shutter lock which says "Hey idiot! Pull me!" Luckily I managed to hide that mistake....

I would have been doomed had they found out!

Then again, it is often that I set a pose up with a model, press the shutter and..........


NOTHING.....

DOH! Then I pull the dark slide and recompose. Not exactly sauve looking.

Or the time I was shooting Polaroids with my Graphic at a Halloween party. Two drinks and I was forgetting to pull the envelope before shooting! Luckily THAT shows up quickly.

And of course at the same party I somehow managed to load an envelope in while my back was set to "P". I have NO idea how I did this, but I spent the next ten minutes at the sink cleaning the gunk out my back!

How guys like Weegee ever got anything done is beyond me.,....

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I'm always firing the shutter with the darkslide in, but I usually figure it out as I realize I've just fired the shutter and I don't have a darkslide to put back in.

 

[Eric Rose]

My usual boner is to forget to close the shutter before pulling the darkslide. DUH!!

 

[Ed Sukach]

Of course, there is always the thrill that accompanies turning the white lights on in the darkroom ... and realizing that you are gazing directly into a wide-open paper safe, complete with paper.

What about wiping out a JOBO tank with a wad of paper towels, loading the exposed paper, processing it, and finding out that you never removed the paper towels...

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I think I'm over the problem of forgetting to focus with my old rangefinder and scale-focusing viewfinder cameras, so now I only have the paranoia of trying to remember whether I focused after the shot.

 

[RAP]

WOW, all these blunders. Is it any wonder great photographs are ever taken? What about the flaming crash of the Hindenberg at Lakehurst, NJ? That was a great disaster in itself. But what if the photographer had blown the shots of that firery crash? He was shooting with a 4x5 Speedgraphic, 2 frame film holders. Did he have a meter? But he was able to shoot off I think 4 or 5 frames, inserting the film holder, pulling the darkslide, making the exposure, insert the slide, flip the holder, and do it all again! No 35mm, digital, autofocus, auto exposure, zoom lens, 5 frames/second motordrives in those days.

 

[Mark in SD]

I guess I owe a disaster after starting all of this.

This was years ago with my old Pentax K1000 and I was in HI and up on a ridge about 10 feet from a cliff. I had been trying to take some bird pictures but decided to change to a 28mm and go for scenery (some mist was starting to rise in the valley and the sun was sinking).

Sit down, get out 28mm, loosen the cap on the base of the lens, unlock zoom and remove it from camera, dump cap in my lap and set 28mm on camera, put cap on zoom lens, put zoom away, stand up, and watch 28mm drop off camera, land on it's side, and start rolling towards the cliff. I had forgotten to lock the lens to the body. My kid sister grabbed the lens and, after examining it, I realised that I had been lucky and there wasn't even much dust on the optics.

I was in High School at the time and, needless to say, I decided that I should probably work out a better method for changing lenses.

 

[Robert Kennedy]

RAP - It does amaze me how those old press photographers got the job done. Truly an art at that point. It also makes you wonder what was MISSED due to screw ups and errors. Most of those guys were just eyeballing everything. They'd zone focus, sunny 16 the exposure, and pretty much pray a lot.

 

[RAP]

There was an old saying for press photographers back then, "F/8 and BE THERE! Lenses were short focus/wide angle so infinity was pretty close, who needs auto focus. Exposure was pretty basic, one shutter speed pre set since most shots were done at infinity so depth of field was not that big of an issue, who needs auto exposure. FIlm back then had a much greater latitude then today's so there was more leway with exposure. They also had secret developing formulas for fine grain. Framing was intuitive but with the 4x5 sheet film, there was plenty of room for cropping. With such a tremendous lack of high tech as compared to today, they were still able to get those decisive moments, maybe even more so then today's photojournalists.

 

[John Hicks]

I suspect an increasing percentage of missed opportunities are being supplied by digital cameras. Mike Johnston's most recent Sunday Morning Photographer column www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/sm-03-02-09.shtml got me thinking this way.

I very often see digital photographers (digiographers?? them!!) gawking at the little screen on the back of the camera for a _long_ time after each shot. What are they trying to see? It's too small to see if the shot is sharp or if the decisive moment's been caught. I guess they're praying. At any rate, they ignore their subjects and surroundings.

And that leads to the second part; Mike indicates that a digital camera allows one to immediately see if the shot's gotten and that's a really good thing. Well, I suppose so, but I think these things conspire to not only create missed opportunities but to also ignore the possibility that the best shot hasn't been shot yet. The snapper, whether digital or saurian, takes the snap and walks away, content in not working the subject.

Think about it. Does the best shot happen in the first, 10th or 100th? Does that additional shot you didn't take constitute yet another missed opportunity?

 

[Robert Kennedy]

John - Interesting point. I was recently shooting at a protest rally, and there was a big mix of shooters there. You had pros from the newspapers alongside people who think The Zone System is the name of a new video game. And I did notice a lot of gawking at screens from the digi crowd. My rule for any type of event shooting or street shooting is "ignore the camera". I tend to put my camera in aperture priority mode and shoot off that. I will sometimes change my aperture for a certain effect, but otherwise I just ignore the camera and try to look for some good photos.

Interestingly, the pro digital shooters (the newspaper guys) never seemed to look at their screens until they had shot off a whole bunch of images and were able to take a break. Even then I don't know if they deleted anything. If they did they were fast about it. The modus operandi still seemed to be firmly entrenched in the film world. Of course they also most likely had 10-20GB Microdrives so they could do this.

 

[Aggie]

..

 

[jd callow]

Back in the 70's I was travelling with a friend in the SF Bay area, We met this photographer who had a shot of then candidate Jimmy Carter holding up a street sign that read "end Ford Begin Carter." Carter asked if he could get an enlargment of it. He wanted it for a big press event. So this guy makes a 24x30, mounts it (I saw it it was a great shot) and gives it to Carter's campaign people. The event happens and is on all the news etc, but this guy's blow is nowhere to be seen. It turns out someone had leaned it face down against a wall and when it came time to show it off no one could find it. I understand it was also visable, back side only, in some stills from the event .

I have far too many missed opertunities and not enough time to relate them.