OMG _ I'm such a klutz!

[Dean Pascoe Williams]

I've just had a 'woopsie with a bulk film loader, and ruined about 20 ft of film.

I am in need of disaster stories to help me as I'm feeling down on myself at the moment.

Any stories out there to prove I'm not alone ...yes I know in the scheme of things worse things can happen in life but just at the moment I feel I've lost my mojo

 

[ozphoto]

Shot an Australian Rules football match after an extremely looong week and really should have waited before processing.

Got to washing stage and all good except the phone rang and I had to go inside to take it. Didn't want the film to start drying, so I left it soaking in water for the duration of the call.

Well one thing led to another and I completely forgot about the film - woke the next morning to lovely clear acetate and some rather grey looking water. The emulsion had slid right off!!!!

Arghhhhh!!!!! Lesson learned - process the next day if you've been burning the candle at both ends, will save you a lot of grief. (Thankfully I still had 2 rolls, so not a total disaster, but I keep wondering to this day, what gems I might have washed away. . . . . . )

 

[Dr Croubie]

In a similar vein, I shot 3 rolls of Tri-X at the Ashes test last December.
I didn't know that Xtol could go off completely and develop a film to completely clear, but now I do...

 

[Dean Pascoe Williams]

Thanks for the stories...it helps

 

[Dean Pascoe Williams]

keep em coming!

 

[bdial]

Fixer works very poorly as a developer. DAMHIK

 

[Neal]

My personal embarrassing moments are forgetting to pull the dark slide for a roll of 120 when using a Crown Graphic and leaving the lens cap on (once!) with an old Minolta Hi-Matic G (guess and shoot). My favorite story though is the fellow who wrote about how pleased he was at his new found prowess for loading sheet film in holders. Then he realized is was easy because he didn't turn out the lights.<g>

Neal Wydra

 

[bdial]

I have another, I had this sheet film box knocking around my darkroom, and could tell it had a few sheets of film in it, but didn't remember its history otherwise. So, one day, I needed some film to cut up to use in a new to me baby Speed Graphic, and decided that this box of old film would be good for a test. I cut down a few sheets, load them, shoot and process it.

I had a very odd result;
No images of what I shot on the film, and the images go past the film edge. I had cut up some already processed negatives.

 

[edp]

In a similar vein, I shot 3 rolls of Tri-X at the Ashes test last December.
I didn't know that Xtol could go off completely and develop a film to completely clear, but now I do...

That entire Test series is best left in the past, unrecorded for posterity.

 

[Steve Smith]

MY bulk feeder diaster story is that I bought a bulk feeder at a charity sale for £1, got it home and opened it to find it was full. Obvious I opened it in daylight.


Steve.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

I killed about 90 sheets of Ilford MGIV 8x10 fiber paper when I accidentally opened up the wrong paper safe in daylight. Ooops - about a hundred dollars worth.

Paper safes are great, but for schmucks like me they should have a light sensitive switch on them that makes it impossible to open them when the light is on.

 

[Kyle M.]

I developed my first 5 or so rolls of film both 120/35mm without putting the little black baffle in the center of my Paterson reels, I couldn't for the life of me figure out why I was losing a few frames on every roll, until someone else figured it out for me.

 

[Vaughn]

I hitched-hiked around New Zealand for 3 months with a 4x5 camera with a massive light leak.

 

[kintatsu]

I went to load some FP4+ in my little "darkroom." I told my wife, and thought she heard me. Just when I got the film out of the baggy and ready to load, she turned the light on. The switch is on the outside of the door, and apparently she hadn't heard me. 25 sheets lost to the light.

Her reply was something to the order of "Too bad, you should have told me." Needless to say, whenever I go in there to work, I make her repeat what I said back to me. I also make sure to post a sticky notifying her.

 

[DannL.]

Saturday I was preparing six 8x10 glass plates . . . one of the cleaning steps in the process for hand-coating dry-plates. After washing one of the plates and then removing it from the final rinse, I thought I would be smart a shake off the excess water. I didn't realize that the outside air-conditioner unit for my house was so close to me. With the first swing the glass plate came down, hit the air-conditioner and exploded into a hundred pieces. And then there were five. ;-)

 

[GarageBoy]

I went to load some FP4+ in my little "darkroom." I told my wife, and thought she heard me. Just when I got the film out of the baggy and ready to load, she turned the light on. The switch is on the outside of the door, and apparently she hadn't heard me. 25 sheets lost to the light.

Her reply was something to the order of "Too bad, you should have told me." Needless to say, whenever I go in there to work, I make her repeat what I said back to me. I also make sure to post a sticky notifying her.

Tape the light switch down

the leaky bellows story hurts to hear

 

[Steve Smith]

I went to load some FP4+ in my little "darkroom." I told my wife, and thought she heard me. Just when I got the film out of the baggy and ready to load, she turned the light on. The switch is on the outside of the door, and apparently she hadn't heard me. 25 sheets lost to the light.

Her reply was something to the order of "Too bad, you should have told me." Needless to say, whenever I go in there to work, I make her repeat what I said back to me. I also make sure to post a sticky notifying her.

I would move the light switch!


Steve.

 

[Vaughn]

...the leaky bellows story hurts to hear

The camera was brand new (a knockoff of a Deardorff Special from India) -- there was a gap between the metal part of the 4x5 back and the wood of the camera. It was painful (it had taken me a couple of years to save up for the trip), but it sparked the desire to return and try again. Spent about 4 or 5 years to save up for a 6-month return trip with a new lightweight 4x5 and a bicycle (instead of hitch-hiking).

Once I loaded my Expert 3005 drum with five 8x10 negatives, made sure the holders were safely on the counter (I had knocked one onto the floor the previous time and broke the darkslide), then turned on the light. The drum looked strange -- I forgot to put the top on it. Lost some images of my boys in the redwoods.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Hiked around a big lake all day once. Exposed two 8x10 holders. Got home to process and the holders were.... EMPTY!
Once I developed a roll of 120 with fixer... you can guess how those turned out!
Once I pulled the wrong slide out. The slide facing me.
Once I pulled the slide out and inserted it white side out. Guess what happened later in the day?
Once I pulled the slide out and the film (Rollei IR) popped out and landed inside the bellows and sat there for the rest of the day.

I could go on but I'm getting depressed...

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Okay one more:

Once in Japan I invited a friend into my darkroom to show her how printing works. I exposed a piece of paper under the enlarger and said, "right!". She thought I said "light", and turned it on. This is a true story!

 

[Steve Smith]

Here is probably the most stupid thing I have ever done. It's not photography related (except marginally towards the end).

About twenty years ago we bought a run down house which needed a lot of rennovation. For a while it had no staircase, just a ladder in its place,

My wife and I decided to move in despite the missing staircase, bare brick walls and no ceiling in the bedroom. Also, I had removed the old wiring and had not rewired it so we just had table lamps and I had yet to fit the central heating so why we moved in in December, I will never know.

Anyway. one morning I woke up to the sound of the telephone ringing. I got up, put on a dressing gown and stupidly went down the ladder forwards. I missed a rung, fell and ended up hanging by one foot from the top of the ladder. I have no idea how I managed it and I still can't believe that I didn't break my ankle.

My wife came down to help out, but rather than being concerned, she was in fits of laughter as the dressing gown I put on was hers and was pink with flowers on... and as I was hanging upside down, it wasn't covering up much!

I was very pleased that my wife didn't notice the camera sitting on the table nearby!


Steve.

 

[bsdunek]

In January I was at my Step-Son's wedding. I didn't notice the shutter speed on my Nikon was set at 1/120th, (top sync speed is 1/60th). Photos are about 1/4th black on one end. Fortunately, I was just taking photos for us, they had a professional photographer that did a great job.
I have a lot of great photos on the dark slide of my Mamiya 23, if I could only develop it.
About 20 years ago, I took my video camera to record my Dad being discharged from the hospital after a stroke. Somehow the cassette got left home.
Just ways to have fun with photography.

 

[Steve Smith]

About 20 years ago, I took my video camera to record my Dad being discharged from the hospital after a stroke. Somehow the cassette got left home.

Not something I would think about videoing or photographing!


Steve.

 

[grahamp]

I once did a tour of Duxford (Imperial War Museum, UK) and found I had an empty camera at the start...well the start plus 36 frames. Why I didn't notice is beyond me.

That's why I moved to 5x4 - I take less for granted.

 

[Steve Smith]

A couple of weeks ago I went out with my FE2 on a nice misty morning. After about an hour, I wondered why the frame counter had got up to 38.... We all know why!


Steve.