Worst mistakes

[removed account4]

I got hired for my first real photography job of any size: Shooting a "day in the life" of a candidate for governor of Tennessee. The man was a trucking executive, rather portly and large, and his family was similarly large and loud and, I quickly discovered, about the nastiest bunch of redneck bigots I had ever met. So I followed them to a diner, a catfish fry at the lake, a rally, Grandma's house, etc, all with a 24mm lens and a stack of pushed Tri-X. When I developed the film, the photos were, I thought, great...until the PR firm that hired me took a look and fired me on the spot. Yes, I had made the candidate look just like...a portly redneck trucking executive with his loud, nasty and large bigotted family, a la John Waters. I got a kill fee, though.

the lens don't lie, do it

 

[AllanD]

My first Bronica ETRSi fell into a river when the wind blew it off the tripod (a Bembo clone. I hadn't spread the legs enough and should have known better) It had only had one film through it, so was brand new. Didn't know whether to laugh or cry! Luckily, it turned out to be insured on the house insurance, so I got a new one for free.

On a trip to Scotland I went down a steep hill side using what I thought was a man made path in a effort to get to a waterfall in the valley below. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a sheep track. As I tried to get through a gap in between some rocks, sat down so I could slide through on my butt and holding on to the rocks on either side, one of those rocks fell away and landed across my legs. It was a proper weighty boulder, about 100lb I guess, so it had me well pinned. My only options were either to wait for my girlfriend to raise the alarm (she was waiting in the car, reading a book) or try to roll the boulder over my legs so it could fall away from me. Being impatient, I took the second more painful option, rather than wait for hours until she noticed that I was overdue. After seeing the rock roll down the hill and crash into the valley below, I decided to take my buised and scratched body back to the car and give up on the waterfall!

 

[cliveh]

I got hired for my first real photography job of any size: Shooting a "day in the life" of a candidate for governor of Tennessee. The man was a trucking executive, rather portly and large, and his family was similarly large and loud and, I quickly discovered, about the nastiest bunch of redneck bigots I had ever met. So I followed them to a diner, a catfish fry at the lake, a rally, Grandma's house, etc, all with a 24mm lens and a stack of pushed Tri-X. When I developed the film, the photos were, I thought, great...until the PR firm that hired me took a look and fired me on the spot. Yes, I had made the candidate look just like...a portly redneck trucking executive with his loud, nasty and large bigotted family, a la John Waters. I got a kill fee, though.

You are what I would call a real photographer.

 

[GRHazelton]

Decades ago when I was new to developing film I'd just mixed up fresh developer and hypo, the old style hypo which smelled like pickles, at least to my teen-age nose. Sooooo....I delayed labeling the bottles. You can see where this is going! One day I had a cold and that was that! Fresh hypo clears film in mere moments!

Another goof. I'd loaded my Pentax LX with a 24 exp cassette, and was reveling in the silken smooth film advance. Fellow LX owners know what I mean, ball bearings and all that. All was good til I noticed that I'd shot over 36 shots. Yep, the film hadn't engaged. Grrrrrrr....

Only a few months ago I loaded two daylight tanks with BW. I processed one, and set the other aside for later. Need I say more? Even a few seconds under dim light is enough for ASA 400 film....gone.... After that I put masking tape over the top of a loaded tank, and write on the tape what's inside.

These are the mistakes I recall. I know there were many, many more!

 

[cliveh]

They say the person who never made a mistake never made anything.

 

[Sirius Glass]

If you do not make mistakes, you are not learning. If you do not fall skiing, you are not pushing yourself.

 

[Andrew K]

It was one of my first weddings. I was shooting with Mamiya TLR & Electronic Flash. 2 sisters who had not seen each other in 10 years....

M X flash switch set to M.....

All underexposed!

 

[Sirius Glass]

I joined APUG then

I inherited a Mamiya C330 with the 65mm, 80mm and 250mm lenses, Paraminder and every devise known to man for it.
Traded in the C330 for a Hasselblad 503 CX, 45° PME and a 250mm lens
Bought the Hasselblad 80mm lens
Bought the Hasselblad 150mm lens
Bought the Hasselblad 50mm lens
Bought Hasselblad filters
Bought the Hasselblad 903 SWC
Bought a 4"x5" enlarger
Bought a 36" wide drum dryer
Set up a darkroom
Bought a 4"x5" Pacemaker Speed Graphic
Bought a 4"x5" Graflex Model D
Spent a lot of money on barrel and shutter lenses for 4"x5" cameras
Bought a Jobo CPE 2+ processor
Bought Jobo 3010 drum
Spend thousands of dollars since on photography​

Talk about making a mistake that keeps on costing ... APUG ==> don't leave home without it!

 

[TheTrailTog]

Had another "DOH!" moment this past weekend and thought of this thread. My wife and I managed to sneak away for a couple of nights up to Boothbay Harbor, ME. I recently made the swap to buying bulk rolls of film and loaded up a half dozen rolls for the trip. My wife and I went to Ovens Mouth Preserve for a hike. We were at a beautiful spot about a mile in and I was all set-up taking shots when I felt a little more resistance than normal while advancing, but didn't stop with the motion. Then, there was no resistance, I pulled the film off the reel. DOH! Luckily I had my mjuII with me so I could still shoot. When I got back to the hotel I made a pseudo dark bag out of some long sleeve shirts and with the lights out and under the covers managed to get the film back onto the reel. Will be processing in the next couple of days and hope the film survived

 

[bvy]

Put the damn Polaroid 8x10 holder in backwards. Made a nice, unfocused, long exposure of the dunce behind the camera...

 

[RobC]

Moved to Sacramento Ca for photography school and got the list of items to buy before first day. The 100 sheet box of 8x10 Ektalure K was intriguing so I opened it up to look at the paper. Only later reading the part about opening in dark only.

Reminds me of the time I went into a Jessops photo store and was told by the assisstant that he'd just had two students in from the local college. They purchased a box of 100 sheets of 8x10 B&W paper paying half each. They walked out the store and stopped, opened the box and counted out 50 sheets each in broad daylight and walked off in opposite directions.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Joining APUG. Once I was happy with one 35mm camera. Then I joined APUG. Since then I now have multiple 35mm cameras, even ones for black & white and for color only. I expanded into Mf and the costs of Hasselblads. Then I got into large format. I have a darkroom so that I can process and print both color and black & white. Leave now while you can! Run away fast!

 

[Kirks518]

I just discovered this thread, so...

About a month ago, I took my daughter and her friend to a nice beach park in downtown St Pete. She loves Polaroids, so I brought my RB67 SD with the Polaroid back. One thing I love about the RB67 Pro SD are all the safety interlocks. So I set up the first shot, disable all the interlocks, and we start shooting. Shot 2 pack of Fuji. Rather then peel them there, I held onto them to open at home. Get home, and peel open the first sheet.... Nothing. Not a thing. Blank image. I forget the RB will still fire with the P-back dark slide still in........ 2 packs wasted. Not to mention a very disappointed daughter. Live and learn (I hope).

Set up a 13.5 minute exposure on my 4X5. 13.5 minutes after I click the shutter and go over to the camera, I realize I forgot to pull the dark slide. Another 13.5 minutes later....

Anyone see a pattern?

 

[OptiKen]

I refuse to name names

 

[BradleyK]

There, again, maybe selling my 4X5 wasn't all that bright. More often than I care to admit, I miss the old Linhof when shooting architecture and landscapes. Maybe, just maybe... The improvement in quality from the Hasselblad wasn't all that dramatic, but some of the features of the view camera made it indispensable at times. Perhaps an 8x10...in the future?

 

[Dennis S]

My paper safe loaded with 20+ sheets of 20x24 VC paper, another 20+ sheets of 16x20 paper, plus at least 50 sheets of 8x10 paper. Opened the paper safe to take a sheet of paper out, transferred the paper to enlarger and exposed paper, put paper in developer, stop-bath, fixer, turned all the lights on to see my new print and ... on the corner of my eye noticed that I had forgotten to close the paper safe!

OUCH... That is one of the reasons why I dumped the paper safe for keeping it in the plastic bags. Slower but I know I will not forget.

 

[R.Gould]

Using my newly bought Retina 1b, taking some what should have been nicely composed seascapes in the early morning with beautiful soft light, lovely sky with just a hint of mist, then when I went to wind the film back finding I had not attached the leader to the take up spool correctly and the film had not wound on,Ouch
Richard

 

[Sirius Glass]

OUCH... That is one of the reasons why I dumped the paper safe for keeping it in the plastic bags. Slower but I know I will not forget.

I only put the paper that I will use that day plus some to spare in the paper safe. The rest stays in the original box.

 

[logan2z]

Reviving an old thread...

I was making a print in my darkroom last night and exposed/developed my first sheet of paper. The print looked strange - low contrast and possibly under-exposed. I increased the contrast 1/2 grade and upped the exposure time. Nope, still looks weird. I checked the setting on my enlarger's dichro head to make sure I'd dialed in the correct filter settings. Looked fine. I started to wonder if the batch of LPD I'd made up the other day had started to go off and I grumbled about why I bothered to switch paper developers to something 'long lasting' when it didn't seem to last long either.

Rather than waste more time and paper, I decided to mix a fresh batch of developer to eliminate that as an issue. After mixing the fresh developer, I exposed/developed another piece of paper. Same problem! I checked the filter settings again and they looked fine.

Had the paper I'd been using suddenly gone 'off' or become fogged somehow? It was a box I'd had for a while, but I had just made a print two days before and it was fine so I didn't think that was it. I was getting a bit frustrated ("film sucks", "I suck at printing", "why do I bother with this?", that sort of thing ) so I decided to take a dinner break.

After dinner, I went back into the darkroom to do some more troubleshooting. I took a look at the enlarger with rested eyes and a full stomach and immediately saw the problem. I had set the Yellow filter on the dichro head to 142 instead of 42. I swear I looked at that four or five times and thought it said 42

I'm making an eye Dr. appointment for next week...

Oh, I forgot to mention: At the end of the printing session I inadvertently dumped out the new stop bath I'd just made up and kept the old one instead. I was batting 1000 yesterday.

 

[Rayt]

I zoned out when processing film a few times like forgetting the exact time I poured in the developer. Later the Massive Development app prevented that. Sometimes I forget whether I had fixed the film and had to do it again to be sure. Just really stupid stuff. The list is endless. Forgot to load film and all that.

 

[Cholentpot]

I had a new one last week. Settled in for a nice long development and about 10 minutes in I realized I forgot to load the film on the reel. Nothing lost other than time but it was a first for me.

 

[GRHazelton]

This experience was hardly my error, but........... One morning I decided to do some printing. I mixed some Dektol and exposed a sheet. Nothing showed, and this was a familiar negative. Something inspired me to call the city utilities; they had run a little acid down the line to clear out some deposits, or so they said. The "little acid" acted as a stop bath, and killed my freshly mixed Dektol. I was thankful that I hadn't decided to develop some film in 1 to 1 D-76! That would have been the end of the film. From then on I've used distilled water for mixing developers, stop baths, and hypo. A small expense for peace of mind, IMO!

 

[cliveh]

This experience was hardly my error, but........... One morning I decided to do some printing. I mixed some Dektol and exposed a sheet. Nothing showed, and this was a familiar negative. Something inspired me to call the city utilities; they had run a little acid down the line to clear out some deposits, or so they said. The "little acid" acted as a stop bath, and killed my freshly mixed Dektol. I was thankful that I hadn't decided to develop some film in 1 to 1 D-76! That would have been the end of the film. From then on I've used distilled water for mixing developers, stop baths, and hypo. A small expense for peace of mind, IMO!

Run a little acid down the line. Is that in water you might drink?

 

[AnselMortensen]

Buying a box of Foma Retropan 320 in 8x10

 

[wiltw]

I was photography editor of my high school newspaper, which published about 8 times per year. I was asked to go shoot a dress rehersal of a play involving guys from our school and girls from a nearby girl's high school, taking place at a stage about 20 minutes from campus. I took the shots that afternoon, drove back to campus, and developed the film...pouring in the bottle of prepared fixer first! I rushed back to the theater, reshot the dress rehersal, drove back to campus and processed the film using the correct solution sequence. I had to print wet negatives and then drop them off as fast as possible because the lithography press printer needed final prints in order to go to press that same evening!