Developing old film is always an experience, for everyone involved. Who knows how many compromising and surprising photos have been seared into celluloid over one's life. And as the years have rolled along, those cameras we tossed to the side full to the brim with life's stories can come back to haunt us, or make us laugh. That's why the job of the developer has always had to be "interesting" on the daily, to say the least.
Redditor u/BlackEyedHole wanted to hear from everyone who has developed film and found.... a surprise by asking.... People who developed film, whats the most shocking thing you saw on a customer's cameraBEWARE.... going forward there is some ADULT ONLY Stories.
Don’t have a cow, man.
GiphyNaked pregnant woman wearing a Bart Simpson full head mask. 12 years ago and I'll never forget it. lomiodien89
Possession.
This actually happened quite recently, an old lady came in with her late son's camera and a dozen of discs that she wanted to check if there would be anything in them. The first couple of discs had some old albums on them, the next 6 or so we're full of porn from the 90's. I didn't have the heart to tell this old lady who was over 80 years old that she was in possession of her late son's porn collection. She even gave me a tip for being helpful. Tombhur
My Eyes.
When I was a photo tech for Walgreens, one of our regular customers sent in a print order through the website. The customer was 50-something, short and round, and half the pics in her order were collages of her butt cheeks spread wide apart. Silvano_Devesci
The Tattoo....
I used to repair mobile phones so still saw hundreds if not thousands of personal pics, not on purpose but just because we used to have to manually back up pictures.
The most shocking was this 60+ year old woman in an orgy. She had a distinctive tattoo on her shoulder which I noticed when she picked up the phone and in the pics. joe_bogan
In the Forest.
GiphyI was told this story second hand.
A friend of mine worked in a camera shop. When staff were bringing out a developed photo set you would call out the customers name to come up. Well one day two people had the same name. He groaned called it out and this old woman came up and asked which was hers. My friend told her to take a look in set a and if it is not hers to take set b . She says okay opens it up and screams. He runs over and takes a look. The first photo was of an orgy in a forest. alunaticparade
2 Years of Looking...
I used to work at a drugstore photo department. i always heard stories from other coworkers about sick stuff they had to report, but i think the worst/saddest for me were quite a few orders with photos to be used in legal cases involving beat up little kids. proof photos and shots of text conversations with parents throwing accusations, it was all awful.
The most interesting might be a woman in her late 20s or early 30s who would take hundreds of photos of her topless or nude. Some were selfies, some with different men, some doing crap like gardening or posing under local bridges. just stacks on stacks of her breasts.
The weirdest photo was in a very small order that had pictures of a few men hunting together at some cabin or lodge or something.
Some pictures of them and of snowy tree lines and then one solitary photo in the middle of a Sasquatch. it looked so unreal it may have been a painting? i still don't know. it was just one, standing in the center of the photo, in front of some trees in the snow. i'm sure it was some kind of art or... something, but it also fed my undying need to come across UFO photos during the two years i worked there (i didn't 😭). lildirtyalien
unplugged.....
Not quite the same but my buddy worked as an RA last year and after all the residents left for winter break they'd have to check all the rooms to make sure the fridges were unplugged. He went into a room and spread all over the desk were polaroids of the two female roommates and all their friends naked. Buddy didn't know that to think, but their fridge was unplugged. FISHgoosie
Variety of Mess....
I've been doing the job for about 3 years now. As long as it's not illegal, we will develop it. Never got anything that could be considered illegal but we get nudity somewhat often. I'd say about half of it is meh, 20% being really good on the eyes, 20% of I wish I didn't see that and the last 10% being I REALLY wish I didn't see that.
But I'd say the most shocking thing is when a former mortician brought in 35mm slides to be scanned, and they were all crime scene and bodies on an autopsy table type photos of extremely gory things. Gun shot wounds, exposed insides, cut off heads, etc. I couldn't get through it and passed it off to my other lab guy. It didn't bother him as much, but he couldn't stare directly at the screen either.
I can't remember what the exact excuse of why he needed them digitized, but I think it was something like educational purposes for others learning to be morticians? I was still kinda new at the time, and today I wouldn't accept that order. I would tell him to goto a crime lab instead. It was honestly one of the worst experiences in my life. I cant even handle gory movies. Wicked_Chaos
Private Matters.
It always surprises me how little people care about their privacy and personal data. I have received phones for repairing containing personal data of every kind I had to backup (notes with passwords, intimate photos, open bank accounts...). When a phone for reselling has personal info, I usually just do a reset and forget about it, it doesn't feel moral to me to take a look at someone's private stuff.
However, once, the woman who had sold me her phone contacted me. She explained to me she needed to recover the pictures, audio recordings and videos on her phone at all cost. She seemed REALLY concerned about it. When I was doing the backup into a usb stick, I took a peek and realized why she wanted that so badly. All that media were the evidences of her husband's violent domestic abuse. I cannot express with words how shocked and powerless I felt, up to the point of just bursting into tears. I couldn't get that out of my head for days. antorcha00
During the Party....
GiphyA friend of mine worked at Walgreens developing photos during high school.
He said the best set of photos was of a child's birthday party, a few photos in the middle of the parents having sex and and then the continuation of the child's birthday party.
Edit: as another user pointed out below, "For those too young to understand how film works - this means the sex and stuff must have happened DURING the party." DrBasia
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