3 ms·

Did you ever see eye-raising photos from customers like nudes or even crimes?

js2 4y ago
Mostly people take mundane, boring and poorly shot photos. When they go on vacation they take pictures of the same landmarks and in the same ways. I probably printed[1] the Leaning Tower of Pisa approximately 8 million times. Everyone thinks they are clever posing so that it appears they are holding it in the palm of their hand. And while people also take pictures of other people naked, those also tend to be mundane, boring, and poorly shot. So yes, I printed nudes, but rarely were they notable enough to cause me to raise my eyebrow at them. I don't recall ever printing photos of criminal behavior. [1] The one-hour lab equipment we had was semi-automated. The printing machine was about the size of three refrigerators side-by-side. There was a console/desk at one end that I would sit at which had the projection bulb underneath shining up through a small hole over which I'd place each negative one after the next. The machine had a computer which assumed the colors and exposure in each photo averaged out to an 18% grey image. Looking at the negative, I'd have to punch in offsets: e.g. I'd recognize the image has a lot of sky, or a lot of green foliage, or it's at the beach, etc, or it was over or under exposed, so I'd add "+3 blue" or '+2 green", or whatever I thought was needed to offset from 18% grey, then punch "go". The machine would then expose the negative onto the photo paper above which was on a 4" wide by 1000 foot roll. So it would expose 4" x 6" above, then it would feed the exposed paper into tanks filled with the chemistry to develop the paper. About 12 minutes later (as I recall...) the photos I'd previously exposed would pop out of the machine. Another employee, or me if it wasn't too busy, would then do quality control. I was pretty good, but some photos I would have misidentified so we'd have to sometimes re-print a few. After we were satisfied with the quality, the photos would all go into a paper envelope and we'd cut the negative roll down from 12, 24, or 36 images into strips of 4 images. Those would go into plastic sleeves and get inserted into the same paper envelope with the photos. I never really thought about it before, but I guess I've traveled vicariously all over the world through other people's photos. I don't think we ever thought twice about privacy and I don't think our customers did then either. Occasionally someone might mention there were nudes when dropping off a roll, but mostly not. I vaguely recall we had a customer with a mistress and he would use a different name when dropping off photos that included the mistress because his wife would sometimes come in to pick up the family photos. Okay, one more: a guy who had a new girlfriend every few months and somehow he'd always get his girlfriends to flash the camera. It was amusing because we'd see he had a new girlfriend and knew it would be just a few weeks before he'd have a photo of her flashing her breasts for him. It's been more than 30 years, but those are two I recall.

js2 4y ago

Mostly people take mundane, boring and poorly shot photos. When they go on vacation they take pictures of the same landmarks and in the same ways. I probably printed[1] the Leaning Tower of Pisa approximately 8 million times. Everyone thinks they are clever posing so that it appears they are holding it in the palm of their hand. And while people also take pictures of other people naked, those also tend to be mundane, boring, and poorly shot. So yes, I printed nudes, but rarely were they notable enough to cause me to raise my eyebrow at them. I don't recall ever printing photos of criminal behavior. [1] The one-hour lab equipment we had was semi-automated. The printing machine was about the size of three refrigerators side-by-side. There was a console/desk at one end that I would sit at which had the projection bulb underneath shining up through a small hole over which I'd place each negative one after the next. The machine had a computer which assumed the colors and exposure in each photo averaged out to an 18% grey image. Looking at the negative, I'd have to punch in offsets: e.g. I'd recognize the image has a lot of sky, or a lot of green foliage, or it's at the beach, etc, or it was over or under exposed, so I'd add "+3 blue" or '+2 green", or whatever I thought was needed to offset from 18% grey, then punch "go". The machine would then expose the negative onto the photo paper above which was on a 4" wide by 1000 foot roll. So it would expose 4" x 6" above, then it would feed the exposed paper into tanks filled with the chemistry to develop the paper. About 12 minutes later (as I recall...) the photos I'd previously exposed would pop out of the machine. Another employee, or me if it wasn't too busy, would then do quality control. I was pretty good, but some photos I would have misidentified so we'd have to sometimes re-print a few. After we were satisfied with the quality, the photos would all go into a paper envelope and we'd cut the negative roll down from 12, 24, or 36 images into strips of 4 images. Those would go into plastic sleeves and get inserted into the same paper envelope with the photos. I never really thought about it before, but I guess I've traveled vicariously all over the world through other people's photos. I don't think we ever thought twice about privacy and I don't think our customers did then either. Occasionally someone might mention there were nudes when dropping off a roll, but mostly not. I vaguely recall we had a customer with a mistress and he would use a different name when dropping off photos that included the mistress because his wife would sometimes come in to pick up the family photos. Okay, one more: a guy who had a new girlfriend every few months and somehow he'd always get his girlfriends to flash the camera. It was amusing because we'd see he had a new girlfriend and knew it would be just a few weeks before he'd have a photo of her flashing her breasts for him. It's been more than 30 years, but those are two I recall.