Stupid mistakes in the darkroom

[fotch]

When starting out, my Dad got me stuff from buddies at his work, probably free or very cheap. The Kodak book that came with the stuff was from an earlier era when they probably only had Ortho. Anyway, I loaded my first film under a Red safelight just like the instructions and pictures showed. Of course, little did I know that my film was Panchromatic so no images, nothing. :o Complete failure.

But, I was hooked. Really like the whole process. I don’t recall how we or I figured this out but the next time it was picture perfect. Eureka.

I still feel like a kid playing in the darkroom. Taking pictures is only half of it. Making pictures is the other half.

[jasonhall]

During my very first attempt to develop 120 on a plastic reel. I was useing a very small closet in my house. After a while it got rather warm in there am I started to sweat and get rather frustrated. In the end I dropped the roll twice, stepped on it, and dripped sweat on it. I had enough and just dumped the roll in the tank and put the lid on. No need to go into details what the results looked like.

Jason

[mightyomega]

I once went to the Jamaica train station in Queens, NY with my Speed Graphic, perhaps not the wisest choice of location and equipment. Anyway, as is perhaps obvious, I attracted the attentions of the local law enforcement community, who were (fortunately for me) satisfied with merely escorting me off the property with a stern warning not to do anything stupid like aim the giant black box at the train again.
Went home, loaded up all six sheets into the tank (an HP Combi-Plan, perhaps another mistake, but one for another time), sloshed around massive quantities of developer and fixer, and found, upon opening the tank, that I had loaded three of the films into the same slot. They don't come out so good when they're stuck together.
I also once managed to tear the last few inches off of a 127 roll while loading it onto the reel. Gee, said I, why is this tape so hard to peel off the backing paper? And then I opened the changing tent and found the paper with a nice chunk of film stuck to it. (Did you know that Efke 100 in 127 is a very lovely shade of blue when it's unprocessed?)

[archer]

In his smoke filled loft/darkroom, Gene Smith showed me how to load two rolls of 35mm film onto a stainless reel, back to back.When I got back to California I bragged to anyone who would listen and then would demonstrate my new skill in the darkroom...yes, you guessed, it emulsion to emulsion in front of fifteen laughing males, all happy to see me get my comeuppance. No matter how drunk he got, Gene Smith never made that mistake. Lesson learned...Pride goeth before a fall.
Denise Libby

[clayne]

In his smoke filled loft/darkroom, Gene Smith showed me how to load two rolls of 35mm film onto a stainless reel, back to back.

I take it base to base was the right way? :-) Does this even work?

[archer]

Dear Clayne;
In the days of the tight deadlines for Life magazine, Gene insisted on doing his own processing and printing to keep control of his work out of the hands of editors and because he shot so much, souping two rolls of film on one reel helped speed his workflow. It worked for him and some others, as well as developing by inspection which was something I wouldn't even attempt.
Denise Libby

[PBrooks]

Stupid, Thinking I could just put my negs in plastic print file negative sleeves in Taiwan. Even with dehumidifier no good!!!!

[DutchShooter]

After 41 shots on 35mm/36 roll, I didn't trust it and didn't see the film-rewind knob moving. So I thought: I must have attached the leader to the take-up spool incorrectly and opened the back of the camera to attach it correctly...to find out I ripped the film out of the casette and just spoiled the whole roll which now was on the take-up spool...

[CBG]

OK - time to fess up.

Mixed some fresh D-23 a few days ago. The results seemed suspiciously brown almost immediately. I first thought I had received some questionable metol or some mislabeled chemical. Mistrustful, I tossed a fragment of totally exposed sheet film in to see if indeed I had a developer, and when it darkened properly I thought, well, OK, it's just a light tan, never seen it quite like that before...

I then turned off the lights and processed a sheet of film and got a very foggy, very overdeveloped sheet, and some very, very, dark, totally spent developer. I knew I had something more than just an idiosyncratic batch of metol. I then noticed that I had picked up the wrong huge container of sulfite. It wasn't sulfite at all, it was metaborate. I had forgotten I had that second huge container.

There is a reason to read the label. I now know for sure what a developer does when formulated with no preservative and way more accelerator than it should.

[Aron]

Here is the situation: taking photos at an air show, bulk-loaded film cassettes slightly overloaded (41 frames/cassette). I tried to get the exposures perfect, also using the lens at its best aperture. Trying to get that very last "fantastic" shot of that jet flying just in front of me...
And I advanced the film after getting to the last frame without thinking, so the tape holding the end of the film to the spool in the cassette broke.
No way of rewinding the film, no changing bag, no second camera but the air show was still going on waiting for me getting that "amazing" photo... I opened my camera, ripped out the film and tossed it in a bin and reloaded my camera.

People couldn't imagine what the matter was.