# A blooper (in words)



## LaFoto (Jul 20, 2005)

*Bloop! Bloop!


Today is Wednesday. Photo-collection day in case there was something photo-worthy over the weekend and I managed to take my rolls of film into the drugstore on Monday. 

There was something on last weekend, i.e. the International Folklore Festival in the neighbouring town, and I did manage to take my 7 rolls to the store on Monday. No wonder I was quite excited this morning. Would my attempts at getting at least ONE good photo out of more than 250 have been successful??? Would there be any photo worthwhile scanning and presenting here?

All 7 bags are back. Yay! That is GOOD.
The price I would have to pay, so I had calculated, would be  21,35 for all (yes, it is that cheap!). Why did the saleslady say  27,83 in the end? Hang on... each bag should be  3,05 .... why was there one at over 9 Euro. 9,53, to be precise??? 

Dang. Blooper!

They made those photos twice as big as I had ordered, and therefore three times as expensive. My fat red x was exactly in the box for the small photos! Not my fault then!

Had to leave those photos there, so they'd be returned to the lab and the mistake corrected. Too bad! 

I unpack the others, everything's there, negatives, index-sheet... but where are the picture numbers? Neither on the back of the photos nor on the index-cards.

Dang! Blooper!

That meant I had to check each photo with its negative number and put the number onto the back myself as not to get them into a chaos.

Why is it that there's always SOMETHING when my photos come back from the lab? Always some little thing, but NEVER is everything all right. Never! 

And then I had to learn yesterday that the only real photo shop (not a corner in the drugstore where you just hand in your films) nearby, i.e. in that town where there was that folklore festival, is closing down. That was my ONE AND ONLY address for some real black+white development, if I used such kind of film (and not the C41-method). And that was my shop for anything about my camera, and generally the shop I went to whenever I had a question. And in a week from now they'll no longer be there! :shock:

Blooper, too!

All bloopers here! :cry:

(Sorry, felt like I had to vent just a bit)

Bloop! Bloop!
*


----------



## LaFoto (Jul 20, 2005)

Hey, I tried to return my post to NORMAL writing... tried to edit the broad script out... it won't work. Is EVERYTHING against me today?


----------



## Corry (Jul 20, 2005)

Aw! That stinks LaFoto! I'm sorry to hear about all that!  We don't really have any camera shops around here either.


----------



## hobbes28 (Jul 20, 2005)

Sorry to hear about that LaFoto.  I used to use a mail order photolab that was extremely fast and cheap but I can't remember the name of it.  I'll look through my stuff and see if I can find them again if you'd like.


----------



## DIRT (Jul 20, 2005)

I would veer away from drugstore processing,  most of the employees at those places dont know what theyre doing and they arent photographers so they could care less.

Where do all of you guys live?  It seems that you are all way out in the boonies or maybe I am spoiled in southern california we have labs everywhere.  the lab I used to take my B&W film for processing and prints would actually hand spot all of the prints!  that was before I started processing at home.

well... I am sorry for your misfortune.


----------



## LaFoto (Jul 21, 2005)

Dirt, indeed, I live in the boonies! No doubt about that.
And it is not "drugstore processing" - the photos only get collected there and a driver goes round at night, stops at all the drugstores in the area, collects the bags with the rolls of film, takes them all to a big lab somewhere (I don't even know where that is), and that's where people do nothing else but develop people's millions of films.
Therefore, OF COURSE, nothing is really done manually, HAND-SPOTTED even (wow!), but done in a huge swoop! 
Else, however, they would not be able to sell their prints at just 1 ct/print.
Which is why I feel I must not say too much about the quality of the prints --- what bugs me MUCH, though, is that often enough the negatives(!) have scratch marks. Often the whole length of film has one overall mark. Grrr! 

And Hobbes, about that camera shop: it's not that I would need to find myself a new place to process my films. Like I have said: that is most easily and inexpensively done through the drugstore here in my village (no driving necessary for that, I can just go there by bike). But there's no shop anywhere near any longer that can sell me filters, external flashes (I was looking into one the other day, but the price is too high for right now, even with the reduction they now offer, since they are closing down), tripods and such ... and no shop to develop black and white films .


----------

