About 15 years ago, the only way you could see the pictures you took was to take the entire roll of film to your local drugstore — or if you really want to date back, a Fotomat — to have them developed by a photo-lab employee. This is the conceit of this Ask Reddit thread, which poses the question: “People who have developed film, what is the most shocking thing you have ever seen on a customer’s camera?” As long as the contents weren’t illegal or violated company policy, back in the day, you pretty much had to develop whatever a customer brought in.
With the advances in technology over the past decade or so, the need to pick up embarrassing pictures has been mostly eliminated, although there were still a few that involved digital printing or kiosks. We’ve sorted through some of the best, but if you want to get lost for a few hours, check out the complete thread.
Had a mother come in and develop a roll she found in a drawer — it was some family pics and about 11 of her teenage son getting head from some chick.
Like pretty much everyone else is saying, nude pics happen pretty often.
I did see a pic of a middle-aged balding man (definitely not on the lower end of the weight spectrum) attempting to shove an apple into his rectum. Like, out of all the fruit, an apple?
Apparently some guy came in and pleaded with my coworker telling him that he needed these pictures out as soon as possible and that he’ll be back in an hour or so to pick them up. So my coworker decided to develop pictures. That’s when he realized all of the photos were just snaps of sh*t. Like sh*t on the toilet, sh*t in the grass, sh*t on a chair, just sh*t. Obviously the guy didn’t come back and my coworker was f*cking livid.
Worked as a custom black-and-white printer. Saw lots of nudity, but the weirdest thing I saw was when I was putting together a large order of old family pictures. Lots of pictures of children growing up through the 50’s and 60’s. About halfway through the order I realized one of the children was Sigourney Weaver.
I worked at Ritz camera around 2000. One day a woman came in with a cop and explained that she had a roll of film with her stillborn baby on it. Cop was there to verify it wasn’t illegal. She was beyond nervous . .. she asked if I could make it look like the baby was alive. The stillborn pics were bluish grey so I did what I could to “warm it up” since Ritz guaranteed the best colors possible. She was thankful, I took the next day off and the cop came back later to explain that the woman lost her uterus due to some complication during the birth. The lady just wanted to remember her only chance at having a kid.
Did 1-hour photo at a drug store. Weirdest roll: Nine shots of Christmas with the family, five shots of two girls shaving each others’ pubic hair in a bathtub, then the rest of the roll was back to Christmas with the family.
The weirdest ones I saw involved a middle-aged couple who either owned a million pets, or got friends to lend them pets for awkward photo shoots. They came in every week with a new set to develop — cats in football uniforms, guinea pigs with glasses, etc. One time I developed a photo shoot of a bunch of lizards dressed like cowboys in front of a cardboard box colored to look like an old Western. Weird stuff.
A 360-degree view of a naked girl on her knees. It was relatively softcore, but I thought it was so odd that the dude had shot 24 photos in a circle around her.
I worked for a Walgreens photo lab for a couple of years. By far the worst was a series of pictures that this old man came in to get developed. All of them were a close up of his junk, with a giant key chain (think janitors keys) tied to a rope hanging off his penis. All of the pictures were of him swinging it around like he was trying to make his dick a clock.
A murder scene. I worked at a grocery store in the lobby, so I developed a lot of film. This was a picture of a man laying in bed missing the majority of his head, next to a shotgun. We called the police and they waited for the person to pick the film up; he was actually a detective and needed it processed right away so he gave it to me knowing full well what was on it, instead of using the police lab. I was young and it was probably one of the worst things I have seen.
I was a Head Photo Specialist for Walgreens in college. We sold a reusable “disposable” camera that would get loaded with film for free every time they brought it in for 1 hour processing. Two young girls were with an older man and they brought in a camera for development. The pictures began innocent enough, but around 10 images in they became very graphic. I immediately covered the drying rack and alerted my store manager. One look at the images and he had the local PD on the phone. About an hour later the girls came in to pick up their images and the police stepped in to speak with them. The older man was in the car waiting so another officer went outside and brought him in. Turns out the man was one of the girls’ father and while he was working his daughter and her best friend decided to do their best to mimic images they found browsing the internet. The images and negatives were destroyed and the girls were given a lesson on how dangerous this could have been for them (and the father).
This one here probably best sums the whole thing up, however:
A lot of people having sex. Had some guy print out dick pics. Lol people are weird.