What's your best/worst/most embarrassing LF experience?

[James Phillips]

I went out on a cold winters day with a dozen film holders (no readyloads)and took a variety of shots. Froze my fingers and fogged the ground glass frequently but did the best that I could and kept shooting throughout the day. The next day I went into the darkroom and began to develop the film that I had exposed the weekend before. Much to my surprise the films were coming out clear. I went through another batch being extra careful, mixing new developer, and taking every precaution I could think of.

Same results with completely blank film. I decided to try developing the film I had shot the day before. The film developed but was very dense and seemed to have ghost or multiple images. Suddenly I realized what had happened. I had confused my film holders and instead of taking out the newly loaded holders the day before I had ruined most of both weekends shootings by shooting the same films twice.

[Matthew Runde]

Come to think of it, I do have a story involving large-format photography. Perhaps not as embarrassing as some of the other ones, but I'm certainly not that proud of it.

When I was just starting out in photography I used a manual-focus Nikon with a fairly soft lens. Around the time I learned how to preset the depth of field I became frustrated with the lack of sharpness of the lens and the format. I wanted a 4x5.

I saved for quite some time, and then spent a few thousand dollars on a Toyo 45AX, a Bogen 3036 tripod, a 90mm f/4.5 Nikkor SW, film holders, and film. The Toyo came with a free Sekonic L778 meter.

I may have been a bit intimidated by the stuff because I didn't make photos with it. Ever. Not a single one.

After about a year my photographic interests changed a bit and I sold it all for about half of what I had paid. I bought a Nikon N90s, an 80-200mm f/2.8 Nikkor, a smaller tripod, a bag, and some film, and I visited Paris.

Now, after a couple of years of using the N90s I am fed up with the small images that will look unsharp when I enlarge them. I am seriously considering buying another Toyo, another 90mm lens, a Quickload holder, and another bag. I would be thrilled to have the setup that I had before.

This time, however, I'm not selling the Nikon.

[Andre Noble]

I was trespassing on government property in Malibu, California, doing LF architectural assignment for school early one morning. A park ranger appeared in the distance, but I decided to continue shooting. I must have stay on the property shoot another 45 minutes, (LF ain't quick.) with ranger looking at me from distance. Just as I finished all the exposures, she approached me and questioned me. She then told me never to return or to face risk of arrest and forfeiture of my equipment if I did. I apologized profusely.

I left shaken, but content knowing I had the nerves to complete the job. Unfortunately, upon return to driver's seat of my vehicle I realized I hadn't the nerves of steel I thought. I discovered that I had, at some point during the shoot, shit in my pants!

[Tony Karnezis]

1. Bringing Quickloads but no Quickload holder.

2. Bringing my entire kit to a shoot...except the tripod.

3. Shooting with empty film holders.

4. Double exposing film.

5. While doing extreme macro work, I managed to slowly peel the bellows off the front standard. I didn't notice it until I was done shooting (of course).

6. In 35mm, I really like how quiet my Canon Elan 7 is. The film advance is even quieter when you forget to put film in it. I didn't realize it until I was done shooting (of course).

Give me time. I'll think of more.

[Randy Redford]

Several years ago, just after I first started shooting large format, my wife and I were out at Mt. Rainier National Park and I was shooting reflections of the moss-covered giant Douglas firs in some very still water.

Being new to large format, I was taking quite a while to compose the image just right under the dark cloth. I finally got the exact image I was looking for and was making a final check of the corners when the entire reflection broke up with little waves.

I stayed under the dark cloth and waited and watched until the reflection was back and was agian just pulling out from under the dark cloth when the waves started again. I started swearing and when my wife asked what was wrong, I yelled that I just couldn't get the pic that I wanted and was going to try one more time.

After about five more minutes, the waves stopped and I was again just pulling out of the dark when the waves again destroyed the reflections. I muttered something unprintable here, and jerked the dark cloth off the camera and the tripod out of the knee-deep water that it was standing in. I turned around with the tripod to leave, knowing that I was never going to get the shot when I see my wife standing on the shore tossing little rocks into the water just out of my field of view under the cloth -- she had gotten bored because I was taking so long to make the shot!

[Rob Tucher]

I had a job to photograph a bridge out in nowhere in Maryland. My wife had nothing to do so she came with me. We arrived at the bridge after a night in a nearby motel at 9am, I took out my Linhof, lenses, tripod, cloth, and vest with loupe, Polaroid back, Polaroid film, Readyloads, meter, computer, filters, and tools, set it all up, checked everything, and gave my wife the car key. She asked if I was sure I had everything. I checked again, said yes, put the vest down, gave her a hug, shut the trunk, and sent her on her way. She loves to shop and was going to a nearby town to find a mall so that I could have the whole day to myself to shoot everything about the bridge.

Just as she rounded the bend in the road I realized that I had put the vest down IN THE TRUNK and sent it off with her. I sprinted after her but she was gone. So I spent the whole day until dusk waiting for her to return. This was before I owned a cell phone, by the way.

[QT Luong]

The worst: I was photographing brown bear tracks along the shore of a lake in Katmai at sunrise, and suddently I noticed a brown bear just behind me. I did not have the thought to grab my equipment, and as I backed away, the bear played with my super trekker, taking apart each divider and rolling each piece of gear in the sand, as I stood watching, helpless. The most embarrassing: I made a 4x5 group photo at my own wedding, but in the rush forgot to remove the dark slide.

[kthompson]

I've had a few of these types of things happen to me, and have witnessed a few as well....my first major goof was early on in college...I was shooting an architectural shot of a building that was one of those split exposures--where you expose in daylight the building, and then wait until dusk to complete the exposure (a double exposure really) so you get this nice shot of the builing with full detail & basking in the lights at dusk with the sunset of course!....ah, so I do the first exposure and then wait & wait for dusk to come, and do the second shot....I close the shutter & am feeling pretty good about it all and then realize I forgot to pull the darkslide....ahh....too bad it was the night before the assignment was due! Learned a good one there.

I also had a string of crap jobs after school loading holders and doing general schlep work at studios...one of my jobs was to load holders for hours on end...and then off-load more holders...hundreds of sheets of film....you'd get all spaced out in the loading room doing this zombie work. I told one of the first assistants that I had this anxiety that was driving me crazy, making me double-check everything, that I was gonna forget to load a sheet or something....so a couple of days later this guy slips in an empty holder into the shot box...and tells me to unload this huge stack....I almost passed out in the loading room when I hit that empty holder....and sheepishly came out to fess up....the owners started chewing me out for a few minutes and then they all started laughing....hardee har harrrrr!!!! I guess this would be a good story actually, because I never did miss a holder, and haven't to this day...knock on wood here....

[Edsel Adams]

How about the time I the wind knocked my Cambo 4x5 over into a roaring mountain stream in front of 30 school kids that happened by on a class field trip.One of whom asked me,"Mister did you mean to do that"? Marflex charged over $100 to wring out the water from my lens! Dont ever turn your back on a tripod mounted camera in any wind!

[Ellis Vener]

Best? just about every time I get film back and see that everything worked as I wanted it too and that the result surpasses my expectations.

Worst? Arriving on a location and realizing I had forgotten something small but critical.

Some days 9today is one of those days) it seems like the most embarrasssing I did was decide to be a commercial photographer in the first place.