Images of mistakes - good or bad..

[GabrielSeri]

Joshua Tree I went with my "new" Kodak 2D 5x7, went to my favorite spot in the park, I thought I had the shot of the weekend but I foolishly didn't put the holder in all the way. It took me a while to figure out what I did wrong, but that was the issue. Still kills me, I need to reshoot it soon.

Kodak 2D 5x7 Ilford FP4 Fujinon 250mm F/6.3

[Scott Walker]

I don't even have an image for this one. I just developed some film and ended up with nothing......maybe a little base fog but who cares. Seems I pulled a new bottle of fixer out instead of DDX. We need a smiley for pulling your hair out.

[tgtaylor]

Here's one that didn't quite make it:



Although I feel that the composition is right, the shutter speed wasn't fast enough to freeze the wave and the fog drifting in on the left is distracting. The printing also isn't up to par: the rockx on the left and right are bleeding out into the margin.

I shot this a couple of days ago and went back to reshoot it but those negatives are still in the holders awaiting development which I'll do in a couple of days when I have a few more to process.

Toyo 45AX
150mm Lens
Kodak 160NC
Fuji CA

Thomas

[Lon Overacker]

Great thread. Is this like a confessional? Oops, sorry, please disregard the reference...

Recently returned from a great trip to the Sierra and the Sonora Pass with Harley and Preston although they may disavow any association with me. I had perhaps my most mistake laden outing in 20 years. Double-exposures are easy, I did that twice on this trip. How many can say they did this THREE TIMES in one outing? Made a side trip to the ghost town of Bodie. What do you do in the middle of the day in Bodie? shoot doors, windows and reflections. I took great care to square up my images with big rear swings, front shift and even checking for coverage and blocking bellows. All that to keep the camera and tripod out of the reflection while correcting perspective. Not once, not twice, but THREE times, I then proceeded to STAND IN the reflection when exposing the film. I present the blue-shirt evidence:







Finally realized what the F I was doing and got out of the way:



To complete the list of screw ups:
- pulled darkslide from wrong side of holder, the one by the GG.
- pulled darkslide part way up while lens still open
- thought lens was on B for a 4s exposure, instead it was on 1s. Thought I would add 3 seconds - wrong, things move.
- dropped 300mm Nikkor face first - Fortunately, it landed on pine straw/soft dirt. no damage
- Left dark cloth in Bodie. Made 110 mile round trip 2 days later and retrieved it - right where I left it.
- other minor stuff like not checking film speed or considering bellows extension.

Other than that, had a great time in Bodie and Sierra.

Lon

[atlcruiser]

Wow Lon....sound slike a normal day for me. The 3rd image is very nice....... that is the sort of self protrait one could never plan for

[George Kara]

What is interesting in many of the images is that I don't perceive the photographers opinion of mistakes. This simply shows that the creator of an image doesn't own its ultimate meaning. Some of these "mistakes" appear to be very sophisticated manipulation of the medium. I guess you all should pretend to be artsy-fartsy and say it was the original intention of the artist.

[yeknom02]

Nothing much to say here.. a decent landscape ruined by the fact that I didn't put the lid of my tank on correctly while trying to do the 'taco' method.



I've also had some Fuji Polaroids ruined by putting the film holder in backwards, but of course I didn't keep those to scan in.

[Brian Ellis]

Joshua Tree I went with my "new" Kodak 2D 5x7, went to my favorite spot in the park, I thought I had the shot of the weekend but I foolishly didn't put the holder in all the way. It took me a while to figure out what I did wrong, but that was the issue. Still kills me, I need to reshoot it soon.

Kodak 2D 5x7 Ilford FP4 Fujinon 250mm F/6.3

Nice photograph, too bad. I'm sure you're familiar with a couple basic principles of photography, taught on the first day of any beginning photography course. The first is that when you make a mistake like that it will always be on the best photograph. The second is that if you go back to reshoot, the subject never looks as good as it did on the day when you made the mistake.

[Robert Hughes]

No image - this weekend I was loading up the last of my HP5 into film holders, then opened my dark bag to see a couple freshly exposed film sheets smiling up at me. I had been storing them post exposure in the HP5 box, but was distracted by conversation and had forgotten all about them. Oh well, so it goes...

[mikezvi]

I don't even really know whats going on here on the right here, but it doesn't matter because of all my hamhanded fingerprints :/