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Photographers Divulge The Strangest Images They've Developed For People

Photographers Divulge The Strangest Images They've Developed For People

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Back in the day, photographs had to be developed in labs, which means the people developing them got to see the images. And if you think smartphones and the internet gave birth to the weird and the naked, think again. Kids today will also never know the smell of film stores, which, if you remember, was amazing.

whats-that-s**t asked, People who used to develop photos for complete strangers as a job. What was the weirdest photo you developed?

Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity.

Do people think developers don't look at their pictures?

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My best friend worked in the photo lab of a supermarket we both worked at during high school.

A police officer mixed up two rolls of film he had - one being his family vacation photos and the other being photos from work (gunshot suicide victim). That messed her up a bit.

Just the way the Lordt intended.

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I developed church directory photos. So many old guys standing behind their wives holding the wife's chest. Not even kidding.

Always, always look at the background in pictures.

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Posted this before so it may sound familiar. My dad isn't a career photographer but he's super into is as a hobby. He has the fancy, bulky camera with the expensive lenses and lights. He has basically professional grade equipment as a hobbyist. One of his co-workers was getting married and asked my dad to be a photographer along with a professional one they had hired. He went, took pictures with the proper angles and all that then went home to edit and send them out to his co-worker and guests.

He was editing a photo of the bride and groom dancing and was doing some kind of low light balancing in the background when he noticed something...inappropriate going on in the background. Between the bride and groom were the dinner tables in the background. A couple tables back, in the low, shadowy light of the photo, was a woman pleasing a guy underneath the table. My dad was at just the right angle when taking the photo.

Imagine being this passionate about trolleys.

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The trolley man. Once a week a middle-aged man would come in to have the photos on his SD card digitally printed. It was always photos of out of commission train cars. Anywhere in the neighborhood of 500-1000 photos each week of different trolleys. Figured it was a hobby of his that he enjoyed, but to drop $50 weekly on photos of trains stuck me as odd. To each their own though.

To be fair, Taco Bell is beautiful.

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Not me, but my buddy worked as a photo tech the summer before we left for college. He said about once every two weeks this guy would come in and get photos developed of Taco Bell products. Like, really nicely arranged on his dining room table.

Anything can be sexy if you try hard enough.

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I worked in a 1-hour photo lab in an Eckerd in the early 00s. We went through every picture that was dropped off and color corrected them so I saw EVERYTHING. One of my favorites was a picture of this larger woman in a mauve, velour mini dress posing on her hands and knees atop an HVAC unit behind her ratty looking duplex. It was so weird. Of all of the strange places to take "sexy" photos, that would not be the first choice.

I saw lots of other bizarre and random things in my 2 years there. Naked people, bizarre houses, dead people, the inside of chicken processing plants (which when taken with disposable cameras looked like something out of horror movies). There were lots of people who were regulars and so I basically had a rather voyeuristic view into the best moments of their life. It was an interesting job.

Some Avant Garde art best left to its devices.

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Weird is all about perspective. I managed a supermarket minilab 20 years ago when 35mm was still king. I loved it. *trigger warning*

One that stands out was a series from an art student. There was a 1950's subversive series of quiet desperation. She did black and whites, dressed in a vintage housewife outfit, complete with the hairstyle... and had her head in the oven to mimic suicide. There was another with the perfect housewife suicide by toaster in the bathtub image.

She did a Betty Page series, too.

Well, this is embarrassing.

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When I was in high school I briefly worked at the One Hour Photo at my local Target store.

For the most part nothing too weird, except for one guy who dropped off a disposal camera filled with close up pictures of his "bulge" in different pairs of underwear. He never came back in to pick up the photos.

"A 12-month calendar made of their friend passed out at parties." Genius.

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I worked at a Ritz years ago right around the time they started to disappear. There are really so many standouts. Some bros got a 12-month calendar made of their friend passed out at parties.

There was a guy who always came in with multiple rolls of normal family photos but one time the last picture was him reclining nude on a couch with cans of beer surrounding him as he gazed into the camera. I removed the red-eye for him and I don't know if he ever noticed. It's really a thankless job.

There were some bondage rolls on occasion dropped off by the most mild-mannered man but they were, like, VERY amateur snuff film style with this big giant cowboy and lots of strangers coming and going from the scene. I never saw the cowboy in real life; only in the photos.

I imagine there were a lot of questions.

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Slightly different perspective, but a few years ago one of my college roommates found two disposable cameras that had never been developed. We finally had the pictures made up about ~15 years after they were taken. Apart from a lot of group shots and alcohol, there was this one particular photo of a man and woman eating cereal at our dinner table completely naked. None of us have any idea who they were.

This is why you have strangers develop your photos.

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Last summer I scanned a boxful of my grandparents' old negatives. There was a whole roll of my grandma posing naked in the woods and by a lake... I remember every time I hear from my grandparents. (shudders). Maybe that's why people get strangers to deal with their pictures...

Imagine the inconvenience of having to pay to develop your nudes.

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I worked at a one hour photo back in the day.

So many penises. So. Many. Penises.

Even the eggplant meme isn't new.

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My mom worked in a photo lab years ago and these are the worst things she saw...

An infected penis piercing.

Jesus was supervising the preparation of the car.

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Worked in a photo lab for almost 10 years, lots of weird ones. My favorite was a guy who dropped off a standard 24 roll. The first 12 pictures were of an older car that he was restoring, in various angles and lighting. He had a portrait of Jesus that he kept moving so that it was in the bottom of each picture. The other 12 photos were of him having sex with his girlfriend in the car. The portrait of Jesus was not in those pictures.

Brought something hard to be developed...

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Not a developer but worked in a pharmacy that had photo service. This hot guy came in every week with rolls of pictures for development. One day I could not stand any more suspense...and peeked.

They were core sample photos.

Gets weirder...5 years later we move to a diff state. Guess who was our new next door neighbor? LOL. Geologists.

Must have been one special shoe.

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Saw all the normal stuff. Intentional nudes, peephole stuff, party scenes, or could just be fooling around.

The strangest? Had a guy who came in with an entire roll of a woman's shoe. Like 36 pictures of one single woman's shoe. Staged. Backdrop. The works.

Two identical goats stare into the camera while standing in a field.
Photo by Jørgen Håland

When discussing love and relationships, the motto is usually less is more.

But what if there is more of one partner?

Being involved with identical twins can be quite the experience.

Can you really tell them apart?

Is everything identical?

If you're attracted to one, aren't you automatically attracted to the other?

So many questions.

Now we need some answers.

Redditor nicknamesofdaveryder wanted to hear about love and the twin experience, so they asked:

"Redditors who married someone with an identical twin sibling, why are you glad you're not with the other twin instead?"

I've never met a lot of twins, let alone gotten involved with a pair.

I have questions.

Hopefully I get some answers.

Saved

Comedy Central Wink GIF by Drunk HistoryGiphy

"My late husband's twin was a non-functioning alcoholic and my husband wasn’t. My husband says joining the navy was what saved him from going down that road."

iteachag5

Falling Asleep

"Story time! I am an identical twin (we still look so much alike!) and one night I spent the night at her house. She and I fell asleep in the same bed because we were up late talking, etc. Her husband slept on the couch. The next morning my twin went to take a shower and her husband laid down on the bed with me (thinking it was her of course). I jokingly said 'Hey sailor, looking for a little variety?' He shot off the bed and said 'If I was looking for variety, do you think I'd choose you??'"

tanyagal2

The Good Guy And The Other One

"I didn't marry him but I dated an identical twin. His twin's girlfriend and I used to joke around that she got the evil twin. He was just a selfish, messed-up person. One of the benefits of breaking up with my boyfriend was no longer having his twin in my life. Plus, his ex gf and I are still great friends! The good guy was just the lesser evil. She wanted to get as far away from that family as I did. The best thing to come out of those relationships was our friendship."

super-ro

Love Wins

"My dad's an identical twin. People have a hard time distinguishing them, but to my mom and me, they look like two completely different people because of the way they walk/talk/etc. Obviously, my mom only fell in love with this one person. When you love someone it's actually pretty easy to tell identical twins apart."

michaelsgavin

Issues

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"The other twin has the same personality as I do. We argue readily and are super competitive with each other. We butt heads on a lot of issues."

why_not_send_a_nude

Personality clashes aren't just a twin thing.

It's a human thing.

We can't help ourselves.

Different People

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"I work with a guy who married an identical triplet, one of the triplets also works with us. I asked him one day if it was weird working with someone who looked just like his wife. He got a little pissed and basically said they are all very different people and he doesn't see much of his wife in her."

LeafMeAlone_99

He's Evil

"We’re not married but known each other since we were 12 and have been together 3 and a half years. His twin is a massive di**head who tried to break us up multiple times, was madly in love with me in his own words, and after 2 years of pursuing me declared I was a terrible person and put him through hell. Because I didn’t break up with his TWIN BROTHER to date him."

xMollyP

Life Choices

"My husband and his twin brother look very different to me, although they are identical and get mistaken for one another all the time. They couldn’t be more different in terms of personality. They have different values and life goals, hobbies, one is introverted and the other is extroverted. If they were two people who didn’t look alike, I would automatically not be attracted to my brother-in-law simply because we are not remotely compatible personality-wise."

"Also they have very different styles. I do not find the way my husband’s twin dresses/grooms his hair attractive. It’s so wild to me when people can’t tell them apart because they couldn’t be more different in my eyes."

lanieeeeeeee

Opposites

"Well, my wife and I have been together for 30 years. She has a 'mirror' twin. Even now, if you don’t know them well or interact frequently you will not be able to tell them apart. They are complete opposites. I married the extrovert, she has never met a stranger, will try anything at least once, and can find a positive aspect in almost everything she encounters, they are also best friends, my wife drags her sister along all the time."

"Once she’s out she enjoys our activities. I love my SIL, all three of them, but so glad I married the one like me. The mirror part even goes for looks, when I see my wife’s reflection I see my SIL, it’s weird sometimes. Also, attitude and personality are everything, I have never been 'attracted' to her twin."

redbonecouchhound

The Look

Sexy Damon Wayans Jr GIF by Global TVGiphy

"I used to date an identical twin. Although I found his brother objectively handsome, I wasn't attracted to him at all. It was cool to directly experience how attraction goes far beyond just the looks."

Liatessa

I've never been intrigued by twins, and now I never will be.

confused man in blue t-shirt

Sander Sammy on Unsplash

My Father was considered a genius.

At 16 he graduated high school as Valedictorian, joined the United States Navy as soon as he turned 17 then was promptly recruited by Admiral Hyman Rickover's team converting the Navy from diesel to nuclear power.

He served as a nuclear and electrical engineer on naval vessels after the conversion project ended, then as a reactor inspector for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission after retiring from the Navy.

He also needed a full time babysitter in order to survive. Things like paying bills, buying groceries, feeding himself all escaped him. He lacked any semblance of common sense.

Really smart people doing very unsmart things isn't uncommon.

And sometimes a person is labeled a genius who's really an idiot with good brand marketing.

Keep reading...Show less

Corporations don't get big overnight.

A lot of tough decisions, big wins, and sometimes even bigger losses, go into their growth.

But sometimes companies make mistakes that the public simply cannot let slide, and it can be hard to imagine how the company could stay afloat after the backlash.

Redditor Astro_Shogun asked:

"What decision by a company received the most amount of backlash from the public?"

Dang It, Photobucket

"When Photobucket decided to take the whole internet hostage by asking for 400 dollars a year for what was previously a free image storage solution. The move broke years of forum posting and erased a significant portion of the web collective knowledge."

- denpo

"Yup. And now they're holding almost all of my son's childhood photos (some of which I managed to save in other places) hostage."

- KnockMeYourLobes

"Browse any forum thread from the early 2000s and practically all the images are gone because everyone used Photobucket back then. It will be the same way with Reddit whenever Imgur goes under."

- NothingOld7527

So Salesy

"JCPenny doing away with sales and trying to present itself as a more upscale store. Sales immediately plummeted, and they reversed course quickly."

- flyingcircusdog

Cheap Jewelry

"Gerald Ratner said the reason his jewelry company could sell stuff so cheap was because the products were crap. It destroyed the company overnight."

- simplemtbman

Front Wheel Drive

"Ford, in the '80s, tried to replace the aging Fox body Mustang with a front-wheel drive, Mazda-based car. This was pre-internet, but car people got UPSET and deluged Ford with a letter expressing their anger."

"Ford backtracked, kept the Fox body around, and released the vehicle that was going to be the new Mustang as the Probe. It lasted two generations, but the Mustang soldiers on."

- StillN0tATony

Online Only

"Microsoft got roasted when they announced Kinect and always-online were required for the Xbox One. Took all the momentum they had from the 360 era and put them miles behind Sony."

- Jerry_Williams89

Childhood: Destroyed

"Sonic having human teeth."

- LightDash

"I just immediately pictured teeth in a Sonic milkshake and had a horrified reaction before my brain caught up to you meaning the character."

- Rolizas

Questionable Upgrades

"Very recently, T-Mobile. A company that 10 years ago called itself the Uncarrier by making a series of pro-consumer changes to its plans and the previous CEO built almost a sort of cult of fans of the company. Then T-Mobile acquired Sprint and got a new CEO."

"A couple of weeks ago, T-Mobile internal documentation revealed it was going to automatically upgrade customers on old grandfathered plans up to new plans, which were more expensive. Customers would have to call in to opt out of the change. 'They weren’t raising customers’ rates, they were moving them to better plans.'"

"Well, major tech news got ahold of that, and then even some local news stations, and T-Mobile quietly 'clarified' a week later via internal communications that only one percent of their customers would be affected."

- artimaticus8

Coming Together in Hate

"Anyone remember the Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad when she solved police brutality?"

- vernon3

"Those moments are precious. There are a few things these days that bring everyone on the Internet together. That was one of those things. We all hated the Pepsi ad that solved police brutality."

"That ad had it all. Pandering, ignorance, arrogance, and talking down to their audience."

- notwoutmyprob

"And a Kardashian."

- Kitchen_action

With Every Purchase

"I couple of years back a local Detroit area car dealership decided the best way to celebrate MLK day was to give away free car alarms with every purchase."

"Nobody liked that."

- graveybrains

A Sale Gone Too Well

"Hoover UK offering two free flights to America if you spend £100 on their products. They anticipated that people would spend a lot more than the minimum required which would cover the approximately £600 value of the tickets."

"When the company was deluged with purchases around the £100 mark, they reneged on the offer, which prompted a very expensive lawsuit. The fallout was so bad that the UK division of the firm was sold to a rival company."

- Live-Dance-2641

New Drink, Who Dis?

"New Coke."

- PeggyWithPhatA**

"After the relations disaster, the public clamored for the decision to be reversed, and Coca-Cola released 'Coke Classic.'"

"Coke Classic soon had an even higher market share than Coke did before the public relations fiasco, and a new theory made the rounds: that Coca-Cola deliberately made these decisions, simply to gain publicity, and increase market share."

"The reaction from Coca-Cola’s executives was, 'We aren’t that smart, and we aren’t that stupid.'"

- Malthus1

A Tweet Turned Sexist

"Burger King stating that 'Women Belong in the Kitchen.' What they were TRYING to say was that they wanted more diversity. People didn't see it that way, and in the end, they had to issue an apology."

- zerbey

The Downfall of an Incredible Publication

"Here’s one there should be a public outcry about."

"Disney bought National Geographic and controls everything it does. This is the last year the iconic magazine will be available. I’m incensed."

- redheadMInerd2

(The writer of this article is equally incensed.)

Predicting the Future

"I feel like whatever YouTube is cooking up lately will be the next one."

- Just_Aioli_1233

"Tech companies sure know how to kill off highly popular and profitable apps, super quick. It’s interesting to watch it happen in real-time. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, all losing tons of followers and destroying their own stock."

- Eleanor_of_Accutane

It's easy to see how all of these mistakes resulted in huge backlash, sometimes at the total expense and downfall of the business.

But some of these mistakes were made by companies that are still huge today, and to a certain extent, that's kind of surprising.