I've always thought that would be interesting job. Looking at people's most private moments through their pictures...Imagine all the stuff you could probably see.
I was just wondering if anyone here ever worked in a photo lab or knew someone who did and they had any stories to tell.
I've always thought that would be interesting job. Looking at people's most private moments through their pictures...Imagine all the stuff you could probably see.
I never worked in a photo lab, but for a while I worked as a bookkeeper and teller at a small town bank. This was back when your cancelled checks were actually returned to you with your bank statement, and part of my job was sorting and filing each day's incoming checks by account number. As a result, I saw what a lot of my friends and neighbors were spending money on. I never divulged details outside the bank; there are very strict federal laws for banking privacy, and a bank employee who blabs about a customer's transactions without the customer's authorization can end up in very deep trouble, very quickly. But I certainly saw what people were up to.
Was it interesting? No. Most people's lives are pretty routine and boring. I'd see a lot of payroll checks; payments for credit card, phone, and utility bills; rent and mortgage payments; et cetera. And when you have to sort and file a big stack of checks in a short amount of time, you don't have time to ponder the significance of each one, and when you're seeing the same type of payments day after day, in about a week you stop caring at all. Sure, the fact that Mr. X has an unusually high phone bill is important to him, but to me it was just another piece of paper to go into its appropriate file.
What would Sy see? A bunch of ordinary photos of people he didn't know, et cetera. That photo that a customer took at her college reunion of her best friend ever means a lot to her, but to Sy it would be just another middle aged woman smiling into a camera.
Or let me put it another way. Have you ever had to sit through a forty-five minute slide show of some stranger's vacation pictures? Pretty boring, huh? Now, imagine sitting through a few dozen such shows every day ... ugh.
Hi all, I have to disagree with the previous poster.
I was actually the under manager of a small but mega busy photo shop selling all the usual stuff, frames, albums, film, and developing all the photos onsite, doing exactly the same as Sy.....even working on near enough the same lab as his.
Oh man, it was the only job I ever had where I looked forward to getting up in the morning & going to. There was only 3 of us that worked there so I mostly worked alone which I loved even more I did it for about 7yrs & let me tell you it was never ever boring. I worked there when disposable cameras & 135mm film were at the height of popularity and because we were the only photo shop which did 1hr developing we just never stopped, I absolutely loved it!
I think that's why the film intrigues me so much, everything to do with the photo developing was very accurate....although we didn't have a posh & clean looking developing area as Sy had lol.
The part were Sy says something like....the woman who only takes pics of her cat, the amateur porn bloke, the new parents etc, oh, that part is so true.
The funny thing was is that most customers didn't realise we actually had to check every photo so we saw everything.....and I did end up seeing EVERYTHING POSSIBLE!
One incident I will never forget is a newly wed local couple who had just had a baby. The girl was really nice, the bloke was a major turd. They would come in together to drop off their rolls, nothing unusual.
Then he would come in the next day alone & drop more film off, that film was of him & another bloke having sex, chilling in bed, kissing, holding hands.
The poor missus obviously had no clue & he had no clue that I knew. But stuff like that was confidential, so just had to smile & be polite.
I have so many shocking tales like that!
So to answer the OP's question, yes, it was an amazing job to have, every day was different & interesting, unfortunately days like that are gone now due to digital. x
I used to have my own darkroom and I still use a lot of film, but these days I send it away to Kodak to be developed.
"The 21st century is all flash but no substance." ~ Smog City
I worked in a Walgreens photo lab for a while. Yes, you do see some very personal photos sometimes.
I did like to look through people’s photos before I put them in the envelope. If I ever saw a picture of someone obviously drunk, half naked or engaged in some sexual act, I’d place it on top of the stack so it’d be the first photo they saw when they’d pick up their order. And they’d know I’d seen it. Haha