“Many years ago I worked the night photolab shift at a Walgreens. I saw more than my fair share of sex, boobs and general things you would expect someone to bring in at 2am to be ran. But the most memorable was a guy that worked at a local strip club. He came in every 2 or 3 weeks with several rolls shot of stage shows and in the dressing room of all the girls. He would wait on them to get done then stand there at the counter going through them trying to show them to me”

“Old lady would bring in a disposable camera about once every 2 weeks. 95% of the pictures were of the TV. She would see something she wanted to buy off of the home shopping network, and wanted to remember to get it later…so she took a screenshot.”

“Worked at the Wal-Mart photo lab circa 2006. It was actually a really chill job and I saw my fair share of weird nudity and even a woman in a fancy hotel room with a towel folded in the shape of a cobra going up her hoo-ha. However, by far the weirdest thing I’ve ever experienced was a roll of film that had all of these awesome dynamic action shots of this one dude. It was him diving into water from tall rocks, sky diving, dirt bike riding, etc. He was doing all of these amazing things and I was getting so jealous, but also excited to talk about this with him when he came in (I liked to have a relationship with the cool customers) But then I got to the end of the roll of film…. It was him. In a casket. He had died. I never found out how it happened or anything but it was just one of those shocking moments that sticks with you. I didn’t expect him to be dead after watching him live his life to the fullest like that.”

“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).”

“I was unlucky enought to develop child porn once. We called the cops of course who required copies and instructed us to package the film as normal and call them after the customer came in for their pictures. When they came in it was tense and they opened their pics and flipped through them like nothing was unusual. Super creepy. No idea what came of it other than 1 angry phone call from the customer about us “getting their name on a list again”. Never heard from or saw them again. Also, these were regular customers wed known for years. And the pics were of their children.”

“Did 1 hr photo at a drug store. Weirdest roll: 9 shots of Christmas with the family, 5 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.”

“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. Also! Pictures from a bachelor party. The party went sound, people were covered in vomit, there were strippers. I did about 500 double takes while processing that one.”

“Back in 1990 I was 16 and I worked for a privately owned one hour photo in a truck stop. My boss was known for developing anything people brought in (except child porn and bestiality, which were illegal) and so I saw a lot of homemade porn when I was 16. This was before the internet and I was just a naive young girl. It was really bizarre for me. My favorites was this skanky couple in their 50s and they always brought in pictures of themselves having sex while smoking crack. Usually it would be her giving him head while he smoked a crack pipe. He had a large purple head on his d–k. He was not circumcised. It was pretty shocking. Then in 1995 I got on the internet and nothing was shocking after that.”

“Had a mother come in and develop a roll she found in a drawer, it was some family pics and the about 11 of her teenage son getting head from some chick.”

“Well, other than tits and d–ks, I developed film for some older lady whose 50 year old son went missing. They found his body in a field 8 days afterwards and even though it wasn’t his actual body it was of where his body was in the picture. Think of a snow angel but in a patch of tall grass and completely black and bloody. It also turned out I was the last person to see this guy alive (I sold him batteries). Oddly enough, this lady thinks that her other son killed him. So I’m not sure what about it was more shocking, the fact that it was a photo from a crime scene or the fact that I saw this dude the night he got murdered. I should clarify, I was the last person to see him alive in a public place based on security cameras and his credit card statements since that is what police said. News article said he was last seen at a restaurant dropping his brother off but I’m curious as to what the timeline was.”

“Let’s see the miracle of birth several times, nude girl in a field (she was the one who dropped off the film and was attractive), unattractive woman in sexual poses like exposing herself (digital on a kiosk so other people would have seen them as she made the order)…. That’s about it, no child porn though I do know the handling procedure. Mostly, especially with digital, you pretend not to notice something embarrassing (sucking a dildo for example) while helping a customer.”

“This story is about a former co-worker of mines. I used to work at a big health store, some of the stores can develop pictures. We usually deny requests to develop pictures near closing because it would be too time consuming as we have other closing duties. Apparently some guy came in and pleaded with my co worker telling him that he needed these pictures out as soon as possible and that he’ll be back in a hour or so to pick them up. So my co worker decided to develop pictures. That’s when he realized all of the photos were just snaps of f–king 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 co worker was f–king livid. Hands down the funniest thing a co worker has told me, I still give him sh-t about it when I come in to visit.”

“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”

“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 work at a 1 hour photo lab. Some lady printed out pictures of her infant son’s circumcision. That one was probably the most shocking to me.”

“Kinda Related: My dad’s friend (dale) lives in Colorado and he has a cabin in the mountains. Well he had gotten his hunting license taken away, so my dad asks him why he had it taken away. So Dale says that there was a bear breaking into cabins nearby and was a potential danger to the people living there. So long story short Dale shoots the bear out of season and is caught, he was caught by the women developing photos. The judge says to Dale ‘I probably would have let you go if there wasn’t these pictures of the bear’ and there were multiple pictures of the bear sitting at a card table with a hat on, cigarette in its mouth, sunglasses on, beer in paw, with a deck of cards.”

“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. Possibly it was a suicide scene, but it was a large shotgun, so I’m not sure if you could have reached the trigger yourself. Also lots of nudity, most of which you don’t want to see.”

“A man came in with a few cans of 8mm film to be processed and digitized. It was something he’d ‘had in the attic since the 70s, I think they belonged to my dad and he recently passed away’ and was curious as to what was on them. He came in with his wife and kids and was full of anticipation and nostalgia. Most reels we got at this processing company were Christmas or holiday videos full of happy times long forgotten. I processed the reels, and then captured the footage onto the computer. I then knew I had a difficult conversation to have and started trying to figure out what to say. Instead of a happy family home movie with his dad and the family bringing back warm memories, there were 4 reels of his dad, handlebar mustache, shell suit, wanking furiously on the bonnet of a Ford Capri. The next day, his beaming son turned up with the family to collect the reels. Normally we play a section back in the studio just to show them its all worked and they’re happy with the quality but I just had to take him aside and say. ‘You might not want to show the family this’. Childhood ruined, he’d discovered a film of his dad wanking in the attic.”