# Anyone remember this? Old-school photo processing: private photos on display to public **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 11, 2018, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-remember-this-old-school-photo-processing-private-photos-on-display-to-public/813997 "2018-05-11T15:54:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2018, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-remember-this-old-school-photo-processing-private-photos-on-display-to-public/813997/1 "2018-05-11T15:54:15Z")
I have memories, as a kid, of walking past a film-processing storefront at a shopping mall and seeing photo prints on display on a conveyor belt behind a window as they came out of, presumably, the photo processing machine. This would have been in the mid-80s, and it struck me as strange at the time, as a little kid, that the store would be publicly displaying private photos, and it’s still quite bizarre to me now. I want to say it was Woolworth’s or a pharmacy chain or something like that, but I’m just WAG-ing. Anyways, were these really people’s private photos, or were they just generic photos for advertising purposes? Am I imagining this, or does anyone else remember this practice or something like it? ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2018, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-remember-this-old-school-photo-processing-private-photos-on-display-to-public/813997/2 "2018-05-11T15:55:15Z")
I remember that. I thought it was just how they developed pictures at those places, no?