My female friend wants me to take tasteful nude pictures of her. She wants to use a polaroid that develop automatically but I’d rather use my nice Canon camera. Neither of us have a digital camera.
Question is, where can I get these developed without worrying about them ending up on the internet somwhere, or making sure that if they are developed that they all get back to us.
She lives in Milwaukee. Is there a mail-order place anyone would suggest? What about places like Wal-Mart or Target? Do they develop right on site, or are they shipped off somewhere? If they are developed, are they looked at by anyone, or is it all automatic??
I have friends who work at Walmart and they tell me that they regularly have people come in with rolls of film that it is Walmart policy not to print.
Beyond that, they refuse to return the negatives also. They tell me that, at least at this one store, they are supposed to distroy the negatives.
However, they also tell me that two things have happened with other individuals working at the photo lab in Walmart (not to them, of course). 1.) Occasionally, for an “extra” fee this or that photo can slip through (surprise, surprise). I was told that avoiding this was one of the the reasons for always having more than one individual on duty at the lab (the theory being that one individual will police the other). 2.) Some of the photos have found there way to the internet and to some raunchy magazines (even the destroyed photos have found their way there).
My friends have one major suggestion to avoid these problems. “Go digital!”
They say that they are more than willing to sell you any number of digital cameras.
If you lived in Montreal you’d be sitting pretty, as the gay sex shop Priape (Beaudry metro) has got a discreet photo developing service that I’ve used myself on more than one occasion. You may wish to check out your local gay or red-light district to find out whether similar services exist.
Look in any counter culture publication that you have in your area. There is always at least one place in every city that will do just about anything. Hope this helps.
Ask the shops. A lot of one-hour developers will do it, and some walmarts will do it too, depending on where you are. But just ask at the counter if they will do it. If they don’t, ask them if they have any recommendations. If nobody does it in your area, then it’s either mail order or a friend that you trust who lives in an area that does. No matter where it is though, there is no guarantee that a second copy will not be made for the developers “personal file”.
I can understand how a place like Walgreens can refuse to develope prints that they feel is too racey for their “family oriented” demeaner, as per their policy (according to Cecil). But I can’t imagine they would just destroy the negatives, not giving them back to the patron who brought them in! That’s absolutely unconstitutional, and they could very possibly be exposing themselves to a lawsuit!
I’m not a lawyer…but am I wrong about this?? Anybody know the answer conclusively? I’m only making an educated guess here.
If I’m right…then are large corporations in the habit of creating unconstitutional (and very insultery to the patron) policies that leave them open to litigation?
Before asking places, I have had my negatives come back with the racy shots completely washed out, and no photos. Seems I had a nasty habit of somehow completely overexposing any photo with nudity. Some places simply would develop anything but nude shots and tell me that they couldn’t get the colors right, so they didn’t print them and didn’t charge me for those shots. So it’s best to ask up front if they will do them.
When I worked at the film lab for Fotomat in the early 80’s, we would print any and all photographs depicting nudity and sexual acts. I believe the line was drawn at child pornography. But don’t think that your photos aren’t viewed by many people. They come out of the processor on a huge continuous roll where it is examined an employee checking on the quality of the prints. Then the roll is taken over to a work station where it is cut into individual photographs. Somehow the photos of a sexual nature always made their way to the QC (quality check) room, where several employees would look them over to ensure that they were “properly developed.” Then the photos were packed up with the negatives and sent back to the Fotomat store for customer pick up. I have a friend who used to work at one of the Fotomat booths, and he would look through the customer envelopes when he got bored. He would occasionally tell me stories…
I can’t believe you people have so many problems. I regularly just take them to where ever I am doing my grocery shopping here in DC and I get them developed with no problem.
Just to reiterate what Turbo Dog said about the developers personal file, I’ll relate that a friend owned a photo lab for many years across the street from a huge university campus. They’d develop almost* anything, and they had the “archive” to prove it. And he and his employees often recognized folks on the street from their “art” photos.
Be prepared to prove your model is at least 18; my friend’s shop would bust underage erotica.
First, the US Constitution dictates what the US government may and may not do. It generally has nothing to do with what corporations can do. E.g., if the police arrest you for making a political statement, that’s a violation of the First Amendment. If a corporation refuses to print or broadcast your statement, that may be censorship but it has nothing to do with the First Amendment because it has nothing to do with actions of the US Government. Note that neither of these are a violation of your “First Amendment Rights”, because there’s no such thing. The First Amendment dictates that the government cannot infringe on your natural right to free speech, etc. It doesn’t grant you any rights per se.
Second, large corporations are very much in the habit of making policies that their customers may not like. They make these policies to avoid litigation, not incite it. By making it a policy and printing it in fine print on the back of something you sign, they create a contract between themselves and the customers to allow them to do whatever they’ve decided they want to do. The government does have a lot of laws (outside the Constitution) which dictate what a corporation can and cannot do, but most of these issues boil down to contract law. If the photo shop puts some fine print on the back of their claim check that says “By submitting your film, you agree…” and “We reserve the right to destroy film deemed obscene…” then you have little recourse. Caveat Emptor…
Part of the question was, ‘And how can I be guaranteed that these won’t wind up on the internet?’
That’s the real tough part of this. I’ve never had nude pictures developed, but I would think that the catch-22 is that the developers who are least likely to care what’s on the film (the aforementioned red-light district) are also the most likely to steal prints for their own use.
If you want to be really safe, develop them yourself. Failing that, borrow or rent a digital camera for the shoot. If you rent one (try a camera store) you can get ones that will mate to your Nikon lenses (the focal lengths will be longer on each lens, though - for 105mm portraiture you may wind up using a 55mm lens or something).
If you must get them developed, I’d look for a high-quality photo developing service, such as might be used by a modelling agency. These people will probably respect your intellectual property and won’t make copies, and they’ll develop ‘tasteful’ nudes. They’ll certainly charge you more than your local fotomat would, though. Furthermore, since photographing nudes is a legitimate form of the art, you can simply ask them up front whether they will develop them (you can even describe the poses), and they’ll give you a straight answer.
And companies like this will NEVER destroy your negatives. That’s horrible. Those negatives are intellectual property - they contain the results of artistic expression. No company should be destroying them.
But I wouldn’t guarantee that prints won’t wind up in some developer’s personal collection - any time you hand over racy material to a complete stranger you take that risk, IMO.