err, benefit :smack:
I’ve said this before, but I’ll just say it again:
What is cute or funny about a little kid’s butt anyway?
I’m probably resurrecting this thread for no good reason, but I thought of it when I was in Wal-Mart yesterday and spotted the Anne Geddes calendars. Little naked babies, right there on the front of the calendar. It seemed… ironic? Hypocritical? A person can’t develop pictures of their own child without clothes, but they can buy pictures of other people’s naked children?
Yes, because they’re cheap. Tell me when I can get the same quality digital camera that I can with even a disposable, loaded with decent film.
Former Wal-Mart Photo Specialist and Asst. Photo lab manager checking in here. Wal-Mart’s official policy on this is that since Wal-Mart is a family store we would not print pictures of people in dress that was inappropriate to walk around town in. Mostly this is because anybody walking by the one-hour photo lab can see the pictures coming off the printer. In practice, this option came out to be a bit impractical so it became mostly up to the individual lab managers’ discretion to print. When I was at lab manager training in Bentonville, we were told that in most cases common sense did rule and that most things were printable. Nudity of anyone above the age of a toddler was forbidden though. This allowed us to print pictures of people at the beach, or in lingerie as long as the pubic area, a good portion of the breast, and a portion of the rear end were covered, thongs were ok. In fact, one of our sayings was that as long as they have some dental floss running up there it’s ok to print. We often tried to print as much as we could off the roll of film, and this included trying to maneuver bits off frame. In my first week I distinctly remember trying to print a 110 roll of an orgy and having to shift a woman’s breasts off frame :eek: . Any pictures that were printed accidentally because they were flying through on full auto, or we just didn’t know what we were looking at were found and destroyed after they were printed. In the case of child nudity we were told to use our common sense, if the children were of toddler age or younger, and were not seeming to be posed suggestively they were printed. If there was anything that we saw that was possible child pornography we referred it to management and they took it from there. The only time anything was ever done like that when I was there was when a man came in with five rolls of naked children in various poses, many of which were questionable.
Anything but nudity we were not allowed to refuse, because a picture never tells the whole story, when you see a woman that appears to be beaten horribly in a lot of pictures you cannot ascertain that if the guy who brought the pictures in did it, or even if they are real.
Many people have brought up the point that if you don’t like the policy, don’t bring your pictures to Wal-Mart, I agree with that, to a point. Most people don’t KNOW of Wal-Mart’s policy, it isn’t posted anywhere, and you usually aren’t told until after your pictures are printed and you get a tiny little note inside that tells you why we couldn’t print any of your pictures. Your negatives were ALWAYS returned to you. However, if you have 3 or 4 rolls of steamy boudoir photography for your partner, not you have to pay reprint price with a send out service. The send out service at most places, including Wal-Mart will print nearly everything, and nudes included, hell, out and out porn included. Most of the time your photos at a send out service never are looked at by a human unless there is a major problem and the computer running the printer can’t read your negatives. The only time that pictures cannot be printed is if they are obviously professionally done. That would violate copyright laws. So if you want your nudes, or even your flashed boobies from Mardi Gras send them out. It might take a few days, but you WILL get them printed.
Also, please use common sense when you drop your pictures in for one hour developing. Realize the people have to look at them, so if they include graphic scenes warn your developer PLEASE. We routinely printed rolls of film from our local fire department, many of which included scenes of burned bodies and such, but they were kind enough to tell us so that someone comfortable with that could print them. I think the worst experience we had of that kind was when our local religious psychopath Ralph Ovadal brought pictures in of one of their anti-abortion rallies that featured pictures of dismembered fetuses in full gory detail. He didn’t think to warn us, and it ended up that one of our employees who had just gotten back to work THAT DAY from an 8th month miscarriage ended up being at the printer when these pics came through to be printed. She had a nervous breakdown and had to quit her job.
So PLEASE think when you develop. If you aren’t sure of policy at that particular store ASK! It will help with frustrations on both sides.
It seems as if I have killed the thread again. I think I am good at that sort of thing. 
Naw, you didn’t kill the thread. You gave what basically amounts to an “expert” answer. Those who have posted are probably thinking about what you said.
And for someone who didn’t know shit about retail photo proccessing, I learned a hell of a lot!
I would point out though, with respect, try do do some line/paragraph breaks (just hit “Enter” for a line break) in your posts, as such a long string of text can be hard on the eyes, and some readers might have said, “Well hell, I can’t follow that crap, it’s a big blob of text.”
Great informative post AquaPura!
Obviously she ordered 150,000 copies! She had a whole child porn ring to distribute them to!
(sorry, had to do that)
I think she probably thought that if something wasn’t going to be printed, it just wouldn’t be printed… I doubt she had any clue that she’d be interrogated by the police for nearly an hour and marched through the store in front of everyone.
[and in response to another post… I don’t think that the neighbor taking pics of your kids naked in your backyard counts as child porn. Creepy, yes. Illegal? Possibly. Child porn? I doubt it.]
Just to throw in my two cents…
I don’t think that Wal-mart should have printed the pictures if they are against their policy… however, I think they were in the wrong to call the cops and humiliate that lady. I also think that the $75,000 sounds mighty odd as actual damages.
Well, I think it comes down to “Well, shit, the boss says if you employees think whatever is bad shit, call the manager, and the manager says well shit, Corporate says to do X if Y happens, WTF call the next boss, they don’t answer, so I will cover my ass…blah blah…”
Well, If I was a lower level employee, and needed the job, I would do the same.
IOW, I wouldn’t sacrifice my job for decisions which are not mine to make whether I agree/disagree.
Pass it on, cover yer ass.