Some of us have a tendency to brag or show off our best shots.

Why not discuss the worst photos we ever took?

Let's try to learn from each other's mistakes.

I'll begin :D

One of the worst photos I shot (that still exists much to my dismay) is a photo that I took of my sister on her birthday. It was probably an overdose of cockiness that made me shoot this particular photo - and it was my first year of being a photo hobbyist.

I shot my sister against the sun and I didn't use anything for fill. I used high contrast film which I overdeveloped (I had never heard of temperature and corresponding developing time). My lens didn't have a hood and I had a strong flare in all of my images (which I had to burn in the darkroom).

I forgot to shoot from a lower point of view and I neglected to watch my shutter speed while using a 200mm focal (Yup, the shot also has camera shake!).

Would anyone else care to share? :D

Wow... "skeletons in the closet thread..." This is scary Jo. :)

Scary for the ego if one were low on humility :D

But we all learn from experience. I've learned a lot when other people told and showed me what to do. But I also learned a lot when people told and showed me what not to do. ;D

Scary for the ego if one were low on humility :D

But we all learn from experience. I've learned a lot when other people told and showed me what to do. But I also learned a lot when people told and showed me what not to do. ;D

:D Sample naman diyan...

As Rex Navarrete would say ... it is so Filipino to ask for a sample :D

But I already did share a sample - albeit I didn't post the actual image.

Sample ka naman kaya diyan kahit ng kwento :D

Back in grade 7 :) Using a rangefinder, I forgot to remove the lenscap! Pure genius!

LOL! That was a good one. I remember one shot I took with my dad's rangefinder when I was still in grade school. I was shooting a photo of my grandfather with my brothers and sister. I found it so intimidating to direct my grandfather that I didn't ask him to sit down so that he could be included in the frame.

The shot I took had my brothers and sister all standing in a row with my grandfather behind them cropped from the waist up :D

Way back I did an event without fully charging my flash batteries... So of course... The worse happened, the thing went dead on me on the spot right on the first frame... Luckily, I brought my P&S with me and saved my @$$... but till this day that thing gave me nightmares... Never will I go out with half-charged batteries and without back-ups anymore... :) ahhhhhh... This cracks me up...

Shooting iso 1600 on a bright day :P Totally forgot about it :)

For me, want honesty? I've been doing photography for quite sometime, but still untill now i'm not happy on the ratio in terms of good shots and bad shots i produced in a shoot, i would be happy if i get 5 to 10 percent of a particular shoot in any given situation. One example, is when i went to batanes just to shoot for ten days i made around 3000 images of batanes and was able to select only around 40 to 50 images that i really like. but now looking again at the images of the ones i chose after 2 months, i would say i only feel like 5 to 8 images. thinking about the efforts and time i spent on that trip, there was no regret at all, actually i was happy i learned a lot while i was looking at the images that i did not chose before i put them in the recycle bin and trash it coz i already digested what i learned then, and just move on for another day of learning, and whenever i look at the images i kept, i still remember how i did that particular image and what i learned from it. If someone appreciates it its just a bonus.:) If i'm going to visualize the image you are describing i would say i've done far worst than that hehehe, I did a shoot wherein i forgot to load a film to my camera, my image half black half ok because i forgot to adjust shutter speed to sync to my flash, bad angles, and so on and so on... but again no regrets. :)

Oh haha, I even goofed up in some of my newer pics.
I had my sony P&S on a sony tripod and forgot to lock one of the axes. weee, right before the timer went off, the camera slid and pointed straight at the ground. I got black :D I should really get my arse off my seat and attend one of yout classes Jo haha.

The very first wedding I covered as a principal photographer, out of my own desire to get more photos for the album, I asked the bride to come to my home for some post-nuptial shots one week after the wedding. In the morning, I was shooting some bridal items in our loft and ths sun was shining very bright. I had to set my exposure compensation to -4 because of that. When they came that afternoon, I started shooting the bride, first in her casual dress, then in her bridal gown. I was wondering why all my shots were dark. I opened up my aperture wide, still dark, I turned up my flash power, still dark. It wasn't only after the shoot that I found that I haven't changed my exposure compensation! The bad thing is, I was shooting JPG so I don't have the benefits of raw where I can change the exposure to lighten up the photo. The good thing is, they are (still are!) my friends so we just laughed about it.

Lesson learned: Always check camera settings before any shoot.

For me (perpetual amature) i cover our office events regularly (for free) I just like taking pictures. ( I think thats the first mistake, hehehe) covered one event at night with halogen lamps and spotlights. Picture were great, had several really cool portraits, gear was d70s with 60mm f2.8, I used the built in flash. Went to another event but now the lights were fluorescent , damn did I learn that that is not a good light to shoot it. Most of my shots had shakes, tried swithcing to higher iso, looked fine on the screen, but when I downloaded the images, it was all grainy, luckyly i had all my co-officemate photo club buddies with me, we still had loads if pictures to share...:)

A food shoot, I forgot to press the set button. When I finished shooting I noticed it was not set in the highest resolution, it's in the smallest. I had to bring setup back to my studio and reshoot everything. :)

:D ...shooting under a low-level lighting without using a tripod (..which is supposed to be a rule-of-thumb on low light conditions).:Grin:

same as sunny...was taking pics of my auntie's bday party...i was on the mezzaninee taking shots at the party downstairs.....forgot to take of the lens cap....was using a lomo camera fisheya

the worst photograph that i took was with a 18 year old model. we had a shoot for around an hour, then realized that i had no CF card.

hehehe... this one had also happened to me, my kid and wife posed besides the sales ladies in elf's costume, with my excitement I quickly drew the camera right off the bag and start shooting to my astonishment the picture had been erased, then I realized I had not put any CF on the drive...

I wasted ten rolls in a two month europe trip. I came home happy with only three shots.

Hey guys,

Let's have more kwentos about what went wrong technically that affected composition (i.e shooting against the sun, camera shake, didn't notice something distracting, etc.) and less of the technical snafus (i.e. no CF card, etc.).

Thanks :D

had just bought my then panasonic lumix fz20 a day before i went for a chopper ride and yacht cruise with some dignitaries. i had put the iso at 400 and lo and behold.... all of my shots were really grainy due to the sensor limitations of said ultrazoom at that iso level. moral of the story, fully read the manual and extensive testing of your equipment before any major shoot.

Hey guys,

Let's have more kwentos about what went wrong technically that affected composition (i.e shooting against the sun, camera shake, didn't notice something distracting, etc.) and less of the technical snafus (i.e. no CF card, etc.).

Thanks :D


One morning I woke up to the "music" of two old men, one was playing a harmonica and the other, an improvised drum. So I thought it's perfect for my photography assignment which is human interest. Took a few shots and then gave them a few coins. Nang nasa PC na aba'y Lintak! nag back focus. Sharp ang mga dahon sa likod ng dalawang malabong mama. Ganda na sana kasi ginawa kong B/W. Okay na lang din sana KASO assignment ko iyon dun sa isang pinakagaling na photographer na may studio sa Gold Bldg sa may Annapolis.

Alaskado is an understatement hehe :Grin:

I would like to think that those comments spurred you to improve your craft - which is probably why you've won some photography awards since :D


One morning I woke up to the "music" of two old men, one was playing a harmonica and the other, an improvised drum. So I thought it's perfect for my photography assignment which is human interest. Took a few shots and then gave them a few coins. Nang nasa PC na aba'y Lintak! nag back focus. Sharp ang mga dahon sa likod ng dalawang malabong mama. Ganda na sana kasi ginawa kong B/W. Okay na lang din sana KASO assignment ko iyon dun sa isang pinakagaling na photographer na may studio sa Gold Bldg sa may Annapolis.

Alaskado is an understatement hehe :Grin:

Hmmm.... many event coverages for family and friends.... I just shoot snapshots.... in times I am supposed to rest and enjoy, I end up being asked to take photos.... so Isometimes I would without paying attention to any creativity aside from making sure that it gets exposed...


Oh, and one really funny one.... I was asked by a magazine to photograph the superior of a religious order. I decided to photograph him next to the statue of the order's Saint-founder. We wanted to make it casual so I had the superior of the order sit, lean, or rest his arm on the statue. Since it was outdoor, we kept on getting distracted by the wind blowing the white flowing habit of the superior. So as we constantly tried to adjust, we ended up working out a position wherein the superior's arm was resting over the arm of the statue. The habit was in place and so our problems were solved.
When I submitted the images to the magazine... they called me and said they couldn't use half the photos. I asked why. They said look at it again. When I checked the photos again, I saw that the last half of the photos ( where we were pleased that the habit was behaving ) had the superior's arm hanging over the statue's arm, but it was positioned such that it looked like he was holding the statue's crotch.
Sometimes we can get so caught up by a distracting problem that we focus so much in trying to fix it, that we fail to see another problem has crept in.

I know what you mean Louie :D

I often caution my students about remembering which part of their image is/are the dominant visual elements and which part is/are the subordinate visual elements.

Also, it always pays to look at the image as a whole :D

sa FHM event. natataranta ako kung anu settings gagamitin ko.paiba iba kasi ng lights ayun nasayang most of my shots.

The worst picture I ever took was the one I didn't get to shoot. We were at the Australian Zoo and Steve Irwin was behind me in a motorcycle with Bindi his daughter in the pathway. I put up my camera and took a shot only to find out the camera was off! By the time I switched it on, he turned around in his motorcycle and left. Now he's really gone. :(

I was shooting our back yard and I really took time deciding on what angle to shoot from. I needed to get a whole talisay tree in the foreground and I had to capture the rest of the greenery in the background.

I shot the photo and was excited to see it on my computer, then I noticed a red and white Coleman cooler right in the middle of the garden. How could I have missed that???!!!!

i was doing a time exposure shot of the mayon volcano at about 12 midnight one summer night back in college.. the moon is at its fullest so i setup the tripod on the rooftop, set the shutter speed to B, aperture at f16, locked the cable release, waited for about 10 minutes, approached the camera and accidentally tripped the tripod while the shutter is still open.. a barrage of curses followed.. :Grin::Grin::Grin::Grin:

Mine was way back 30 yrs ago. A friend ask me to take a very important picture. It was his camera. He gave it to me, to use. I ask if all the settings were okay. He said , Yes. Before that he was already taking some pics. So i just shot away. When the film was process and printed. All the shots i took, where over exposed.:Oops: I did not even bother to check settings and the meter, even once.:Dum:

Here goes...(the story of my life)

During my college years we have Architectural Photography as an optional subject, that was my only formal lessons in photography. Being confident that i can produce great pictures during the class, i volunteered to be the principal photog for my brother's wedding.

Armed with two slr's, i consumed about 7-9 rolls. Little did i know that there are complications in using an analog flash. (we dont use flash in Arch'l photography as we were taking exterior shots of buildings). In short, most of my shots were under-exposed, over-exposed, half-exposed and unexposed.
My brother has to settle in duplicating shots made by his guest. :(

This story is still haunting me...now thanks to dslr's...im making my comeback!!!

i was doing a time exposure shot of the mayon volcano at about 12 midnight one summer night back in college.. the moon is at its fullest so i setup the tripod on the rooftop, set the shutter speed to B, aperture at f16, locked the cable release, waited for about 10 minutes, approached the camera and accidentally tripped the tripod while the shutter is still open.. a barrage of curses followed.. :Grin::Grin::Grin::Grin:

this cracked me up dood. so you had to redo the thing again?

Reminishing my first trip in Singapore with my family. I just have just an ISO 200 film in my bag not realizing that there was a beautiful laser show at Sentosa park. I got bit excited and set up my cam to fully auto but I have a hard time focusing so I decided to put it on manual mode. I finished the whole 3 rolls of 36's and due to excitement I forgot to check my settings which was at 200 f11 and just pressing the cable release. I was flabbergasted by the fact that all my shots are all dark when I have my pictures developed.

I did promise myself to visit Sentosa again on my next visit and got a vividly beautiful pictures the following year.

several years ago, totally unaware that I used an expired Kodak 35mm film (ISO400) on my Nikon F90X...the results were interesting but not so pleasing.

this cracked me up dood. so you had to redo the thing again?

yup, had to.. with my brother laughing his a** off at my classic foolery.. :Grin:

Here goes...(the story of my life)

During my college years we have Architectural Photography as an optional subject, that was my only formal lessons in photography. Being confident that i can produce great pictures during the class, i volunteered to be the principal photog for my brother's wedding.

Armed with two slr's, i consumed about 7-9 rolls. Little did i know that there are complications in using an analog flash. (we dont use flash in Arch'l photography as we were taking exterior shots of buildings). In short, most of my shots were under-exposed, over-exposed, half-exposed and unexposed.
My brother has to settle in duplicating shots made by his guest. :(

This story is still haunting me...now thanks to dslr's...im making my comeback!!!

hahaha!!! i know this story of yours kuya eric!!! now you're back with a vengeance!!! always on the go and confident enough for events!!! Cheers!!! :) :) :)

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q84/coolershaka/Inverness%20and%20Loch%20Ness/IMAGE_647.jpg

A, ahem, "dawn" shot of the Lake District National Park, UK. So bad it's comical.

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q84/coolershaka/Inverness%20and%20Loch%20Ness/IMAGE_647.jpg

A, ahem, "dawn" shot of the Lake District National Park, UK. So bad it's comical.

great shot you got there.. haha! i can see BATMAN in the shadows..:Grin::Grin: