Good morning wishes and greetings to all UHH members !

Day in and day out, many among us will post messages wanting to talk about our cameras, our lenses, our tripods, and even the post processing software that we like best. Then, every now and then, others will post a string of nicely captured photos hoping for positive feedback from other members who are best known for saying, "nice job", "great photos", etc, etc, but none of us have ever taken a moment in time to admit to others and or to talk about the most serious photography mistake we have ever made ! :)

Today, I propose to all of us that we share with our fellow forum members the worst mistake that we have ever made with our photography.

Come on guys & gals, you can do it and join in on the fun ! :):):):)

Ok, I will be the very first to admit and share with all of our forum members my most serious photography mistake and here it is:

Back around 1971, a time when the Mamiya RB67 had first come upon the market, a close friend of mine who was a professional wedding photographer had mistakenly overbooked a wedding shoot that he was to take on a Saturday afternoon. It was a time when I was in my late twenties, but I had already made a name for myself by winning top honors in local competitions and by winning medals in the Photographic Society of America's salon competitions ~ many of which were not only in the lower 48 states, but some were in foreign countries as well. Knowing this about me, my friend had asked me to fill in for him and shoot the wedding that he had overbooked on a particular Saturday afternoon and he had even loaned me one of his Mamiya RB67 cameras to do the shoot. (Of course, many of you already know that the RB67 was a very popular film camera in its day which took roll film in a 2-1/4" x 2-3/4" format and when using the camera to shoot vertical shots, the camera's back had to be rotated so that the film would be phased in a vertical position). Well, I am sure that you know what happened thereafter ! YEP, when taking many of the wedding shots which were required, I had neglected to rotate the camera's back when I thought that I was taking vertical shots and the outcome, (OH, MY), was a slew of horizontal photographs which were supposed to be vertical shots, and the results were a whole lot of photographs with headless people ! :(:(:(:(

Luckily, my friend was able to salvage enough photos to fill an album and he was such a nice guy whereby he didn't tell me what I had done until several years later !

Ok, guys and gals, it's now your turn ! Tell us all about your most serious photography mistake, and if you are like me, just tell yourself that if whatever it was that you had done didn't kill you, it had made you much stronger and far, far wiser ! :)

~ Doug ~

Several years ago we had just entered the Great Smoky Mts. National Park when I noticed several cars parked on the side of the road. People were standing on the edge of the woods pointing at something, so I grabbed my camera and quickly determined that they had spotted a bear. While they all remained on the edge of the woods near the road I headed into the woods in the direction that they were pointing, determined to get some bear photos.

Sure enough, after a short trek I spotted the bear which was then about 25 yards away. With my long lens I zeroed in and began shooting. After a few shots I suddenly heard a loud scratching sound coming from directly above me. I looked up to see two very cute bear cubs coming down the trunk of the tree that I was standing in front of. At that very same moment the mother bear that I was focused on reared up on hind legs and let out a menacing growl as she started toward me. I didn't realize that I could run that fast....or that commercial laundries charged so much to launder men's pants.