35mm film and legal advice...

Nevyn522

Senior member
Aug 11, 2000
208
0
0
Neat topic, don'tcha think?

I'm hoping someone can at least reassure me I won't have anything to worry about. I'm a college student living in a dorm. Last night I came home to find one of the other guys who lives in my room taking pictures out my window. He complained to me about how my camera refused to take pictures due to ambient light, which confused the hell out of me. I was mad enough already that he had just come into my room, and on top of that that he was using my camera. Then I found out he was trying to take pictures of the girl who lives next door while she was changing, to the point of actually triggering the shutter a few times. I threw him out of my room (obviously), and took the roll of film he had wasted (fortunately it was otherwise empty) out of the camera.

Today I came home to find that at some point during a power outage last night my desk had gotten knocked... and all my rolls of undeveloped film had tumbled together -- including the one I wanted to just throw away. So I currently have four rolls of family Christmas pictures (I'm a little lazy about getting them developed)... and one partially exposed roll of most likely fuzzy (and probably unidentifiable -- by which I mean it will appear a blur, and not just that her face won't be recognizeable) pictures of the girl next door changing.

So I'm stuck -- I definitely want to get my pictures developed, but I don't want to get that roll developed at all, particularly if it will land me in legal trouble (I think it would be a violation or privacy, wouldn't it?). So here's my question:

-- the roll with the "voyeur" pictures on them came from an entire different box of film than the Christmas rolls -- is there any way of telling film canisters apart?
-- will I be exposed to any legal liability if I just send all 5 rolls in, or will I just not get back the "suspicious" roll?

HELP!

I have a 2 year old cousin who was simply adorable at Christmas, and I really want those pictures!

Thanks,
Andrew
 

PG

Diamond Member
Oct 25, 1999
3,426
44
91
Send them all in to get developed. At most, you won't get back some pictures.
I have a friend who decided to take her camera on a bachelorette party and got some interesting pictures. Some of the girls had decided to flash for the camera. The place that developed them wouldn't give her those pictures, but put in a a nice note with an explanation as to why. It is the policy of most places to throw that kind of stuff out.

In other words, don't worry and just throw out the pictures of the girl right away along with the negatives. And as you said, they probably won't turn out anyway.