RE: [Leica] Re: the fling is over/my search has ended

[George Lottermoser <imagist@concentric.net>]

bdcolen@earthlink.net (B. D. Colen)4/1/024:31 PM

> I certainly recognize that our society has become too
litigious, but - have
> there been any suits by pros against processors regarding loss
of images,
> and does anyone know what the outcomes have been? Do those neat
little
> copout lines on the packaging really protect the film
manufacturers and
> processors?

Every (pro) lab I've ever used has the same fine-print, "if we
screw up, we'll replace your film." They don't even say that
they'll replace the processing. I suspect that the amount of
liability insurance they'd have to carry would come close to that
of medical liability. Can you imagine what some shoots can cost,
travel, art director, meals, stylist, models, make-up, set
design, set construction, et al?

And an aside - I processed Kodachrome at LL Cook, in Milwaukee,
3rd shift, to get through my first year in college. I assume
they're using similar machinery today, maybe not. We stapled the
rolls together on the dark end of the machine and took them off
the light end. We required a full time lab tech to hold the PH of
the chemistry throughout the run - he was running tests
continuously through the shift and adding appropriate chemistry
as necessary. The tanks were 4 feet deep, with large, heavy,
frames with 6 rows of rollers on either end, around which the
film ran. And we'd have at least 4 or 5 breaks a night. A
montrously loud alarm went off when one end of the machine ran
and the back end didn't. This meant that you had to turn off the
machine, find the break, rethread the rollers, fix it while every
roll in the machine was being over processed in which ever bath
it happened to be in, and we didn't give a damn what happened to
the rolls we were "repairing" because they weren't worth squat
compared to the hundreds of rolls sitting in the juice. We had to
work extremely fast. The lab manager was a jock-type and would
give out little awards for fastest repairs at the end of the
night. That was the most insane, stressful job I've ever had.
Probably did permanent damage to my nerves and lungs as we used
sulphuric acid to clean the frames and rollers after the run - no
masks. We did recover hundreds of pounds of silver every week.
The largest silver recovery system I've ever seen. The plates
were like 3x4 feet, half a dozen of them, and at the end of the
week they'd have a quarter to half inch of pure silver on them.
We'd chip it off with a hammer and chisel. We were Kodachrome
miners.

George


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