Nipple-Free Zone - Man's bare chest too racy for Walgreens

When Calvin Johnson photographed merrymakers at a Fourth of July party hosted by gay activist-businessman-philanthropist Gregg Ammell and his partner, David Laws, Johnson had no idea it would be the last of the couple's fabulous parties.
Weeks later, Ammell suffered a fatal heart attack, leaving his old friends with nothing but good memories.

After the funeral, Johnson picked up the film he'd dropped off at a Lakewood Walgreens. Ammell's large back yard was full of sun that sweltering afternoon. In the midst of the party, he stepped onto the veranda to make a toast, wearing nothing but shorts and a nipple piercing. He seemed healthy and happy -- Johnson wanted to remember him that way. Thankfully, he had photographed the moment.

But when he retrieved his pictures, the photo wasn't there. Nor were any of his negatives, he says.

SNIP~

Read the rest of the article here:

http://www.clevescene.com/issues/2004-04-14/news.html/1/index.html

Screw WALMART and WALGREENS! I ALREADY DON'T EVER SHOP AT WALMART, BUT NOW I WON'T EVER SHOP AT WALGREENS AGAIN EITHER.

We hardly knew ye. :eyes:

a reasonable compromise might be to develop the negatives but to refuse to convert them to prints. then at least you could shop look and find a more permissive photo shop.

but to destroy the negatives is to destroy the customer's property, which is theft, or at least, vandalism.

That is customer property and they are destroying it.

We charge per print, not by how many pictures the roll of film can hold.

And actually yes, what you said is exactly what we are supposed to do.

What I've been told is that we can print out nudity, just as long as thiere is no actual sex, in which case we are supposed to just give them back thier all thier negatives and the prints that we were able to make.

In our store though since we are all adults and none of us are uptight assholes we usually go ahead and print out the sex ones too.

In this case it sounds like someone is overstepping thier authority.

as digital takes hold.

They usually come out better than printing at home since they are printed on actual photopaper.

I have an actual photo printer at home, (Epson stylus photo R800) and it makes better prints than i am able to buy at discount photo developers.

but not everyone can afford $400 printers, ink, and high quality paper.

you have a printer that can print 2400x2400 DPI or higher and has a photo cartridge/paper?

When you do it at home all that's missing is the gloss on the paper itself. Personally, I can do without the glossy quality of a developed print.

And truthfully, the newest printers on the market are IMO just a visually satisfying as a developed print. Cheaper? Perhaps not. More convienient? My, yes!! And people will pay extra for that.

Sorry, but photo labs are on their way out. In ten years or so, perhaps less, there will cease to be a need for chains like Walgreens or Meijer to develop photos, because the consumer will have a printer whose DPI is high enough that there's no discernable visual difference.

That doesn't mean photography itself is going to go obsolete; absolutely not. It only means that in the near future, people will have the capability to 'develop' the photos themselves on the spot. And really, that's better IMO- I don't necessarily want anyone looking at some of the photos I've taken.

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of my own. yes, some nudity, but nothing sexual.

Bye- bye Walmart -

I'll pay more somewhere else that doesn't have the new "American Morality"

What's happening down there?

The Bush mania, and now the "nipple effect"

Progress or regression?

that's rhetorical.

(doh)

I use Steve's camera in Clayton, MO...more expensive but even pics taken using a disposable camera are given extra attention. Also, the people there KNOW about photos.

WTF ???? They censored and then FAILED TO DISCLOSE THEY HAD CENSORED ? What f***ing bullshit is THIS ?

So we have some kid making min-wages telling us what is porn?That is like the teacher who reported a family I knew to child welfare because the kid came in mixed matched socks to school. Said they were not caring for their kids. I knew kids that liked to mix up their socks. I thought it showed the kids had some brains and was not dull.

Also, please don't diss "minimum wage kids."

I work at Walgreens for just over minimum wage (though not in photo) and I hope not everyone judges my value based on how much money I make. :-(

Tucker

I definately dont get paid minimum wage at Walgreens.

And yes if you are going to get film developed, people other than yourself will be seeing it.

One of the perks of the job. Althought sex and nudity is for the most part seasonal around Spring Break. I love living in South Texas.

Luckily we don't have too many Walgreens around here, so they won't be hard to avoid.

http://www.wgoeshome.com

For as long as women are arrested and objectified by going bare chested men should have to cover up in the same public arenas. Including beaches imo. Personally - I do not want to look at semi-naked male strangers.

This is about photos that were not developed--and negatives that disappeared.

Just because they featured a man without a shirt.

to manage the War on Nipples

After more closely reading this, and thinking about it for a bit, it might not have been "bigotry."

IMO I suspect that the negatives just might have gotten tossed out by accident.

Here is some info from the article

"But when he retrieved his pictures, the photo wasn't there. Nor were any of his negatives, he says."

Myself I always encourage my customers to take a look at thier photos to make sure everything is alright. Had this guy just checked right there he could have asked the photoguy what was up? So far I have yet to misplace a set of negatives, but I'm sure it is possible, and I'm sure others have.

"Johnson, 69, knew the picture had turned out, since the rest of the roll looked fine. But he was too consumed with grief to dwell on the mystery, so he put it out of his mind."

This happens all the time, all the rest of the roll comes out fine but the one picture that they really wanted just didnt come out on the negatives. Then the customer asks, "why didnt my picture show up, I know I took this picture?" I will then have to answer "I dont know," because I honestly dont know why that particular image didnt show up on thier roll. Or someone will bring a roll of film in that they swear they took pictures on, and it all comes out blank, or random frames are blank while other frames are fine.

Without the negatives its impossible to prove that the picture was actually on there. Maybe all the prints that the guy got was all that was all that came out, and then the negatives just got lost somehow.

"Six months later, he was talking with friends about the Super Bowl and Janet Jackson's "costume malfunction." He wondered aloud why everyone was so offended by what was, in the end, just a nipple. Then it occurred to him: Someone at Walgreens may have been offended by Ammell's pierced chest."

SIX MONTHS LATER!!! OMFG Yeah like anyone is going to remember what happened to a particular missing set of negatives 6 months ago? The people working in photo, and even the assistant managers might not even bee the same ones. Why didnt you come later that same day or the next day and ask what happened to your negatives? Maybe someone might have found them, but you want 6 months to make anything about it.

"When he returned to store, Doug Griffin, assistant manager of the Detroit Avenue Walgreens, told him about a "law" that says film developers are under no obligation to print photos they deem offensive. "If someone does not approve of the subject matter," Griffin later scribbled in a note to Johnson, "each employee has the right as they see fit."

The Manager probably has no idea what the situation is about. I'm thinking this customer probably didnt explain the situation right, he probably asked about the policy about not printing out "offending" material. Thats why he got the answer he did. I certainly see no reason why there would be a problem with printing out a picture of a guy without a shirt. And besides the point what is the manager going to be able to do for the guy? Its been 6 months its highly unlikely his negatives are still laying around somewhere.

I once took in a roll of film to a local developer a "1 Hour Photo". They handed my my pictures and I left. When I got home, the semi-nude shots of my friend that we had taken were all missing. These were tasteful nudes with no penis or breast shots, with only side shots of buttocks in dark-ish lighting showing. Beach glamor shots you might call them.

I rushed back to the photo store and demanded the rest of my prints. They gave me excuses but I was insistent. They said they didn't have them and I saw a girl behind the counter glancing at a drawer by the printing machine. I asked her to look in there and she was very reluctant to do so. I insisted, in case they had "fallen in" the slightly open drawer.

She opened it and there was a stack of pics all of naked or semi-naked people, not just my own. And there were mine, neatly stacked on the top along with the negatives. She reluctantly handed them over with a sneer of disgust (she looked at the pics and said "eeewwww") and I vowed never to go there again. This was a clear case of deliberate censorship and there was not a mention of it anywhere in the store or they would not have got my business in the first place.

http://brainbuttons.com/home.asp?stashid=13

Being an amateur photographer I think it is an outrage especially over a man without a shirt on. Get rid of that evil shithead that is covering up bare breasted statues.

As I said in my above post its possible that they were lost.

Apparently this customer didnt care too much about his negatives if he didnt bring the issue up till 6 months later.

This article has alot of speculation, as it appears the reporter never directly talked to the store manager or anyone working in photo to get thier side of the story, they are just going on what Calvin Johnston claims they told him.

Sounds like a case of bad communication to me. Old man, upset and complaining to the manager and not explaining himself very clearly, and the manager frustrated about this old man who is nagging him about something that happened half a year earlier just wants to get him out of his hair, so he poorly explains company policy as some "law."

It happens.

if you read it more carefully.....

"But he was too consumed with grief to dwell on the mystery, so he put it out of his mind.

Six months later, he was talking with friends....."

Grief will make you forget things. It's a fact of life.

There's your answer as to why he waited so long: he was grief-stricken and simply forgot. Happens to small items all the time during a period of very emotional loss.

it seems a bit silly to be making a big deal about it 6 months later on some vague suspicion bases on Janet Jackson's boob?

Then again, I'm not really clear on why men have nipples at all.

If it's wholesome enough for infants, they should be wholesome enough for all ages. That's my take on the matter.

http://brainbuttons.com/home.asp?stashid=13

aint nothing wrong with that