Am I the only one who loaded film backwards for 6 years?

I'm posting this because I had a moment last Tuesday that made me feel like a total idiot. I've been shooting 35mm film since 2018 and always thought my metering was just off or my camera was busted. Then at a photo meetup in Cleveland, some kid glanced at my camera and goes "hey, your film's spooling backwards." Turned out I was loading the canister on the wrong side of the take-up spool the whole time. My negatives were always slightly fogged and I blamed it on cheap film or bad development. Has anyone else had a basic mistake like that ruin their shots for ages?

2 comments

2 Comments

nathan2891mo ago

Bet you could start a whole club for folks who spent years blaming the lab for their own mistakes.

julia921mo ago

Did you ever spend so many late nights in the lab that you started naming your mistakes after yourself? I definitely had a few choice names for my own blunders before I realized the vortex mixer doesn't actually need me to hold it down. Which blunder did you finally make peace with?