I went digital a while back, and agree with you, except for the following:
1. Use Epson. Makes far better photos than HP
2. Save money? Ha, Ha! I take a LOT more photos, but I spend a LOT more money!
Equipment: Canon D30, 50 1.4, 28-135 IS, 70-200 2.8L, flat panel iMac and Epson 1280.
This is scary, though. Take a photo, go to jail.
Yep, if you do something illegal, don't take a photo. But if you must have a picture of your lawlessness, use a digital camera. Not wise to entrust to anyone your undeveloped film showing your illegal activity.
It'd be scary if that's what it was... but there was much more to it...
It was : be stupid and unsportsmanlike and violate the law, then be even more stupid and take a photo of yourself in the commission of said crime; then be even more stupid and take your roll of film to a public photo developer in a store which sells hunting licenses and gear and which certainly may have someone on staff who knows the relevent wildlife code. Make it more interesting and expect those same workers to not notice probable evidence of a crime, and be selfish in expecting them to sacrifice their principles to protect your unprincipled self.
Be stupid and make them unwilling accomplices in your crime by dumping the evidence in their lap, which they are bound to look at becuase it is part of the quality control process since chemical baths aren't stable and change with use. And then be a really stupid poacher and confess when confronted by the police without talking to a lawyer.
When you stupidly dumped the evidence in front of them, you selfishly took away another person's right not to be involved in your criminal activity. You forced them to choose between aiding and abetting you in concealing a crime which but for you they never would have witnessed or been involved in any way - or instead reporting the violation of law and becoming a 'nark' in the eyes of an idiot who had decided to eliminate his own privacy by taking his photos to other people to process.
The choice was yours all along not to commit a crime in the first place, or once committed, not to be discovered; the choice was yours all along to not subject anyone else to having to choose what to do with your evidence. You chose to involve other people in your act which you knew to be illegal and which you were even proud of, proud enough to photograph, but you didn't ask them if they minded developing photos of your crime before you dumped the evidence in their lap. So they were the ones who were wronged, not just the employee but also the company, who have a reasonable expectation to not be involved in aiding and abetting a poacher, or any other criminal. No one has a right to demand that others look the other way upon seeing evidence of a crime.
Indeed, as citizens, we are in good faith obligated to protect and defend the constitution and by extension, the laws of our country and our states, until such a time as we are willing to face the consequences and challenge their constitutionality, or even defy them outright on principle. From time to time government will intrude upon our rights- as it has done with the Brady Bill, and we all shall face the decision of obeying laws, challenging laws, or if things are bad enough, even of violating what we see as unconstitutional laws in order to preserve essential liberties. It's up to us individually. From time to time our own human nature will also present us with temptations to choose between doing good and participating in, or being neutral to evil. But we do not have a right as individuals to force that decision on others, to demand others to participate in the actions we alone choose to take or to demand that others blindly conceal them or ignore them.
Would the people here complaining about the 'nark' see things the same way if the photo developer had seen a picture with evidence of illegal alien smuggling and reported it? Would a person be a 'nark' if he went over to the neighbor's house to return a borrowed chain saw and stumbled upon the neighbor hiding illegals in his shed, or evidence of illegal alien smuggling, and decided to report it? Would we call such a person 'principled' if they chose not to report illegal alliens? Was Moussaoui's flight school instructor a 'nark' when he reported that he was suspicious of Moussaoui because he wasn't interested in landings?