Ugh, tell me about it, how many fake ones have you run into? I wasted so much money before I started paying attention to the stuff @miles720 talks about. That tip about checking the date codes is honestly a game changer, it saves you from so much obvious junk. I still get mad thinking about the terrible bootleg I bought that crashed every ten minutes, lol. His advice really is the best way to not get totally scammed.

Trilliums can take seven years to flower from seed. It's basically never okay to take protected plants from the wild, that's why the laws exist. Your friend really shouldn't have done that.

Ever run into that same problem with stop bath eating into your highlights? I had a batch of Tri-X come out with weird, harsh lines in the gray areas, like little scars. Switched to a solid minute under the tap, then straight into fixer, and it just stopped happening. Sometimes the old rules are just habits.

My savings account laughs like that too.

Seriously! I started using a basic contract template for everything now (seriously, even tiny jobs) and it cuts the back-and-forth in half. It just puts all the boring stuff right up front.