Guidelines
AvoidXray is for photographs shot on film. If it went through a camera on a roll, it belongs here.
What belongs here
Film only
Shot on actual film, in an actual camera, on a roll that actually went through a lab. Scanning it with your phone is fine. Starting with your phone is not.
No film filters
Dazz, Fuji sims, digicams doing an impression. If it never touched a roll, it doesn't count. Nothing personal, your photos are probably great, they just belong somewhere else.
Tag your camera and your film
This is the whole reason the site exists. Someone out there is deciding whether Gold 200 is worth it, and your photo is the argument.
Go easy on the editing
Heavy edits are fine, it's your photo, just post those somewhere else. Here, someone's going to buy that roll because of your frame and wonder why theirs looks nothing like it. Color, dust, straightening: all fine, that's just getting to the negative. Grinding off the grain is where it stops being useful. Halation is a feature.
Bad roll? Post it anyway
Green cast, dead shadows, color all over the place, expired weirdness. Don't edit it into looking normal. Post it and say what happened in a community note on the film or camera page: expired, pushed two stops, sat in a hot car, lab did something strange. A wrecked frame with the story attached is worth more to the next person than another clean one.
Don't upload other people's work
You know this one.
Not sure what you shot?
A thrifted camera with half a roll already in it, a lab envelope with nothing written on it. Say you’re not sure instead of leaving it blank. Someone usually recognizes it from the frame edges, and you can come back and fix it later.
What doesn’t
Short list, and none of it is a surprise.
Nothing nude or sexual. Zero tolerance
No nudity, no partial or implied nudity, no lingerie, no suggestive posing, nothing sexual in any form. It comes down on sight and there is no warning first. There is a real tradition of nude photography on film and this is not a judgment about that work. The line simply has to sit somewhere obvious rather than somewhere arguable, and this is not the site for it.
Nobody else’s photographs
Post your own work. If you are posting someone else’s with their permission, say so and credit them.
No graphic violence or gore
Shock imagery is not what this place is for.
No going after people
Disagreeing with someone about a film stock is fine and often useful. Following them around the site, piling on, or getting personal in the comments is not. The same goes for attacking people over race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, sexuality, or disability.
No one else’s private information
Addresses, phone numbers, documents, workplaces. If someone identifiable in your frame asks you to take it down, take it down.
No deliberately false tags
Including digital photographs posted as film. An honest mistake is fine and fixable. Doing it on purpose poisons the thing the site is for.
No spam, and no gaming the numbers
Selling a camera in a comment is fine. Dropping unrelated links is not. Neither are bought likes or alt accounts, whether to inflate your own work or to get around a block.
Sexual content involving anyone under 18 is illegal. It is removed, the account is banned permanently, and it is reported to the authorities. There is no version of this we handle quietly.
A few practical things
What’s in the frame
Phone photographs often record where they were taken, which can be your home. We strip those coordinates out of every upload before storing it. Worth a thought anyway for what else ends up in shot: house numbers, license plates, school uniforms, mail on a table.
Blocking and reporting
Block anyone you’d rather not deal with. They can’t follow you, comment on your photos, or like your work, and you stop seeing each other.
Report anything that breaks these rules from the … menu on the photo, comment, or profile. It reaches us with the link attached, and the person reported is never told who reported them. Please don’t report someone for disagreeing with you.
If something breaks the rules
We try to match the response to what happened.
- Honest mistakes get a note and a chance to fix it.
- Content that breaks a rule gets removed, with a reason where that’s practical.
- Repeated problems get a suspension.
- Serious violations get an immediate permanent ban, with no warning first: anything sexual, harassment campaigns, and publishing someone’s private information.
Something look wrong?
If a photo doesn’t belong here, use Report photo from the … menu on it.
For anything else, including a bug or a photo of yours you think we removed unfairly, use feedback. You get a reference you can check back on, and we reply there. We’re a small operation and we do make mistakes.
The legal side
These guidelines form part of the terms and privacy policy, which cover who owns what, what we do with your data, and where it’s stored. Drier reading, but it’s all there.