Shift Register only works when hand is close

From what I can make out from that tangled mess, you have your transistor wired up like:

That is wrong. Firstly your current limit resistor is in the wrong place (it is offsetting the transistor, which is bad), plus you don't have a current limit resistor on the base, which is bad, as it could kill your shift register.

It should be like this:

bad.png

good.png