Topic: A personal photography question?

[Francois]

Yes, it's the 1st of May, the first day of sunshine in a long time and a perfect time to rip a question from another site and ask the same here just for fun

What brought you to photography?

[eddie]

When i was in school a couple of the more wealthy students , three in total,  had a camera mounted on a tripod  and the Chemistry teacher was instructing them on photographing the interior of a building.  I watched outside the building in amazement, this image has never left me.I  bought my first camera at 19 and got a darkroom set from my mother on my 21st. I still have the development tank.

[moominsean]

i had a polaroid when i was nine and then a kodak disc camera and used to take tons of photos, but through high school i didn't even have a camera, until my dad gave me a pentax while we were in new york...i didn't even use it while we were there! in college i took 4 semesters of photography and learned that i loved the darkroom. then i didn't shoot much for a few more years until i got a digital camera. i took photos all the time, cuz it didn't cost anything. started with a holga and that got me back into film a few years ago.

[patchyfogsteph]

My sister and I used a 110 and a 35mm camera to pieces when we were kids, and I took a class in high school that didn't leave an impression, but when I was struggling with my choice of major (Environmental Geosciences) in college a few semesters before I was to graduate, I up and changed my major to English and my minor to photography, sight unseen.  By the end of the first week of the Basic Photography class, I was in love.  I used and loved my grandpa's Fujica AZ-1 that my grandma made me swear on my life to take care of.  I loved the darkroom, the smells, the wet paper, the image that "magically" appeared beneath the surface of the developer.  And this may sound hokey, but my grandpa's been gone for almost 15 years, but whenever I'm out shooting, he's with me, and maybe it's his love of photography that got me interested in it in the first place.

End of ramble...

Steph

[david b]

As with many things in my life, I was led astray by the fairer sex ... specifically two friends who made taking pictures seem like quite a good way of living your life.  The photography has lasted longer than the friendships, sad to say.

[akikana]

Birdwatching.

[Tammy]

My mom went to college very late in life (in her 50s I guess) and she took Photography 101 for a semester.  I was about 12.  We used to spend our weekends taking pictures, and she showed me how to use the 35mm.  We also did all the darkroom stuff together.  My folks loved photos and as young as I can recall my dad was using the SX70, and I had a Kodak X35 or something.  Home movies, and albums full of photos of family snaps!

I didn't take pictures for a long time, but in college I took the same semester of Photography 101 my mom had taken.  I didn't really get "it" then, but used the camera once in awhile.  After I had my 3rd kid I decided to treat myself to a new camera.  That was about 4 years ago, and I've been burning film ever since.

 
 

[FrankB]

Motorcycling!

I wanted a camera to take with me for snaps on motorcycle tours, basically 'cos I didn't want to keep borrowing my Dad's. Me being me I couldn't just walk into Jessops and pick one off the shelf, I had to do a load of research first. So when I bought my camera (Olympus mju II), got my first pictures back and compared them to the ones I'd seen in the magazines they were, unsurprisingly, crap!

So I borrowed my Dad's SLR (Pentax S1a, three lens outfit) and put a few rolls through. Again the shots were technically fine, but wholly uninspiring.

By this time I knew enough to realise that it wasn't the camera's fault, it was the idiot holding it. So I signed up for some evening classes with the aim of learning to make better photographs. As it turned out there was very little of that on the course but there was a sizeable B&W darkroom component. The kit had all been studented and the safelights weren't, but it was enough to get me addicted.

The S1a gave way to a Nikon F80 (which has now been joined by a Mamiya C330S) and the pages of Loot produced a used darkroom rig at a very low price. Most of the techniques a picked up from various magazines and the forums on APUG and I gradually worked out the kind of print that flicks my own particular switch.

Still learning, still having fun.

[Ailsa]

My great uncle bought me a tiny Kodak 110 camera. I'd read/heard somewhere that to take a photo of a moving subject you should pan the camera (not that I knew it was called panning then). I took a photo of a pony cantering across a field, and it was rather good. My grandfather, who was an artist who also took quite a lot of pictures, cottoned onto this and gave me his old Olympus OM10 with 50mm lens, and I was away.

Did photography as a general study at 6th form college and then found that all my friends were applying for university to study English/Law/whatever. I had no idea what I wanted to do, so I took a one-year diploma in photography at a nearby art college. The idea was that it would keep me occupied while I waited for inspiration about a 'proper' subject to hit me. That was 20 years ago, and I'm still waiting...

[Skorj]

Birdwatching.

tori ?
garu ?

[Skorj]

Motorcycling!
 (which has now been joined by a Mamiya C330S)

Now that's a combo I wanna see! I try and take my 600 SE with me on my bike, and I am lucky it fits in the boot, otherwise I'd need a side-car. The 330 would be fun too. I am imagining you hanging low off the bars, trying to get that at-speed shot with a bus-like TLR...

(I know of course this is not what you use it for. Here's one I made earlier.)



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[Skorj]

What brought you to photography?

Someone told me I was good at it. That was all my ego needed.

[LT]

festival nights in Long Barrows and Stone Circles.

then an eastern block SLR turned up in a house my Brother bought. It all developed (!) from there

[chricela]

My grand mother gave me a Kodak 126 film cartidge camera, when I was 7yrs old. I've never stopped shooting, since
 Both my grand fathers , liked photography, also . So I 'd say that's where my influence came from

[akikana]

tori ?
garu ?

tori. Working on some ideas regarding shooting the latter to keep me entertained during the long Tokyo summer...

[Janet_P]

I've always been surrounded by cameras because my Dad is a photographer, so there's always been an interest. The thing that clinched it for me though, was a TV drama that  I watched when I was about 13 called "Lizzie's Pictures", about a woman who used to photograph all her school friends. It inspired me to do the same and I haven't put the camera down since.

[Townheadbluesboy]

Dad's Kodachrome 25s from the early 60's taken while travelling around Europe in a white VW camper, (2nd one in UK) - could park ouside the Colosseum in those days.  I had the use of his Kodak Junior. Followed up by a Johnsons of Hendon B&W developing kit with postcard contact printer.  Interestingly, my 13 year old son is thinking of doing some darkroom work to get a retro feel into his art projects.  He says messing about with chemicals is more fun than the digital stuff.  Bought him an Olympus Trip which he likes playing with. I've found kids love pinhole cameras and cyanotypes. 

[FrankB]

Motorcycling!
 (which has now been joined by a Mamiya C330S)

Now that's a combo I wanna see! I try and take my 600 SE with me on my bike, and I am lucky it fits in the boot, otherwise I'd need a side-car. The 330 would be fun too. I am imagining you hanging low off the bars, trying to get that at-speed shot with a bus-like TLR...

 

Seek professional help!

(I know of course this is not what you use it for....

Phew! 

Unfortunately, I came to the same conclusion - a Mamiya TLR plus a Nikon SLR plus a tripod plus odds and ends is not a compatible loudout for a 600cc Yamaha! The bike now languishes in my back yard and I haven't applied bum to seat in a couple of years!

To be truthful though, it's more a change of thought process - I used to go to places to take the bike for a run and maybe make a few photos along the way. Now I go to places in order to make photos...

[Karl]

1. I came across a book of Andre Kertesz photos
2. Realising that being colour blind to reds and greens was a barrier to painting etc and having to stop Art A-level
 

[lauraburlton]

Hmmm... My parents always had some kind of camera around and I probably got my first when I was about 6-8 years old. My dad started letting me use his SLR when I was probably about 10-12 and they bought me my first "real" camera ( A minolta SLR) when I was about 14. I took my first formal photography class when I was in 10th grade but stopped when we moved mid year( the new school I went to only offered photography as part of yearbook/photojournalism class- as a gothy/punk rocker girl in a conservative new city I did not think I would do well spending my extra time photographing football games, wrestling matches and the whos who of the popular kids....) I still took lots of photos though until I was about 21,  then sold my camera and moved to Austin. I picked up the bug again about 5 years later and my wallet has been slave to the film since. I started taking photography classes again in about 2000 and it seemed to stick this time

[astrobeck]

My parents also had cameras.  They bought an Imperial Mark XII for me when I was 6 years old, and turned me loose with it during a summer vacation with my aunt and uncle.  I don't remember not having cameras around while growing up.  My Mom was a newspaper photographer and used a Polaroid (which I have stored away), and when I was in my 20's I began freelancing for a newspaper.  I bought a brand new Pentax K1000 and used it for all the newspaper jobs.  I still have and use that Pentax, and it's still one of my favorite cameras.  It's got some dings and dents, but internally it still works like a champ!
I still freelance for a newspaper, just a bigger one these days.  But all of that work is digital because of deadlines, etc.  My film habit has never waned though.  There's just something about it I can't give up!

Below is a photo of me taken by my aunt with my Imperial during that vacation to the western half of the USA.

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