What started your photography?

[K9Kirk]

I agree. It’s wonderful to learn a bit about the world behind the names and the avatar!

Thanks, I feel like I ramble too much at times. Maybe I don't. Nice to hear, thx!

 

[RichardB]

Thanks, I feel like I ramble too much at times. Maybe I don't. Nice to hear, thx!

Nope, you don't. And even if you did, we like that here!

 

[CraigMcM]

I began with film processes, but hated the uncertainty of it all.
A few classes in highschool were too concentrated on chemical processing,
so I bugged out. Processing from Photomat and the like was torture.

Acquired a Canon S3iS, and it opened my eyes.
Suddenly, I could take control of my images: post-processing, developing, all of it.
Suddenly, with RAW processing and the rest of it, I was able to make my photos my own.

I no longer had to rely on a Photomat or other processor to reveal my photos,
and I went to town on making the photos my own.

Make a sharp cut to this day, and it's still how I do it.
It's how I make the photographs mine; not how some processing lab
decides they should be.

 

[JohnPD]

Interesting to read all the different ways people got into photography. It seems most started with film and didn’t like the whole processing thing.

 

[tacphotog]

Boredom. I was in the Army stationed in Germany back in the mid 70's. I picked up a Pentax Spotmatic F and a Popular Photography magazine for something to do and was hooked. I changed to Canon when the AE-1 came out and now I shoot with an R6 and a 5D Mark II. The Army used to have photo clubs on post with full B&W and color darkrooms, so I could shoot and then process and print at will. It came in handy when I went to college and had to balance out my bad math scores. The instructor had me teaching darkroom after he saw what I could do. I've been second camera at some fashion shoots and have shot a couple of weddings. I was a photographer for the Kennel Club of Panama while I was stationed there in the early 80's. It's been fun. As things go, my job took over everything and I stopped my photography for a long time. Now that I'm older and not working as much I'm getting back into it.

 

[greatgrandma]

My mom was taking photos when she was a child. And I guess her parents did too. She's about 10 in the bottom photo (c 1919). I have a photo she entered in a contest when she was 11.5. I assume her parents also took photos. My dad didn't get into photography quite as early. His photos were technically better. He took a lot of photos which I had to pose in them for him. (Which I soon learned that if I made faces, it would show in the photo.) He was a photographer. My mom and I we just take pictures. The top photo is one of his My cousin, my little sister, and me on the right.

 

[ImageMaker]

High school. Camera and to save money did my own darkroom work too. After that, always had a camera with me. USMC, University, work, travel.. eventually years and years in Asia. Thousands of photos from all over Asia. A fav trip (trek) was 2 weeks in the Himalayas. 15 KGs of MF Film camera and lenses. Tahiti was another wonderful couple of weeks. Or maybe sunsets over the Arabian Sea…. So many memories. Even more in the making..!

 

[Ltdave]

long long story.

dont start reading this unless youre laying in bed, its 230 in the middle of the night and you have insomnia.

my grandma had an old folding kodak and i always thought that was just the cat's meow. my grandpa had a subscription to national geographic for decades. i always looked at the far away lands and the sometimes photo journalism-esque images (and maybe there were camera ads in the magazine back in the late 60s-early 70s?)
one of our neighbors was the photo editor of the local newspaper and i always saw him around with his cameras and he always seemed to have 'access' to stuff that us 'lowly peasants' couldnt get. we had a really treacherous intersection right around the corner from my house and you could hear the collisions. i always day-dreamed about hearing a crash, running out there with my parents instamatic, getting photos and selling them to the newspaper and them hiring me because i was "there, on the spot and got the picture" yeah childhood dreams i guess.

joined the yearbook squad in 6th grade and the advisor let me use her Canon EX-Auto because no one else really wanted to take photos. FINE WITH ME!!! i did that for 3y in Junior High School and then when i went to High School, the yearbook advisor said they had enough people so they didnt really need me. okay. my mom got me a Kodak Signet 40 with flash gun at a garage sale and i shot a lot of pictures for myself in school, and at church events and just around town. she would go on to buy me another dozen or so cameras at garage sales, of which i still have. i need to get good images of them one day.

i failed 2nd semester Advanced Algebra my freshman year, VERY BADLY. i left 17 of 25 questions blank on the final exam and so i had to take another semester of math one year. i did that first semester my junior year and that left a hole in my schedule so i took the photography class. one semester, based on Verichrome Pan film in 126 in instamatics because it was dirt cheap, and the film would fit on the reels in the darkroom for processing. i convinced the teacher to let me use one of the high school's defunct newspaper's Canon FTb and lenses. i was pretty well known in the school district because my mom, two of my dad's sisters, one of his sisters in law, one of my cousins, and another cousin's wife were all teachers. my parents were also very involved in the school Parent-Teacher organizations and the band. i wasnt going anywhere with the gear and they knew if anything happened to it, I would be the one paying for it, not my parents lol. i 'some how' found a spare key to the darkroom and so i would come into school a couple of hours early, develop my film, make my prints, and then not have to fight for space during class. my parents got my sister a typewriter for her senior year present and since i always had girls who would type for me, i asked for a Canon AE-1 for my graduation gift. i got it in August between 11th and 12th grade.

i shot a lot of film with it and when i graduated i hired into a one-hour photo lab and camera store. my high school guidance counselor and husband owned it (in part so their son would have a job) and she told me she wouldnt hire me if i werent going to college at the local 2-yr school. i was going to school, i got the job, got all of my processing and film at cost and made some good money. i then joined the college newspaper staff and after 1 semester i was the Photo Editor and basically rebuilt the trashed darkroom where it actually worked as a darkroom for anyone who shot for the paper. which seemed to be a lot of people TAKING the assignment cards but then not returning to process the film or make prints! i did all of that for 2 years while working at the lab and then doing a summer internship at the local paper working mostly weekend jobs when the 'regulars' didnt want to. it helped that my neighbor still was the photo editor there.

decided to enlist in the Air Force just before my last semester ended so i packed up my gear which at this point was the AE-1, 35mm f2, 50mm f1.8, 85mm f1.8 and 200mm f2.8 and shipped out. i couldnt get a job as photographer (for reasons ill spare you) but ended up as a Graphic Artist and went to tech school for 16 weeks. the Air Force did NOT get their money's worth in training me to be an illustrator, thats for sure. i got to my first assignment and did everything i could to work in the photo lab and then one day, it all came to a head. out of 7 photographers assigned, all but 2 had either gotten out or were reassigned so BAM! they asked me to help out. i got some simple jobs at first because a) i was NOT a photographer as far as the Air Force was concerned b) they hadnt seen much of anything i had been shooting other than my portfolio i made up in order to try and get a photo job to begin with. soon they got a new NCO in Charge and he took a liking to me. he had me go through the Career Development Course (CDC) for a 3-level (Air Force has 3, 5, 7, 9 levels with 3 being worker-bee, 5 technichian, 7 first level supervisor, 9 upper management) and he secretly was filling out the advancement papers to push to get me the Still Photographer specialty code as a secondary certification. i took the test and did surprisingly BAD but still passed. something like 87%. there were questions on it that had never been removed that pertained to 4x5 sheet film, orthochromatic and xray film and some other stuff (i guess i should have paid more attention to in the CDC course work!) so i then talked to the training people and they said congratulations. i asked about it being my secondary AF specialty code and they said 'nope' you can take all the courses and take all the tests you want but you dont just 'get' the AFSC. so it was a letter to the Strategic Air Command Training and Classifications department. my NCOIC friend wrote a letter of endorsement for me too. the Air Force was just starting to buy the Noritsu 601 self-contained color enlargers (1989) and i had worked with one in the photo lab 5 years earlier. that was a BIG selling point in getting my secondary AFSC awarded.

i went through the next couple of years working in both Graphics and Photo, doing some drawing and making briefing slides (initially overhead 8x10 vu-graphs before computer generated slides) and shooting local base level stuff. got some flying assignments since we were a training base but never got onto a flight crew. i couldnt get my 5 level because i wasnt in a Photo assignment. i couldnt get a Photo assignment because i wasnt a 5 level. catch 22, until............. The needs of the Air Force trump everything and anything you the enlisted member might want or think. i was notified of an assignment to what i had been told by another friend was the Armpit of the World (this is an international site so i wont say where the assignment was.). AS A PHOTOGRAPHER because they needed a Staff Sergeant Photographer and they were going to 'waive the 5 level requirement'. how kind of them. in the Air Force once you have reenlisted the Air Force figures youre in it for the long haul. while they will allow you to refuse an assignment, they will think you decided against staying and you cant reenlist any more times. i wisely/foolishly went to Records and had my Still Photographic Specialist Air Force Specialty Code removed from my records making me ineligible for the assignment. it didnt ruin any chance of me reenlisting at the end of my 2nd term if i wanted. i wasnt REFUSING the assignment, so there! take that!

2 weeks after getting out of the Armpit Assignment, i got called that they had orders for me, again. (i REALLY needed to change my preferences from World Wide no preference of base, to US only!) this time they wanted to send me to Hellenikon Air Station Greece in ATHENS. again as a Photographer. i job i NO LONGER was 'qualified' to do.... i got another assignment 2 weeks after that to Izmir Turkey as a Graphic Artist but my reporting date was 4 months after my separation date and i THOUGHT i had a job lined up locally so i refused it, and was sent packing half a year later.

when i got home in September 1993 i shot maybe 4 rolls of film before i stuffed my gear (now including a 24mm f2 and an F1 new) in the closet and didnt take another photograph until 2001 when my daughter was born. i got an Olympus C-4040 4mp p/s.

so to END this laborious tome, i started buying digital and got my film gear out, and added to the film gear and upgraded the digital and took some classes, attended workshops, found the original POT.N which when i first registered it was a Canon-centric site. then learned more on my own, asked questions there, listened and applied it, bought more gear and since 2015, have lost money in the Photo Business world. but i love the community here, for SURE!

Grandma's camera (I think its the one of the far right)

Canon EX-Auto

Kodak Signet 40

Canon AE-1 and F1new

i have so many cameras i still need photos of!!!! G.A.S. is real

 

[tacphotog]

long long story.

dont start reading this unless youre laying in bed, its 230 in the middle of the night and you have insomnia.

my grandma had an old folding kodak and i always thought that was just the cat's meow. my grandpa had a subscription to national geographic for decades. i always looked at the far away lands and the sometimes photo journalism-esque images (and maybe there were camera ads in the magazine back in the late 60s-early 70s?)
one of our neighbors was the photo editor of the local newspaper and i always saw him around with his cameras and he always seemed to have 'access' to stuff that us 'lowly peasants' couldnt get. we had a really treacherous intersection right around the corner from my house and you could hear the collisions. i always day-dreamed about hearing a crash, running out there with my parents instamatic, getting photos and selling them to the newspaper and them hiring me because i was "there, on the spot and got the picture" yeah childhood dreams i guess.

joined the yearbook squad in 6th grade and the advisor let me use her Canon EX-Auto because no one else really wanted to take photos. FINE WITH ME!!! i did that for 3y in Junior High School and then when i went to High School, the yearbook advisor said they had enough people so they didnt really need me. okay. my mom got me a Kodak Signet 40 with flash gun at a garage sale and i shot a lot of pictures for myself in school, and at church events and just around town. she would go on to buy me another dozen or so cameras at garage sales, of which i still have. i need to get good images of them one day.

i failed 2nd semester Advanced Algebra my freshman year, VERY BADLY. i left 17 of 25 questions blank on the final exam and so i had to take another semester of math one year. i did that first semester my junior year and that left a hole in my schedule so i took the photography class. one semester, based on Verichrome Pan film in 126 in instamatics because it was dirt cheap, and the film would fit on the reels in the darkroom for processing. i convinced the teacher to let me use one of the high school's defunct newspaper's Canon FTb and lenses. i was pretty well known in the school district because my mom, two of my dad's sisters, one of his sisters in law, one of my cousins, and another cousin's wife were all teachers. my parents were also very involved in the school Parent-Teacher organizations and the band. i wasnt going anywhere with the gear and they knew if anything happened to it, I would be the one paying for it, not my parents lol. i 'some how' found a spare key to the darkroom and so i would come into school a couple of hours early, develop my film, make my prints, and then not have to fight for space during class. my parents got my sister a typewriter for her senior year present and since i always had girls who would type for me, i asked for a Canon AE-1 for my graduation gift. i got it in August between 11th and 12th grade.

i shot a lot of film with it and when i graduated i hired into a one-hour photo lab and camera store. my high school guidance counselor and husband owned it (in part so their son would have a job) and she told me she wouldnt hire me if i werent going to college at the local 2-yr school. i was going to school, i got the job, got all of my processing and film at cost and made some good money. i then joined the college newspaper staff and after 1 semester i was the Photo Editor and basically rebuilt the trashed darkroom where it actually worked as a darkroom for anyone who shot for the paper. which seemed to be a lot of people TAKING the assignment cards but then not returning to process the film or make prints! i did all of that for 2 years while working at the lab and then doing a summer internship at the local paper working mostly weekend jobs when the 'regulars' didnt want to. it helped that my neighbor still was the photo editor there.

decided to enlist in the Air Force just before my last semester ended so i packed up my gear which at this point was the AE-1, 35mm f2, 50mm f1.8, 85mm f1.8 and 200mm f2.8 and shipped out. i couldnt get a job as photographer (for reasons ill spare you) but ended up as a Graphic Artist and went to tech school for 16 weeks. the Air Force did NOT get their money's worth in training me to be an illustrator, thats for sure. i got to my first assignment and did everything i could to work in the photo lab and then one day, it all came to a head. out of 7 photographers assigned, all but 2 had either gotten out or were reassigned so BAM! they asked me to help out. i got some simple jobs at first because a) i was NOT a photographer as far as the Air Force was concerned b) they hadnt seen much of anything i had been shooting other than my portfolio i made up in order to try and get a photo job to begin with. soon they got a new NCO in Charge and he took a liking to me. he had me go through the Career Development Course (CDC) for a 3-level (Air Force has 3, 5, 7, 9 levels with 3 being worker-bee, 5 technichian, 7 first level supervisor, 9 upper management) and he secretly was filling out the advancement papers to push to get me the Still Photographer specialty code as a secondary certification. i took the test and did surprisingly BAD but still passed. something like 87%. there were questions on it that had never been removed that pertained to 4x5 sheet film, orthochromatic and xray film and some other stuff (i guess i should have paid more attention to in the CDC course work!) so i then talked to the training people and they said congratulations. i asked about it being my secondary AF specialty code and they said 'nope' you can take all the courses and take all the tests you want but you dont just 'get' the AFSC. so it was a letter to the Strategic Air Command Training and Classifications department. my NCOIC friend wrote a letter of endorsement for me too. the Air Force was just starting to buy the Noritsu 601 self-contained color enlargers (1989) and i had worked with one in the photo lab 5 years earlier. that was a BIG selling point in getting my secondary AFSC awarded.

i went through the next couple of years working in both Graphics and Photo, doing some drawing and making briefing slides (initially overhead 8x10 vu-graphs before computer generated slides) and shooting local base level stuff. got some flying assignments since we were a training base but never got onto a flight crew. i couldnt get my 5 level because i wasnt in a Photo assignment. i couldnt get a Photo assignment because i wasnt a 5 level. catch 22, until............. The needs of the Air Force trump everything and anything you the enlisted member might want or think. i was notified of an assignment to what i had been told by another friend was the Armpit of the World (this is an international site so i wont say where the assignment was.). AS A PHOTOGRAPHER because they needed a Staff Sergeant Photographer and they were going to 'waive the 5 level requirement'. how kind of them. in the Air Force once you have reenlisted the Air Force figures youre in it for the long haul. while they will allow you to refuse an assignment, they will think you decided against staying and you cant reenlist any more times. i wisely/foolishly went to Records and had my Still Photographic Specialist Air Force Specialty Code removed from my records making me ineligible for the assignment. it didnt ruin any chance of me reenlisting at the end of my 2nd term if i wanted. i wasnt REFUSING the assignment, so there! take that!

2 weeks after getting out of the Armpit Assignment, i got called that they had orders for me, again. (i REALLY needed to change my preferences from World Wide no preference of base, to US only!) this time they wanted to send me to Hellenikon Air Station Greece in ATHENS. again as a Photographer. i job i NO LONGER was 'qualified' to do.... i got another assignment 2 weeks after that to Izmir Turkey as a Graphic Artist but my reporting date was 4 months after my separation date and i THOUGHT i had a job lined up locally so i refused it, and was sent packing half a year later.

when i got home in September 1993 i shot maybe 4 rolls of film before i stuffed my gear (now including a 24mm f2 and an F1 new) in the closet and didnt take another photograph until 2001 when my daughter was born. i got an Olympus C-4040 4mp p/s.

so to END this laborious tome, i started buying digital and got my film gear out, and added to the film gear and upgraded the digital and took some classes, attended workshops, found the original POT.N which when i first registered it was a Canon-centric site. then learned more on my own, asked questions there, listened and applied it, bought more gear and since 2015, have lost money in the Photo Business world. but i love the community here, for SURE!

Grandma's camera (I think its the one of the far right)

View attachment 10029


Canon EX-Auto

View attachment 10028

Kodak Signet 40

View attachment 10030

Canon AE-1 and F1new

View attachment 10031


i have so many cameras i still need photos of!!!! G.A.S. is real

A long but interesting read. In the army I couldn't get close to a photography specialty so I took the correspondence courses and did my own work. I loved it.

 

[ImageMaker]

long long story.

dont start reading this unless youre laying in bed, its 230 in the middle of the night and you have insomnia.

my grandma had an old folding kodak and i always thought that was just the cat's meow. my grandpa had a subscription to national geographic for decades. i always looked at the far away lands and the sometimes photo journalism-esque images (and maybe there were camera ads in the magazine back in the late 60s-early 70s?)
one of our neighbors was the photo editor of the local newspaper and i always saw him around with his cameras and he always seemed to have 'access' to stuff that us 'lowly peasants' couldnt get. we had a really treacherous intersection right around the corner from my house and you could hear the collisions. i always day-dreamed about hearing a crash, running out there with my parents instamatic, getting photos and selling them to the newspaper and them hiring me because i was "there, on the spot and got the picture" yeah childhood dreams i guess.

joined the yearbook squad in 6th grade and the advisor let me use her Canon EX-Auto because no one else really wanted to take photos. FINE WITH ME!!! i did that for 3y in Junior High School and then when i went to High School, the yearbook advisor said they had enough people so they didnt really need me. okay. my mom got me a Kodak Signet 40 with flash gun at a garage sale and i shot a lot of pictures for myself in school, and at church events and just around town. she would go on to buy me another dozen or so cameras at garage sales, of which i still have. i need to get good images of them one day.

i failed 2nd semester Advanced Algebra my freshman year, VERY BADLY. i left 17 of 25 questions blank on the final exam and so i had to take another semester of math one year. i did that first semester my junior year and that left a hole in my schedule so i took the photography class. one semester, based on Verichrome Pan film in 126 in instamatics because it was dirt cheap, and the film would fit on the reels in the darkroom for processing. i convinced the teacher to let me use one of the high school's defunct newspaper's Canon FTb and lenses. i was pretty well known in the school district because my mom, two of my dad's sisters, one of his sisters in law, one of my cousins, and another cousin's wife were all teachers. my parents were also very involved in the school Parent-Teacher organizations and the band. i wasnt going anywhere with the gear and they knew if anything happened to it, I would be the one paying for it, not my parents lol. i 'some how' found a spare key to the darkroom and so i would come into school a couple of hours early, develop my film, make my prints, and then not have to fight for space during class. my parents got my sister a typewriter for her senior year present and since i always had girls who would type for me, i asked for a Canon AE-1 for my graduation gift. i got it in August between 11th and 12th grade.

i shot a lot of film with it and when i graduated i hired into a one-hour photo lab and camera store. my high school guidance counselor and husband owned it (in part so their son would have a job) and she told me she wouldnt hire me if i werent going to college at the local 2-yr school. i was going to school, i got the job, got all of my processing and film at cost and made some good money. i then joined the college newspaper staff and after 1 semester i was the Photo Editor and basically rebuilt the trashed darkroom where it actually worked as a darkroom for anyone who shot for the paper. which seemed to be a lot of people TAKING the assignment cards but then not returning to process the film or make prints! i did all of that for 2 years while working at the lab and then doing a summer internship at the local paper working mostly weekend jobs when the 'regulars' didnt want to. it helped that my neighbor still was the photo editor there.

decided to enlist in the Air Force just before my last semester ended so i packed up my gear which at this point was the AE-1, 35mm f2, 50mm f1.8, 85mm f1.8 and 200mm f2.8 and shipped out. i couldnt get a job as photographer (for reasons ill spare you) but ended up as a Graphic Artist and went to tech school for 16 weeks. the Air Force did NOT get their money's worth in training me to be an illustrator, thats for sure. i got to my first assignment and did everything i could to work in the photo lab and then one day, it all came to a head. out of 7 photographers assigned, all but 2 had either gotten out or were reassigned so BAM! they asked me to help out. i got some simple jobs at first because a) i was NOT a photographer as far as the Air Force was concerned b) they hadnt seen much of anything i had been shooting other than my portfolio i made up in order to try and get a photo job to begin with. soon they got a new NCO in Charge and he took a liking to me. he had me go through the Career Development Course (CDC) for a 3-level (Air Force has 3, 5, 7, 9 levels with 3 being worker-bee, 5 technichian, 7 first level supervisor, 9 upper management) and he secretly was filling out the advancement papers to push to get me the Still Photographer specialty code as a secondary certification. i took the test and did surprisingly BAD but still passed. something like 87%. there were questions on it that had never been removed that pertained to 4x5 sheet film, orthochromatic and xray film and some other stuff (i guess i should have paid more attention to in the CDC course work!) so i then talked to the training people and they said congratulations. i asked about it being my secondary AF specialty code and they said 'nope' you can take all the courses and take all the tests you want but you dont just 'get' the AFSC. so it was a letter to the Strategic Air Command Training and Classifications department. my NCOIC friend wrote a letter of endorsement for me too. the Air Force was just starting to buy the Noritsu 601 self-contained color enlargers (1989) and i had worked with one in the photo lab 5 years earlier. that was a BIG selling point in getting my secondary AFSC awarded.

i went through the next couple of years working in both Graphics and Photo, doing some drawing and making briefing slides (initially overhead 8x10 vu-graphs before computer generated slides) and shooting local base level stuff. got some flying assignments since we were a training base but never got onto a flight crew. i couldnt get my 5 level because i wasnt in a Photo assignment. i couldnt get a Photo assignment because i wasnt a 5 level. catch 22, until............. The needs of the Air Force trump everything and anything you the enlisted member might want or think. i was notified of an assignment to what i had been told by another friend was the Armpit of the World (this is an international site so i wont say where the assignment was.). AS A PHOTOGRAPHER because they needed a Staff Sergeant Photographer and they were going to 'waive the 5 level requirement'. how kind of them. in the Air Force once you have reenlisted the Air Force figures youre in it for the long haul. while they will allow you to refuse an assignment, they will think you decided against staying and you cant reenlist any more times. i wisely/foolishly went to Records and had my Still Photographic Specialist Air Force Specialty Code removed from my records making me ineligible for the assignment. it didnt ruin any chance of me reenlisting at the end of my 2nd term if i wanted. i wasnt REFUSING the assignment, so there! take that!

2 weeks after getting out of the Armpit Assignment, i got called that they had orders for me, again. (i REALLY needed to change my preferences from World Wide no preference of base, to US only!) this time they wanted to send me to Hellenikon Air Station Greece in ATHENS. again as a Photographer. i job i NO LONGER was 'qualified' to do.... i got another assignment 2 weeks after that to Izmir Turkey as a Graphic Artist but my reporting date was 4 months after my separation date and i THOUGHT i had a job lined up locally so i refused it, and was sent packing half a year later.

when i got home in September 1993 i shot maybe 4 rolls of film before i stuffed my gear (now including a 24mm f2 and an F1 new) in the closet and didnt take another photograph until 2001 when my daughter was born. i got an Olympus C-4040 4mp p/s.

so to END this laborious tome, i started buying digital and got my film gear out, and added to the film gear and upgraded the digital and took some classes, attended workshops, found the original POT.N which when i first registered it was a Canon-centric site. then learned more on my own, asked questions there, listened and applied it, bought more gear and since 2015, have lost money in the Photo Business world. but i love the community here, for SURE!

Grandma's camera (I think its the one of the far right)

View attachment 10029


Canon EX-Auto

View attachment 10028

Kodak Signet 40

View attachment 10030

Canon AE-1 and F1new

View attachment 10031


i have so many cameras i still need photos of!!!! G.A.S. is real

Best story on the net. Luv it!!
-USMC Vet