How long have you been doing photography for? (dated 20/02/11)

[Haigh]

Around 50 + years. I was introduced to it as part of my work in optics as a young man and there was a darkroom there. I had some very kind mentors who would check my personal work for me and give me tips. Many things have happened to me in my long life but I am more grateful than ever I still have this strong thread running through it. I am grateful for my long life as now I have the community of RFF to be a part of.

 

[Chris101]

... I mean starting with the point of investing serious personal funds and/or time into photography. ("My parents gave me a 110 camera when I was 6" doesn't count 🙂)

...

But my parents DID give me my first camera - that actually belonged to ME. I had used my father's, grandfather's and sister's cameras prior to that. So I did not invest big bucks into it, but I did take it with me everywhere.

Here are the oldest photos i can find, dated nearly 43 years ago:

http://homepage.mac.com/cheilman1/desemboque/

 

[Soothsayerman]

My mom gave me an SX-70 when I was 10. I took my first photography class in highschool at 14 and learned darkroom technique with my first serious camera a yashica TLR. When I was 16 I received an OM-1 for my birthday and an enlarger. Good times.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Although I had used my father's and uncles' Nikon and Canon SLRs before, I was given (my birthday, an uncle) my first Nikon by 12. Another (the youngest one) uncle invited me into his darkroom since I was a child: one day he told me "If you want, I can take a picture of you and print a photograph of you flying over the city like Superman", and he did it! He was in his twenties, and I got hooked when I was 5 years old... I remember how intense was the fixer smell to me back then... I learned to develop and print B&W and was the photographer for my high school newspaper by 13. But even shooting constantly for years after that, I never thought of "being a photographer" ever in my future, I mean professionally. When I was 22 (after passing over that uncontrollable thing called being a teenager) I started to care about latest cameras and lenses and decided to spend my (big then) money in a Nikon AF camera and a few lenses, and enjoyed (and learned a lot with) Ansel Adams' three books, and by 25 decided to curse the career in photography. My first career was music (composition). I used 35mm SLRs, MF and LF and worked professionally with them from the last year of my studies, on. I set my own small studio (and also worked for for a huge one) by 30. Then after some years I got tired of digital, and soon got bored with product and fashion shooting. I started to enjoy and prefer manual cameras (classic SLRs) a lot in my early 30's, and started to use rangefinders and do street shooting two years ago. I'd say the best part of my journey started 16 years ago, and Adams' books were the start...

Cheers,

Juan

 

[Michael Markey]

First I can recall was `62 using my dads folder.
Still have a couple of prints and one neg ....Belgium on a school trip.
Then early `70`s using K25/64/200 and a Zenith SLR and dads folder.
Later I got a Chinon.
In the `80s it was mainly a Canon Shureshot.
In the`90`s... video and about three or four years ago rangefinders.

 

[Doug]

Wow, I'm surprised to be among the plurality of respondents... I got really interested in photography in 1963, starting with a Regula 35mm.

 

[zx9]

I would have been eleven or twelve, my Father started using a FED about this time and I was fascinated with how it worked. He bought me a Yashica 35ME (fixed lens, zone focus and programme exposure I still have that camera all these years later) that was the start of the slippery slope! A couple of years later I was given Praktica SLR and started to sell all my other possessions to buy a 35mm lens and equip a dark room.
In the 90's things kind of got in the way and it was cleaning and testing my long neglected equipment for sale on ebay that I suddenly realised that I had missed (photographically) the early years of starting a family. Since then I have caught the bug again, other hobbies have taken a back seat.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Looks like a lot of us started as kids because our fathers had good cameras they taught us to use.

 

[Keith]

About seven years ago I had some debilitating health problems which cost me my business and necessitated a change of lifestyle. My life had been my business so after mooching about feeling sorry for myself for a year or two I figured I needed another passion ... and photography was it.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

I took my first photo at 4 years-old. But I'm not counting my time as "doing photography" since then! I guess I wouldn't count my time as a writer since 1st grade, or computer programmer since I wrote my first program at 12 years-old, either...

Hard one to answer. ::scratches head::

 

[ricnak]

Dad influence here too.

He reckoned there were two types of people in the world. Ones who belonged in front of camera and ones who belonged behind it. He taught me how to be behind one. Wonder what he was really trying to say????

In 1981 I bought myself a canon ae-1 and last year I discovered RF's.

 

[David Murphy]

51 years. I became obsessed with photography at 10 years old and never got over it. At 10, I was given, by a family friend, an old, even then, Speed Graphic. We set up a darkroom in a garage closet. And the rest is...well, history (man, I'm old).

Yup obsession at about age 8 and forward at different times in my life. It started with plastic Diana-like cameras, moved to crude darkroom efforts, Super-8, better darkroom work/SLR ownership (facilitated by having more $$ as a teen with a job), then 16mm film crew (real) work, etc. to where I am today: obsessed with rare and/or fine classic cameras, esp. 35mm rangefinders. My only regret, and it's minor, is that I didn't hang tight with cine when I was young and become a cinema-photographer!

 

[David Murphy]

Looks like a lot of us started as kids because our fathers had good cameras they taught us to use.

Exactly. My dad was a newspaper and later television reporter and they all had to know the basics of photography and film back then. He taught me what he knew. He's now 83 and he recently gave me the last camera he owned, a Pentax H3.

 

[Turtle]

Over a decade. I don't know where it has gone, but much of it is either in my neg files or on the wall. I find it particularly strange when I think I have spent nearly three years shooting one project which I have only just finished.

I too will never get over this. Its so ingrained into how I think, it cannot be undone. Its my way of processing and trying to comprehend life in all its variety. That frustration and energy was always there, only I had no outlet. Now that I do I have to keep bleeding off the madness and the only way to do that is with a 'click.'

 

[markwatts]

As a teenager in the early 70s when I began to travel further afield. To my regret I only came to rangefinders about 7 years ago.

 

[rover]

Mid to late 70s... my father was always supportive of any whim my brother and I had. When he bought disc cameras (no, he didn't get us all Leicas), he bought 4, one each for himself and my mom, as well as us kids. We always had photos of family events and vacations. We always had cameras in the house, and I was always interested. First real camera? There was a Yashica fixed lens RF I can't seem to locate, then he bought a couple used Minolta SRTs. Lots of P&Ss along the way.

 

[rover]

Looks like a lot of us started as kids because our fathers had good cameras they taught us to use.

I guess the SRTs are good cameras, but before that, the cameras my father got for me were like the cars my brother and I had when we were in high school, an embarrassment of hard core beat up Detroit heavy metal. He had friends who owned garages, so when an old clunker was seized by the garage owner after being abandoned by it's owner, my father was able to get a new free car for us if we needed one. We had some winners!!!

Disc cameras, 110 cameras, after the Yashica I mentioned earlier we were wed to 35mm P&S style. Then came the SRTs.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I guess the SRTs are good cameras, but before that, the cameras my father got for me were like the cars my brother and I had when we were in high school, an embarrassment of hard core beat up Detroit heavy metal. He had friends who owned garages, so when an old clunker was seized by the garage owner after being abandoned by it's owner, my father was able to get a new free car for us if we needed one. We had some winners!!!

Disc cameras, 110 cameras, after the Yashica I mentioned earlier we were wed to 35mm P&S style. Then came the SRTs.

LOL @ the cars. Probably a good idea for teen drivers though. I wrecked my first car six months after I got my license. I was pretty lucky on cameras. My dad had an Olympus OM-G (OM-20 outside the USA). It was an entry level SLR, not the best thing Olympus ever made, but it was an SLR that could be used manually and we acquired several Olympus lenses for them that I still use today on my much nicer OM-4T bodies. Both my OM-G and my dad's have died. Mine got broken in the same car accident that claimed my first car, and I wore out my dad's while using it as a backup until we finally got a new camera to replace mine.

I ended up getting my first OM-4T out of Olympus because of that broken OM-G though! After the car accident, my dad sent my OM-G to Olympus for repair. The shutter would sometimes start firing at the top shutter speed, no matter what speed was set. Then it would be normal for a time before doing it again. Olympus tried FOUR TIMES to fix it, even going so far (so they claimed) to replace the shutter, and it still never worked.

Finally, they told my dad that they usually give the customer a new camera after 3 tries at fixing the customer's old one. Problem was, the OM-G was no longer made by the time this all happened. They offered him one of their point-n-shoot models, because by then the only SLR they made was the expensive OM-4T. He said no, we need an SLR. He told them that he had an OM-G and the one he sent for repair was mine and that the two of us had 8 lenses and two OM flashes plus winders. That changed their mind: "Since you're such loyal Olympus customers, we'll give you an OM-4T". I was elated! Had always wanted one but it was too expensive for us to buy back then. I still have that free OM-4T. Olympus kept my broken OM-G, but my dad never bothered getting his repaired and it now sits on a shelf in my apartment as a keepsake of my beginnings in photography.

 

[E.M]

I started in 1972 at a photography school . First year only black and white ( tri-x ) and a Nikon F2 with a 50 mm . After that I found out I am more a colour shooter .

http://www.etiennemichiels.com

 

[jesse1dog]

Used my Dad's 120 roll film camera but really liked the 116 that came from my Grandfather's house clearance. Trouble was, it let the light in somewhere, sometimes. Did get a photo of the locomotive 'Princess Alice' in Crewe Works before it went into service. Three weeks later it was involved in the Harrow train disaster and was written off. I've still got the photo and the negative. Camera written off too at some later stage - thrown away!
Was given a Vito B for 21st birthday and using a +10 dioptre lens stuck on the front managed to get photos to illustrate a University essay project. As enlargements two of those photos got into the local Camera Club Exhibition - used ADOX 14 if I remember correctly. The enlarger was on the kitchen table with the light box with negative as high as possible and swung round so that paper was exposed on the floor! Happy times!
And a Leica 1 followed because I wanted a longer focus lens - Elmar 9cm.
Some great photos came using Geveart (?) black and white transparency film - I would use it now if it were still available, but we are talking about 50 years ago, and times have moved on.

jesse