When did you first fall in love with photography?

[shadowfox]

I envy you guys with childhood memory of taking pictures. I don't have any.

I've been shooting forgotten snapshots as far as I can remember. Finally got married, get a digital camera for our honeymoon and start taking my own pictures.

Years later, I don't really have anything to show for, plus getting really bored looking at super-crisp, clean, digital pictures. Then I start paying attention to film photos, b&w in particular ... so imperfect, so lifelike (not life-replica), so ... human.

And I've never looked back since. Fortunately, my wife is along for the ride 🙂

Sirius, it's been a while since we have a thread this personal. Thanks!

 

[photophorous]

It happened in two stages for me. My mom gave me her old Minolta X-370 and I took it on a trip to the Pacific NW at the age of 19. I just thought it was cool because it was a "real" camera. I came back with a few images that still hold up to my self-critique today...mostly out of luck. That was when I realized what was possible. For the next 7 years I just took photos on vacation, thinking you need mountains and waterfalls to make a good shot. Then about two and half years ago I decided I wanted to learn more and I signed up for a B&W darkroom class. When I first pulled those negatives out and saw them...that was it. I've been hooked ever since.

Paul

 

[sirius]

I like this thread, so here's a bump to the top...

 

[alternatve]

A Leica did it for me. I was about 14 then, walking in a mall with my folks. I passed by this glass cabinet full of this strange looking metal cameras with a red dot and I remember being enchanted by them. They just looked so interesting to me. I messed around with a Ricoh 500ME and a Yashica 35, but when they broke, I lost interest for a while

Two years on, my passion reignited when I handled my friend's 30D. I messed around with russian gear for a while before I transited to a Bessa R2a, keeping the great glass. Just recently, I traded it for a battered Leica M2, and I've been satisfied ever since. It not only feels good in the hand, but it looks great too. I feel myself wanting to take it out for a spin or just to hold it in my hand and admire it's lines.

Samuel

 

[fuwen]

I started to be interested in photography at the age of around 14, admiring my secondary school classmates' Canon A1 and Leica R3. For one reason or another I just like to look at cameras. Sometimes after school I went to shopping centres to admire the Rolleiflex SL35E and the Rollei 35S. But parents were not supportive then and it was not until around 1986 that I managed to get a new Praktica BC1 with 50/1.8 lens with pocket money from University industrial attachment.

 

[BillBingham2]

For me, it was in my blood. My father was a photographer for Kodak all of his life. There are some pictures of me with an old Brownie walking around when I still had diapers on. I remember taking pictures with an old Kodak Pony and an Instamatic S-10 in grammar school. In Jr. high my father got an old Konica III for me and between feeling very safe behind the camera (pretty girls were scary back then) and having free film and processing I got hooked. Kept using the Konica through first year of High School. Had a photography teacher, Dan Cook (maybe with an e) who was the best. Got me really excited about photography. Problem was he left after my freshman year and the next teacher was more of a press guy and not a very good teacher. Spent my life savings at the time on a Nikkormat FTn with an 85/1.8 and shortly after a 24/2.8. I was able to barrow 'Blads and all sorts of great stuff from time to time. Having a Boy Scout Explorer Post doing photography was helpful to keep my interest too. We did not have any female type photographers at our High School or at any of the near by ones. But there were at the Explorer Post and at the Yearbook summer training sessions they had at the local college.

I think what really got me hooked was my fathers portfolio, he had such great stuff in it. When he was at the Park he was always doing something interesting and then when he went to the Office it was even better. He let me help him on a few shoots and I loved doing stuff with him.

B2 (;->

 

[Stephanie Brim]

I think I actually fell in love with it when I started to develop film. I love chemistry. I love the excuse to get away from everyone and everything and destress. I love the control over the negatives.

 

[edho]

I think it is when I was 10, my father bought me a small Voigtlander camera(those small spy type camera which 007 uses in movie) using 110 negatives in my birthday. I was very happy as I believed older people use bigger cameras while little kids like I was shall use small cameras( eg. kids use small bowls, cups, spoons...etc).

From that time I felt in love in photography.

 

[Bingley]

Great stories in this thread!

My family subscribed to Life magazine throughout the 50s and 60s, and it was a weekly source of fascination to me as a child and teenager. But what really triggered my love for photography were the Matthew Brady Civil War photographs I pored over as a 5- and 6-year old. We had a couple of coffee-table sized books about the American Civil War that included a large selection of photographs by Brady and others, and when I was home sick from grade school I would spend hours looking at the images of people in those photographs, both the then-living as well as the newly dead. The thought that there was this device that could capture, for an instant, how those people really looked, freezing that image in time forever (well, for almost 100 years at that point), fascinated me. Still does.

 

[George Bonanno]

Shallow me...

Shallow me...

I just wanted to take nude pictures of my girlfriends. There was no way I could take the film to the drug store so I was forced into it.

Here's two keeping it visually safe...

Flashbulbs were hot... yet so cool !

 

[HuubL]

I must've been around 8 or so. I was at the neighbors and they had visitors from South Africa, I think. They had a Leica, I think it was an LTM, with a number of lenses. I was so impressed with the machine! Love at first sight! I think that's what triggered my collector gene.
I got really interested in photography when I was 18-20 years old.

 

[bsdunek]

Thanks to everyone so far. This is great, exactly what I was hoping for.

I found this wonderful article online about Jerry D. Sullivan, a Leica repair man. There are some great anecdotes about Gary Winogrand in there...

http://www.precision-camera.com/about_us/letter.htm

What a great and touching life story. He didn't let obsticles stop him, he forged ahead, with hard work and integerty.
Thanks for sharing this!

My Father, and his Mother before him, was always into photography. We always had a darkroom in the basement. My Grandfather gave me a Brownie Target 620 for my eighth birthday. Wow, my own camera! Have been shooting and processing ever since.

 

[minoltist7]

My father was amateur photographer and had all darkroom equipment for DIY processing at home. All photos of me and my sister in early childhood was printed by himself . But when I grew up to the age where I'd able to hold a camera, he lost interest in photography, and his equipment was broken or sold. I have "hidden" interest, but had no possibility to do that until I become adult .
My first girlfriend was an avid photographer, and she taught me the basics . But it was in minilab-dominated era, so I missed that traditional DIY approach, which my father and many amateurs used in 70thies and 80thies. Recently (1 year ago) I found huge interest in classic BW photography, and with help of some books and internet resources, learned how to develop film myself. I think modern times of the Internet are great.. you can share your experience, give and take advices with thousands of people over the world.

 

[Toby]

I didn't fall in love with photography

It got me drunk and took advantage of me. Now I'm stuck with it.

 

[sirius]

Late, Sunday evening...a good time for some more stories... 😀

 

[literiter]

My love of photography snuck up on me like a really good relationship.

I was going to say it was in the photography club in high school, or a stint as a cub photographer at two newspapers. Or the time I talked a pretty girl to take her clothes off for a picture.

But I don't think it was.

I think it was the day I shot and printed what I saw, and I actually liked it.

 

[sirius]

Or the time I talked a pretty girl to take her clothes off for a picture.

Ha, ha...sweet. I like the honesty! I wish I could do that kind of work ...

 

[sirius]

A quiet Wednesday night, does anyone have any stories to add?

 

[pevelg]

I always adored my fathers simple photography and I marveled at the elegant FED 5. I became in love with photography when my dad sat down with me and showed me the basics (I was around 19 then), still using the old celluloid meter of the FED. When he gave me his FED, there was a film inside it. I got it developed and to my surprise, there was over 10 years of life on that film. My dad had abandoned photography when leaving Russia.... The first pictures on the film was of me with my sister, about 5 years old. In the middle were horrible shots taken by a naughty brother about 7 years later. They were under/over exposed and not focused. I'm guessing he had some how snuck the camera out of my fathers desk. The last were about 6 or so years after that at my parents home in Missouri, where I had taken my first few pictures from my fathers lessons. The film, long expired, had evidence of light leakage and the colors were muted. Never the less, it is one of the most sacred photographic memories. Ever since, I have been hooked to RF photography.

 

[cole]

Like a few other people here, my interest in photography was sparked by my father.

Before I was born, my father had a full B&W dark-room, and film cameras of all sizes from 4x5" to 35mm. By the time I came around, he was mostly down to his 35mm, an Olympus OM-1 and an OM-2n. He shot semi-professionally for most of my young life, and only recently has taken it onto a more personal level.

While I was growing up, I was always amazed by the magic of transforming light shot through a lens into an image. It helped that he was - and still is - a wonderful photographer. The images he captured were tender, full of emotion and inspired me to do the same.

It wasn't until high school, though, that I learned to use a manual camera. As part of a graphic arts course, my class had to learn how to operate an SLR, and create a photo-essay with the photographs we captured. My father showed me the ins and outs of exposure, and lent me one of his Olympus bodies with a couple lenses (which I was very proud of and terrified of at the same time).

Photography continued to play an important part off-and-on throughout my teenage years, until 3 years after my high school graduation, when I decided to follow photography into college. Ironically, I was accepted into the same photography programme that my father took when he was not much older than I was at the time.

I fell absolutely in love with developing and printing my own photographs in college, and it proved an incredibly valuable way for my father and I to re-connect in a way that we hadn't since I was a youngin'. The programme also showed me the magic of large-format photography, something that I continue to work in and be inspired by.

I spent a year after college shooting on a Canon EOS SLR system, until earlier this year, when I decided, 'the hell with this digital stuff.' I sold all my digital gear and got myself a Leica M7 with a 50/2 Summicron. Along with my Linhof Technika III that I purchased after graduation, going back to shooting all film has been immensely inspiring and invigorating.

My father and I now bounce the inspiration back and forth between each other. The Olympus he originally lent me back in high school is still with me, and now he's a little jealous of my Leica. 😉

It's neat to see how many of our fathers have inspired us towards photography. It makes me think and hope the same can be true for my child and I one day.