How / Why / When did you get into photography?

[mac66]

Probably around 8 or 9 years of age. My grandmother had an old bellows type Polaroid that didn't work. She showed me how to use it, and pretended to take pictures. I then moved up to a Brownie Box camera my mother had. I bought a motorcycle in high school and a friend and joined the club. We started taking pictures of flat track races, some of which we raced in, with my dad's old Argus 35mm. We then bought an enlarger and did our own film processing. I recently found one of the original pictures we took back in 1966. The rest have disappeared.

 

[Thumper_6119]

I think I was around 8 or 9 when I got my first camera. Kodak Instamatic. Had the disposable flashbars. I literally wore the thing out, and I ended up getting another one for Christmas. I was always taking pictures. I would use my yard mowing money and my paycheck (I had a part time job when I was 11) to get the little film cassettes developed at the photo-mat kiosks, grocery stores, and photo shops. I loved it. That one wore out when I was about 16, and I never replaced it. I kind of "lost" photography for a few years. Teenager, girls, high school, these things happen. During that time, my dad had a Canon AE-1 Program SLR. I might take a few shots with his once and a while, but not often. (A bit OCD, he wouldn't let me handle the "Precious" very often). Then when I started college in the late '80's, I took some photography courses, learned to develop and process film and prints (never did slides). I got my first film SLR then. A Nikon N4004s. (I still have it, and it still works). I still have a LOT of fond memories of lots and lots of hours and many late nights in the wet lab with my classmates. We used to have a blast spending hour upon hour in the wetlabs processing film and making prints, comparing work, etc. It was a really fun time in my life. Although my choices in life took me out of that particular path, I stayed with photography as a hobby, and I used that camera up until about 9-10 years ago. Digital had taken a firm hold, and film and places to get film developed locally were becoming harder to find, I couldn't afford to build up my own wetlab at that time. (Although, those places are much easier to find online now). I had wanted to get back into photography, so last year I bought my first DSLR, a Nikon D2Xs (I actually bought two, one for me, one for my wife, who had also taken photography in college, but to a greater extent than I. She did a lot more color processing, and really liked color slides, and she was a hardcore Pentax moonie). That was it, I was hooked on it harder than I ever was before. I have since upgraded my camera (she is still using her D2Xs along with her Canon PS), and I have a very modest collection of good glass. I am, and probably will only ever be, a hobbyist. But I am obsessed with it, and I enjoy it more than anything else. I don't really have a certain subject that I specialize in or that I enjoy shooting more than other things. I pretty much will take photos of anything and everything.

 

[Fred Kingston_RIP]

I was about 10 in 1956, and had a paper route delivering the San Francisco Examiner in San Fran... One of the weekly sales prizes was a Kodak Brownie... We weren't very rich, and I don't ever recall whatever happened to the film that came with the camera... or whether it ever even got developed... My next camera was a small Minolta I bought and carried in Vietnam in 1965... and then a Ashia Pentax SLR in '66...

 

[crewchief227]

My grandpa was a photographer and I was always around cameras of his growing up in the early 80's. I remember he had a large format camera among a few other awesome cameras. My Mom still has some of them and she uses them as decoration around her house. Anyways, it was about 10 years ago now that I got what I thought was my first good camera. It was a large coolpix I think that kind of looked like a mini SLR and I remember I thought it was so cool and had a whooping 3mp and I paid like $600 at the time. I always had an appreciation for photography and I used it as a tool to take photos for references for my art career, but now I stepped up to a D7100 as I wanted to take better pics then what I was getting with a point and shoot and now I am seeing photography as an art in itself as well as a means for me to create art. So I am still learning, but I am shooting on manual 100% of the time and while I may not get it right every time the first time I am to the point that I just have to bump the ISO or up the power on my speed light and I am happy with the results. I will tell you one thing though this is a very expensive hobby, or can be shall I say. I am used to buying the top of the line airbrush and that's only $600 for the very best vs $6000 with photography. Although just like art it can pay you back if you get good enough LOL