This may seem a strange title as a large percentage of the population has a camera and regularly takes photos. But is this really true?
I took up photography at the age of 8 when I won a Kodak Brownie 127 in a competition. There were 8 potos on eah reel and in the next 10 years I must have taken all of 200 photos. This was at a time when steam traction was being eliminated on British railways. What would I give to have an SDLR back then?
In 1970 I moved to university and upgraded to a Minolta compact, with which I took a large number of photos before it was stolen by a workmate in France in 1977.
At that point in time my father bought an Olympus OM10 and passed on his Zenit E to me. I really felt I was getting somewhere as I had 50mm and 135mm lenses. When he later upgraded to an Olympus OM2n I was given his OM10 and bought a couple of lenses as well as a series of Cokin filters. However, as lightening always seems to strike twice, These were also stolen by a workmate.
As this was around the time my dad retired, I inherited his OM2n and took many photos with it, though I was never happy with the quality of the slides.
Fast forward to 1998 and my first PC (I had been using an Atari ST until then). I bought my first digital camera, a Kodak DC 210, if my memory serves me correctly; It was a 1M-pixel fixed-lens compact which cost me 3000 French Francs (approx €450) at the time. Around 2005 I bought a 5M-pixel Dimage bridge camera.
Perhaps this is going the long way around the houses but, in my mind, I have spent the first 61 years of my life taking snap-shots, images to prove that I was there. Three weeks ago I got my hands on a Nikon (I've always dreamed of one) D3100 and, for the first time in my life, I can honestly say that I have started to take photos. I can now view a subject and decide exactly how I am going to record it, rather than point and have the camera decide what would come out. It is finally a pleasure to take a camera in my hands and know that I will get what I want, even though I am still amazed at the quality of the images produced.
After 61 years of taking snapshots, I have finally become a photographer.
I took up photography at the age of 8 when I won a Kodak Brownie 127 in a competition. There were 8 potos on eah reel and in the next 10 years I must have taken all of 200 photos. This was at a time when steam traction was being eliminated on British railways. What would I give to have an SDLR back then?
In 1970 I moved to university and upgraded to a Minolta compact, with which I took a large number of photos before it was stolen by a workmate in France in 1977.
At that point in time my father bought an Olympus OM10 and passed on his Zenit E to me. I really felt I was getting somewhere as I had 50mm and 135mm lenses. When he later upgraded to an Olympus OM2n I was given his OM10 and bought a couple of lenses as well as a series of Cokin filters. However, as lightening always seems to strike twice, These were also stolen by a workmate.
As this was around the time my dad retired, I inherited his OM2n and took many photos with it, though I was never happy with the quality of the slides.
Fast forward to 1998 and my first PC (I had been using an Atari ST until then). I bought my first digital camera, a Kodak DC 210, if my memory serves me correctly; It was a 1M-pixel fixed-lens compact which cost me 3000 French Francs (approx €450) at the time. Around 2005 I bought a 5M-pixel Dimage bridge camera.
Perhaps this is going the long way around the houses but, in my mind, I have spent the first 61 years of my life taking snap-shots, images to prove that I was there. Three weeks ago I got my hands on a Nikon (I've always dreamed of one) D3100 and, for the first time in my life, I can honestly say that I have started to take photos. I can now view a subject and decide exactly how I am going to record it, rather than point and have the camera decide what would come out. It is finally a pleasure to take a camera in my hands and know that I will get what I want, even though I am still amazed at the quality of the images produced.
After 61 years of taking snapshots, I have finally become a photographer.