I got bit by the photography bug in my very early teens. I tended, throughout my youth, to haunt thrift stores, buying old cameras for a few dollars each, buying film for them at local camera stores, and developing it myself, and making contact -prints. Most of them took either 620 or 127 film. A big step was buying an Argus C3 at a yard sale—much more sophisticated than any of my thrift store cameras up to that point. Not having an enlarger until later in my life, though, it mean that I produced much smaller pictures from it than I did from the simpler cameras that took larger film.
In late 1986, having had my first real job since the start of the year, and preparing to take a once-in-a-lifetime trip in connection with that job, I finally invested in the camera after which I had lusted for most of my youth—a used Nikon F2. The F3 was out by this time, but it was a Pre-AI F2 that I always wanted. Pre-AI specifically because it is compatible with both AI and pre-AI lenses, while the post-AI versions are only fully compatible with post-AI lenses. The trip was to the Arctic, to spend five weeks aboard an icebreaker. I took my F2, a few bulk 100-foot rolls of Plus-X, a bulk loader, of course, and a basic set of darkroom equipment; and on a few occasions, I even took over the forecastle of the ship to use as a makeshift darkroom to develop film and make prints.