How / Why / When did you get into photography?

How / why / when did you get into photography?

For me, my Dad always had camera's around when I was a kid. He used to develop his own black and white images.

I would forever be pinching his camera and wasting all his film when I was around 10. I used to love just capturing the things around me. I didn't really understand the technicalities of it, I just loved it.

It wasn't until I was older as in MUCH older - around 30 did I believe I could actually make a living from it...

Early seventies i married my first wife,she was a wedding and portrait photographer,unusual for that time and the only lady photographer for a lot of miles.

Enjoyed photography for about 20 years. Became serious a number of years ago while on a Jeeping/photography trip in Moab, Utah. We went out to photograph a sandstone arch. I took a picture that I thought was pretty good and was quite proud of myself. The buddy I was with, a full time professional, took one look at my photo when I shared it and without hesitation told me it sucked. It was a knee jerk reaction to my picture, and he tried to back peddle, but it was what fired me up to improve my game and get serious with my photography. It has paid off and now we go on shoots together sometimes and I owe my start to him and that suckie photograph.

My dad was an airplane spotter and in the seventies I went along on plenty a trip where strange people met and talked weird code while pointing long and heavy tubes up in the sky. I never got the love for planes but did fancy the slr. Then somewhere early eighties I did photography at an art school until after merely eight months I got promoted for excelling as a PITA.

I didn't touch the slr until somewhere in the nineties but by then the film slowly went extinct here and I retired that slr together with it. I picked up painting and drawing instead.

Some two months ago I wondered if I should get a dslr and see what it's all about these days. And lo and behold, it's pretty darn cool.

My dad had a camera, and at times we did develop and print at home. Then there was a long pause. I did a few rolls in college when my friend bought a projector, Stop for five years. Then I bought a Russian SLR - Zenit in 1980's, followed by Zenit Photosniper, when I was in Iraq in 89-90. The meter gave way in five years and photography slowly tapered off. Again in early 2000 my son got the Nikon F70, followed by D70 followed by D300, so photography picked up some what.

When Cell phones came with a 1MP camera, I quit film and got on to digital. 1MP followed by 2MP followed by 5MP. In all I shot a lot of work related photographs with the phones - over 100,000. Once in a while I would use the D70 or the D300, but they were heavy and I preferred my cell phone for professional work.

This year I decided to go back to SLR, and as we had a few lenses got the D3300 within a week of its release here, in March. I must say that I am hooked on to the D3300 and in six months have managed to have 13,000 shutter clicks. Mind you all the D3300 images are for my recreation. When I was using cell phone for professional work, I would take at least 150 and times 200+ images each day of inspection. My work was project monitoring of road construction initially and later under construction buildings - plenty of scope to find mistakes and highlight them; for rectification; in reports.

Since I got married and we got a couple of dogs, I found myself taking more and more camera phone pictures when we were out on walks. Soon, I wanted more from them. My brother is a wedding photographer and uses Nikon kit, so I had a go with my mum's old D70s and then bought my first real camera... My D3100.

I have been using a camera for about 30+ years now. Apparently, my dad was into photography, so perhaps that is where i get it from. Here is a photograph i took sometime in the early '80s.


I was never really serious about photography until 2011. Up until then, i had only ever used cheap P&S cameras or disposables in regards to film. When it came to digital, my first camera was a Fuji P&S back in 2003.
Being a plane nut, i really wanted to get into plane spotting, so i started to investigate what the right camera would be to do that hobby. Well, it turned out that a DSLR would be the right tool. So, off i went and bought a D3000 back in 2011. With that, i started to learn about aperture, ISO, shutter speed, etc. I have loads more to learn, but many more years to do it. I am loving every moment of it.

I took photography courses in high school back in the 70's. Well, I took the course to screw off. But found I liked it. I really started taking pictures when I went into the service in 1981. With all the traveling I was doing it was just natural for me. I must have owned at least 30 P&S cameras during my 8 years in the Army. And one nice Yashica SLR I bought in Korea. Boy, did I have some $$$ invested in that. Sadly, it got ruined when Hurricane Eva ripped off the roof off our barracks in Hawaii.

My father had a new Minolta XG-7 in the 70s. Once he setup a Bogen black & white darkroom in the basement, I actually saved paper-route money to buy a new XG-1.

I went from that to a Minolta Freedom 35mm Point-shoot, to a Canon Digital Point-shoot. Along game kids and I experienced shutter lag, Nikon just came out with the D40 and a friend worked in the ad office in NYC who had that account. I bought a D40 kit at her cost and went from there.

I've taken Polaroid insta photos back when they were popular, and got a digital camera for shooting family birthdays and stuff a few years ago, but nothing serious. Over the years I have seen astounding photos and always thought how lucky a person must be to be able to take those types of photos. In early March 2014, I saw a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge at night in HDR and it changed my life... I decided I wanted to be the guy that took that shot... I bought a Panasonic Lumix FZ70 and quickly discovered that it did not do what I needed. In late April, I bought my Nikon D7000! I have not yet taken any shots of the Golden Gate Bridge, but I have since read books, magazines, tutorials, and listened to anybody who would give me advice! I even joined a Nikon message board... lol... I do not leave my house without my D7000... I have found that I love sports photography, landscapes/cityscapes and doing HDR, but I will shoot whatever presents itself! My wife is beginning to call my Nikon the other woman... Now I just have to give "her" a name... haha

after choosing which subjects to take for my last two years at school i had one lesson to fill, my only choices were history or art, neither of which appealed, but i reckoned art would be more of a chance to slack off. After 6 months of painting badly the teacher suggested I try photography, and that's probably all i did for the last year of school. picked it up again seriously this year after a few years without a camera, though now it's digital it's a learning process again..... I miss film and the darkroom process, but the versatility and cheapness of digital is much more forgiving

Never messed with anything other than a point and shoot my entire life. Knew some pics that captured my attention, but never really dove into it... I was more of a poetry kind of guy. Wrote a few that I thought would go AMAZINGLY well with the right photo, tried with the P&S, failed, and gave up knowing I didn't have the equipment I wanted, or the money to get it.

Started working on more "creative" shots with the iPhone cameras as I was out and about on the bike, and fell into a "sense" of the right angle, lighting, etc, but never really pursued it even then. Until... an EXTREMELY talented young man started working for me PT (for the insurance) but made his living with professional photography, and looking at what he created had me HOOKED! I started picking his brain and planning for the "some day"...

December 2012, I finally had the cash to jump in with a D3100 and went for it. It was instant love, and I've been pursuing/learning/growing ever since! Even got asked to second shoot a wedding by the young man that used to work for me, which was an unbelievable compliment considering his talent!

No "YEARS OF FAMILY INTEREST" or "YEARS OF PHOTOGRAPHY" story here, guys. Just a little over a year and a half of "addictive pursuit" so far. After that... well, my learning curve and 2014 "Snack" thread can catch ya up from there.

I've been interested in photos and slides for as long as I can remember... but never really got chance to use a camera until my best mate at school lent me his Olympus Trip back in the early/mid 80s. As soon as I had a job my first (real) purchase was an Olympus OM10 which I loved. As the kids came along in the 90s I found I couldnt focus fast enough to capture them, so I switched to an autofocus P&S, which dimmed my enthusiasm as the photos were nowhere near as good.
As digital came into play I got interested again, so one christmas hubby bought me a Sony Mavica which used floppy disks to store about 8 images on... I had a succession of more MP cameras (all P&S as DSLRs were WAY out of my price range with a family to bring up) Then one christmas Hubby bought me an Olympus E410 and my love affair with real photography bloomed again. I was gutted when Olympus stopped producing consumer DSLRs to concentrate on the PEN series, so I bailed.... sold all my lenses and 2 bodies to buy into one of the major names. Canon was to plasticky/flimsy for the lower end (what my daughter would be using) so we ended up with a D3100 and a D5100 plus a couple of extras... now I am the proud owner of "the beastie" (D800) and my daughter has my old D5100 for her college photography course. - for some reason she wants to be a pro-tog, and the little minx already has her eyes on the D800

Took an extended vacation in the West in the early Eighties and my business partner lent me a Canon T50 and said to bring back lots of pictures. I did, and was hooked. Started researching cameras for about a year before i settled on a Nikon FG. Been a Nikon fan every since. But the world of photography really opened up for me when the digitals came along and I finally broke down and bought a D50. Would eventually own a aD60, D80, D90, and finally a D7000. Have learned to do post processing and printing and now the coroner will probably have to pry my Nikon out of my cold, dead fingers. I am totally devoted to capturing the moment and letting others share that moment as seen thru my eyes.

I was never really into photography that much before. I always had a camera , but would only use it when we went on a vacation or when my wife would start bugging me to to take a picture of her garden.
Then about 6 months ago I walked into a Target to buy a point and shoot because my old Canon Power shot crapped out on me, and I walked out with a D3100.

I have no idea why I spent 400 dollars on a DSLR when I went in to buy a 100 dollar P&S.
I even had to Google what DSLR stood for when I got home with it. LOL

I then had to justify spending 400 dollars on a cam to my wife, by taking lots of pics of her garden and flowers. Then after about 3 days I was hooked.

Great stories guys, it is nice to know what brought you into photography - thanks for sharing...

Pretzel said:

I was more of a poetry kind of guy. Wrote a few that I thought would go AMAZINGLY well with the right photo, tried with the P&S, failed

Click to expand...

Nice with the poetry man, that is awesome - did you ever manage to couple a poem and image together? If not, maybe you could post a poem on here and let members try and capture an image that represents what the poem means to them...

I would like to like your post @kevy73 but there isn't any like button to be had in this thread.

:encouragement::encouragement: blacktop.

Wanted to use my fathers SLR..I was small kid back then wanting to get hands on stuff that I could find around ..He said first learn to take photos..so was given a p&s (film)..from there it picked up

Also used my fathers SLR at times but found it quite heavy to carry..so mostly used the p&s..The photos were liked by everyone..Family and travel photos basically
Got the first digital camera in my cell phone..liked the idea of clicking many pics and develop only selected ones..so got a Sony Bridge camera..learnt a lot on this..outgrew it and decided to get a Dslr..and back to learning again



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My Dad had a Pentax SLR that was always around. My Grandfather on my Mom's side had slides going back to, well, probably when they invented slide film. Taking and sharing photos was always just something we did. My Dad got a job at a company called Film Corporation of America (they didn't make film) and one of the perks was that he got free processing in their patented "Triple Print" format, which yielded a 3x5 and two mini-wallet photos from every shot. My brother and I had a 110 pocket camera that we shared and we took pictures of GI Joes, bikes, you name it. So many that I'm still spending hours going through them when I get to my Mom's place.

The art of photography didn't enter my world until my brother decided he wanted to be a "real photographer" in junior high. He's just a year younger and we shared a room, so as books and magazines started coming in I had them at my disposal. Music was the art that called me, but we sort of crossed into each others' worlds, with me taking concert photos with Dad's borrowed Pentax snuck into venues until I bought an FM with HS graduation money (my brother had moved on from his Pentax to a Nikon F - it was his chosen vocation and he's still at it, though a Canon Pro now). I took pictures all through college, but really only as snapshots and remembrances, not for photography sake. I never took a photography class (none offered at my college) and have never developed a roll of film, though I printed B&W with my brother back in high school.

When I got married, one of my wife's wedding presents was her own camera (her Dad also shot slides of everything all his life). We took pictures of trips and various events. Then, when the internet age came about and I started buying and selling musical stuff on the web I got tired of scanning prints or paying for digital copies when they got developed, so I shelled out for a Sony Mavica that could put 10-15 jpegs right on a floppy disc for me!! From there I went through 5 or 6 point and shoots over the course of the next 10 years. When I started traveling for work around 2004 I would take the digital camera along, and started really thinking about how I was shooting photos instead of just shooting photos. I got into editing them on the back end, turning snapshots into presentable photographs. I cataloged trips all over Colorado when I spent 16 months on a job there, and I started realizing that while I could take a good photo with the P&S, I couldn't do everything I wanted to with it.

We planned a 2 week 20th anniversary trip to CA, and I decided that a trip to Yosemite required that I take photos with a camera that would allow me to do the place justice. So, after months of legwork I eschewed the idea that I could borrow my brother's stuff and get a D7000 because from everything I read it was the best sensor at a consumer level available for the money. When my brother checked it out he agreed with me, so I felt somewhat vindicated even as he chuckled and said, "Look at all this glass you can't use!!" The rest, well, it's cataloged here.