How did you all get into photography??

Memorymaker

Memorymaker

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Nicola
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I'm new to the whole thing and I'm teaching myself through books, practice, magazines and I have booked a short course which will take place from April.

I've always liked taking pictures, but when my Niece was born I turned into a papparazzi! I take photos of her at every opportunity (Partly because we live so far apart) and often recieved coments on the photos, so my interest grew from there really.

I would love to understand it more and know how to take really inspiring shots. Child photography would be my ideal area as I own and run a childrens Nursery so have lots of willing subjects, lol.

Anyway in an attempt to get more involved. How did you get into photography? Any stories?

MM
 
My uncle gave me a Box Brownie when I was 10 (in 1969) and I spent all that summer holidays taking black and white photos of some cows.. (which were black and white too!!) :D

Always loved it since then.. first 35mm slr was an Olympus OM10 in 1978.......... various Minolta SLR's since.

And digital when it hit us.
 
I went on a school trip when I was 9 and I was given a Kodak instamatic, a couple of years later got a Kodak Pocket instamatic and got my first slr in 1975 a Zenith E. The rest is history :LOL:
 
It was an easy choice for me; When you are as ugly as me you are better off behind the camera rather than in front of it.:LOL:
 
I go to a lot of motorsport events mostly rallying every year I decided I would quite like to try my hand at taking pictures at them so bought myself a camera to take photos at them.

Then decided I wanted a better camera so I bought a bridge camera then a year later I bought my first slr the 20D. Got into other forms of photography from there on.

Only been into photography for about 3 years or so.
 
I had a p&s really liked taking photos of landscapes and stuff but found the camera was limiting what i could do. I was a tiny cannon with only 3x zoom. so i brought a dslr and went from there. Only been about 2 years though.
 
As a young lad I used to attempt to take pictures with my dads Yashica camera. But I got seriously into it back in 1997 when I was at Gatwick Airport waiting to board a plane to Egypt. I walked into one of the duty free shops and bought an SLR. I was surprised how much I liked it and stuck with it ever since :)
 
At school, 2 hours every afternoon would be set aside. We had long days at school - 9am start, 5pm finish.

Games three days a week.

CCF (combined cadet force) once a week - Army / Navy (now RAF), or Scouts or Social Studies for the pansies.

Hobbies once a week, where you had to join a club - I joined the photography club and the computer club and you alternated each week. At Photography Club you had to cover school events, do you own developing and printing and stuff like that.

Started off with a secondhand Canon AE-1 and a 50mm f1.8
That got nicked a few years later and was replaced with a EOS 650 and a pair of zoom lenses.
 
Oh I hate being in front of the camera too. Still putting off getting my passport pics done!
I had a tiny little brownie when I was very young, just to play with. When I was at secondary school we had a tiny little darkroom and I loved just watching. I could not afford to do much photography as a student and it was only recently that I picked up a camera properly again. Now I use both digital and a medium format film camera and I'm truly hooked.

The strange thing is that I used to avoid taking pics of people like the plague, now I really am loving it and even did a studio seminar because I want to do it better.
 
A friend of mine wanted some pics taking for the Suicide Girls website, tried with my little Ixus, had fun but no good results. Wondered why the pictures I took weren't as good as what I wanted, pondered, bought a 350D... and the rest is history :)
 
I had a Kyocera s5, and always enjoyed taking photos. When that died, i bought a D slr to replace it and fell for it badly i suppose.
 
vecsri said:
I had a Kyocera s5, and always enjoyed taking photos. When that died, i bought a D slr to replace it and fell for it badly i suppose.
Click to expand...

:woot: Snap (y)
Still got my Kyocera and use it occasionly, tends to live in the glovebox in the car, just in case :D
 
My interest in photography started when I watched my Grandfather developing black and white films in his darkroom. He brought me my first camera in the 1970s which was Russian Zenith-E 35mm SLR. After this I graduated to using a Canon 620 35mm SLR and have now migrated to digital photography using a Canon 350D. Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop to process the images.
 
School 'activities fortnight' whilst the older kids were sitting exams. 2 weeks shooting B&W and processing the result ourselves. Great fun.

Live a fair distance from family now so snap away like mad everytime they/I visit.
 
birdy961 said:
:woot: Snap (y)
Still got my Kyocera and use it occasionly, tends to live in the glovebox in the car, just in case :D
Click to expand...

Fantastic lil camera too. Gutted mine broke.
 
I was sitting in an hotel in Stavanger in 2003 with a guy called Alan Faichney just chewing the fat about some of the places we’d been over the years, and he asked me whether I keep a journal of my travels, as he does.

It struck me that I’d been to (at the time) 40 or more countries and the only record I had of this was some fading memories, many clouded or distorted by whatever the local beverage may have been (Mao-tai is probably the worst, but what on earth is the attraction of Gammeldansk?).

So I mulled over what Alan and I had discussed, I thought about buying a wee notebook and jotting down my musings while sitting on a train trundling through Eastern Europe or the Indian subcontinent, a sort of Michael Palin character, who on his retirement would publish the travel journal and whose public would be enthralled.

But it’s not like that is it?

My travels invariably consisted of a few glasses of champagne in the KLM lounge at Schipol, followed by a few glasses of wine on some flight or other, fighting my way through some airport – half the time sans luggage, an hotel(!!) some meetings and, if I got the chance, a weekend of sightseeing. But more often than not, that chance would not materialise.

It would be a bloody short book!

So, and there’s a point to all this I promise, in April 2004 instead of the lounge when heading through Schipol on my way to China, I headed for duty free. I bought my first digital camera.

Now I’d never picked up a camera with manual controls in my life and knew nothing of f stops, shutter speeds, the rule of thirds, or anything like that, so I bought a Fuji S7000 with a fully automatic setting that I could point and shoot. I thought that taking pictures to record my travels would force me to make sure that sight seeing opportunity happened.

So there I was, snapping away and putting the pictures on line so my daughter and other family could see where I was and where I’d been.

But people started commenting on my pictures, and eventually I realised that I had an “eye” for creative photography that I’d never had an inkling of. (... of which I'd never had an inkling?)

So here I am 4 years, and 3 cameras later. The photography thing is just about taking over my life, I have a portfolio of many different types of shot, I’m told that I’m a competent travel and people photographer, I’ve sold a number of pictures, and I’m interested in it.
 
I had an instamatic for years and took pics whenever I could afford the film and processing, then I got a p&s which was stolen (one of the joys of working in London) and my partner bought me a DSLR a few Christmases and birthdays put together. He got me a couple of secondhand lenses to go with it and a friend who also has a Canon has given me another plus some bits and pieces that he was not using, and here I am, trying and very slowly learning how to get something resembling decent pictures, then seeing the ones on here and realising how far I have got to go, its a bit like running a marathon and seeing the markers go past only to find someone has shifted the finish a few miles further :LOL:

One day!
 
I picked up my Dad`s kodak instamatic (anyone remember 126 film) one day and just started snapping at anything. After a weeks wait the pics were picked up from the chemist, and from then on I was hooked.
God I feel old.
 
I was at a cross country event two and a half years ago where my wife was competing and a friend had a 20D and 70-200mm IS and it reminded me of when I had a Nikon FM SLR about 25 years ago. I was also getting fed up with the crap photos sold at some events that Jan was coming home with so I bought a D70, kit lens and a couple of weeks later a s/h Tokina 70-200mm AT-X pro just to take shots of her and the horse.

Amazing what's happened in the meantime - both in terms of how much I have learnt (much of it down to this place) and how much I enjoy it!
 
When I was about 8 I got a free camera with tokens saved off breakfast cereal. I was able on my first roll of film in the thing to get really close to young Pewits & Curlews. I was fair looking forward to seeing the results too. The young farmer met me & asked to look at my camera. He then asked if it had film in it & opened the back to check! I was still hooked though but it was many years later before I got my first slr a Konica tc. To this day I wonder if the shots would have been any good. Probably not but it would have been nice to see.:shrug:
 
following on from my mrs realy. shes be en shooting in film for years. i couldnt be doing with the fiddly developing and stuff, although i loved the end results. when she finaly went digital, i became more interested and started having a go myself.
when she became rainbow photography, i was volenteered as assistant. i started taking a few shots too. i,m now just about good enough to be promoted to assistant/occasional second tog.learning techy stuff all the time , and enjoying the wedding organising side too.
ive also learned of lot of practical stuff on here too. thanks to anyone who has answered any of my daft questions.(y)
 
My late father had been big into b&w film photography and he bought me my first SLR an OM101 with manual override and power-focus for my 21st !! 19yrs ago.. I had great fun with it but never really found my feet with it due to processing cost's and a greater interest in Computers !! I had many other quality compact 35mm cameras right upto the birth of my first son when I bought a Nikon Coolpix 275, then started using the manual settings, next came a HP945 with more manual settings and faster lens. then I made the jump to DSLR with my Samsung GX-1S (Pentax) Next will be a GX-20 which I played with at Focus. wow 14.6Mp with image stabilizing in the camera...
 
Through my college course. I liked it at first but the work load was a bit high and seeing as we had to learn so much to start with it wasn't really that fun. Then Feb 07 I got my D70s as we were starting DSLR and I loved it. Started buying more stuff. Found web forums to host images on and talk about photography. Then just bought more and more and tried new and different things.

Thats how I got into it. Now it's just a case of getting out there and getting known for doing it!! hahaha
 
I started taking pictures using an Ensign folding camera (120 roll film) and progressed to a Kodak 620 folding camera, a Fed 4, Zenith, Zenith E, Praktika, Canon, Nikon Digital and presently a Kodak Z650. Used to develop and print my own films but digital has opened a new world. Used to be in the photographic retail trade and took the Kodak course many years ago. I also used to take movies on 8mm with Bell and Howell, Eumig, Canon and Bolex cameras. Incidently, I still have all the above and a few more "vintage" cameras. By the way, I am a bit old in the tooth - hee hee !!!!
 
I started off with disposable cameras in grade 7. Whenever my friends came over we'd go crazy with makeup and clothes and have pretend "photoshoots"... and from there my interest in makeup and pictures has just grown :)

After my family got a (good) digital camera when I was in grade 9 I started taking a lot of self-portraits and really exploring photoshop. And then last summer I bought my own DSLR and I assisted a wedding photographer throughout the summer and fall, which helped me learn my camera much better, even though I still have a LOT of learning to do...

Hopefully I'll be taking a course in college next year and receive a diploma in photography and by then I'll hopefully have enough money to go to an art school in Vancouver and start a degree in Fine Arts majoring in Photography :) That's the plan anyways :p
 
I was about 6 when my Aunt & Uncle bought me a Kodak Instamatic for a present. (Yes, good old 126 film!) I then graduated through one of those little 110 film cameras, several shockingly awful point & shoot compacts, before my parents bought me a Canon SureShot Zoom XL for my 18th birthday present. I stuck with that for the next 12 years, and it worked flawlessly throughout, and in fact still does, although it rarely sees the light of day now. I'd always hankered after an SLR, but rather lacked the courage to take the plunge until Digital came along, at which point I took advantage of the resulting price-plummet on 35mm SLR's and bought a Canon EOS 500N from eBay for about £40 in late 2004. A couple of basic lenses followed - a Sigma 28-80mm and Sigma 100-300mm f4.5-6.3, and then I started taking shots of anything and everything! My first Digital followed in the June of 2005 - a Canon D30 bought second hand from the Ipswich speedway track 'tog. I then upgraded to my current 30D in May 2006, and have been adding to my kit generally ever since!
 
When i was 20ish, i bought a Kyocera S4 iirc, to take photos of things to sell on eBay or QXL. Then in 2000ish I attended my first British F1 GP, i got some really bad photos from the grandstand, the year after i again attended but took a MiniDV camcorder and shot some really bad video footage...

From these 2 years i decided i enjoyed taking photos and video wasnt fun to shoot, so i decided to upgrade my poxy old Kyocera compact... this took the form of saving January-June to buy an new piece of kit to take to the July F1 Event. :) This has continued year on year to form the following pattern.

2003 = Canon IXUS V3 Digital
2004 = Canon 300D + Canon EF75-300
2005 = Canon 300D + Canon EF75-300 / Canon 20D + EF100-400L
2006 = Canon 20D + EF100-400L / Canon 1dmkII + EF300f2.8IS
2007 = Canon 1dmkII + EF300f2.8IS +1.4xTC / Canon 5D + EF70-200f2.8IS

This year im taking

2008 = Canon 1dmkII + EF300f2.8IS +1.4xTC / Canon 1dmkII + EF70-200f2.8IS

And next year im hoping to be taking, unless of course Canon finally either fix or discountinue the 1dmkIII and release a 1dmkIV which i may be forced to upgrade too.

2009? = Canon 1dmkII + EF400f2.8IS / Canon 1dmkII + EF500f4IS +1.4xTC
 
Started a wildlife illustration course at Carmarthen College in 1997. The course started turning into an 'eco graphics' course, which wasn't my thing, and what with taking loads of source photos to work from at the college aviary, I swapped halfway through the first year onto the HND photography course.

Loved it immediately and found my feet straight away. Learnt everything i could and specialised in darkroom D & P.

Stayed on after the two years were up and did the one-year BA Hons course (again doing loads of darkroom work), had my final exhibition and even got selected to showcase my work in galleries in West wales as a part of a 'young welsh talent' tour (even though I'm originally from Hull!!).

By the end (2000), had collected loads of vintage Polaroids and brownies, used a Bronica ETRSi religiously and owned a couple of old Canon EOS 650s but went to work firstly at a web design house (made redundant after three months without pay) and then worked 8 months as a sub editor/page designer at a newspaper group in Doncaster. By that point I'd lost my enthusiasm.

Jan 2001 and I got a job at a fishing magazine publishers, rediscovered my photography and seven years later I'm the editor of a national magazine, love my photography (am currently heading up a photography course within the company) and can't wait until weekends come to get out and take shot of anything but fish (which I do 5 days a week at work).

That's me in a nutshell - Love 'togging to bits. :)
 
Well, my Dad was very much into it, and when he passed away, i kinda saw why. So i started taking more and more snap shots... then i bought (well, my mum bought) my very first slr, an antique Zenit, then i bought myself a canon 3000n and then a 350d and now am saving up for my 5d! I have a huge camera collection, i cant help myself, if i see a vintage camer aon ebay, i have to buy it.
It is in my blood and i just cant seem to get over my obsession :)

I adore it and appreciate what Photography has to offer people. For me, its about capturing moments that life seem to forget and take for granted.
:0)
 
My father always had his camera with him on our camping weekends and as soon as I saved up enough pocket money i bought my own. Havent a clue now what it was....

Loved my first digital camera...a fuji something which got me snapping away safe in the knowledge that you can just delete them!

Now I have a canon 400D and just learning how to use it. I really want to take good pictures in rubbish conditions etc and not faff around on photoshop afterwards!
 
I've no idea... when i was very young (like about 7/8) my mum tells me I used to like playing around with her Zenit EM (which she later gave me) and then i took this photo with my first digital camera and thought "oo thats rather nice" and it pretty much all started from there.
 
I started with a polariod b&W landswinger? or called somthing like that when I was 8 that I got for christmas. Think my parents soon regrented buying me that with the film costs, I then got my dad's 110 when he got an SLR. But it really took of for me when I was 15 and living in Kenya, with all the wild life and vists to the game parks and found it so fustrating not getting any good shots, also me and my mum where fighting to use the SLR. :LOL: So I saved my pocket money ect and got my first SLR a pentax ME super when we came back on leave, that way I could share lenes with my dad as he had a pentax MX. But soon started building up my own collection of gear, taking and selling photo's of events at my boarding school. Which also why I then went on to study photography at collegue. When I moved to autofouces I moved to Canon getting the Eos 600 then a five both of which I still have. On the switch to digital I got a 10D and now use a 5D and G9 when I don't want to carry my gear around.

Also have a collection of old cameras a few box brownies and bellow cameras that I have picked up from various places or been given by friends or relatives when clearing out.
 
I only really started last year. I was taken quite ill and ended up in and out of hospital for a few months and needed quite a bit of time off work. Rather than sit around at home the whole time (I could walk aboout albeit slowly) I decided that with all the wonderful places to go around where I lived I could get myself a camera and take pictures when I walked.

Best thing I decided to do, I love photography now (have spent way too much money though!!!) although I will also admit to it frustrating the hell out of me when I can't get the quality of pictures that I would like to get but I guess the old adage of practice makes perfect will have to apply (although perfect is probably a little optimistic!!!)
 
My dad always did lots of photography and I think he got fed up with his 5-year old son breaking into the camera bag. So instead he got me a Instamatic camera and that's where it all started..
 
My Father left us when I was 7 years of age, and when he went (he moved to Australia) he took ALL the photos of us as children, so I can not look at early pics and reminisce.

I vowed that when I had Children I would have a whole heap of photos of them - allow me to embaress them in later life!

Well many years on and my Children are now 10,9,and 9 and I have thousands of photos of them from all our holidays all over the world, and we love as a family sitting down and going through them all.....Well I do anyway.
 
My dad always loved photography. He developed his own b/w photos for years and bought me a little second hand camera when I was about 8. When I got older and was working I bought a Pentax SLR and a set of cokin filters and loved the way I could colour and manipulate images (always with filters and 35mm film - no digital stuff then!). I was always passionate about art but frustrated by my lack of ability and with photography I found a way to create it. My aim is always to create a work of art, mostly I fall short but occasionally it works and is all worth the effort.:)
 
Had a motorcycle accident. Couldn't do my job anymore and was unemployed

Currys or Dixons were doing a deal at the time for a Practika BMS kit. I bought that and started to shoot everything. Didn't really know anything about photography and was keen to learn more. Enrolled in a college course with the school kids one afternoon a week. The college started a NC in Photo Journalism and I started that by this time I needed a second body so bought a Practika BX.

Set up a darkroom in the house and used to go and hide in there for hours

Whilst at college I was offered a brace of Nikon 301s and some lenses. Gave the wife the Practikas. Then went on to do an HNC in Photojournalism. Bought a Nikon FE off of one of the lecturers. Then it was an Nikon F90x and then my beloved F4.

First step into digital was with a Coolpix 4500 (I think. I hated that camera) now I use a D70 but still have all of the above apart from the Practikas

Haven't been keen for a few years but have rekindled the passion recently

Sorry for the long story but you did ask!

Newbie aswell so be nice
 
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