How long have you been into photography?

My very first camera (actually two cameras) was a Relleiflex T 3.5 which I inherited from my dad. He died when I was 2 1/2 but I didn't get given the cameras until I was six, so that was 1960. Mum sold them after I joined the Army in 1971 by which time I was using a Kodak 35mm camera because it was small and easy to use. I bought my first SLR - a Yashica FX3 with a 50mm f/1.9 lens - in 1982 and still have it. My first DSLR - NIkon D40 with 18-55mm kit lens - came along in 2008 and I've owned a number of Nikon bodies and lenses since then.
 
Took and developed my first film aged 10. now 86.
A photographic student in the late 1950's
Professional photographer and involved with graphic art and printing till 2000
now once again an amateur.

Once a photographer always a photographer
Me as a student 1956 and a fellow student
terry-studio.JPGtina-tranter.JPG
 
They look like a couple of still shots from an episode of Quatermass Terry.

Lovely pictures though :D
 
44 years with very few breaks.
And I'm still rubbish.:snaphappy:
 
Mid 80s my dad introduced me to cameras and film via nikon. Never got hang of it (due to the time delay between attempting shots and developing film/sending away and waiting for results).
Jump forward and point n shoots were out, digital. Upgraded, got robbed, bought bridge camera (fuji I think it was) then minolta (end of line discount) upped that to nikon - stuck with it for 12 years upped(?) to leica m240 then a year later upped to current m10... probably 30 years ish
 
Took and developed my first film aged 10. now 86.
A photographic student in the late 1950's
Professional photographer and involved with graphic art and printing till 2000
now once again an amateur.

Once a photographer always a photographer
Me as a student 1956 and a fellow student
View attachment 317528View attachment 317529
Did you wear a duffel coat and listen to jazz? :)
 
I was given my first camera fir my 10th birthday so that was 1963 and I have been hooked ever since.

I bought my first SLR (Zenit E) in 1972 when I started work - it cost three weeks take-home pay. I started developing and printing my films in 1973.

My first digital camera was a birthday present from Bestbeloved in 2003. I mainly use digital but I generally have at least one film camera with film in it - currently my Bronica ETRs.
 
Reading about the sheer amount of experience on this forum is humbling. I have been into photography for 2… months!

I have been talking to my wife about how few photos we have of our family and also noted how I really dislike the phone camera. I did a few months worth of researching and studying photography before buying my first camera and now I have been sucked in watching and reading tutorials and going out to practice.

It is a hobby as opposed to a profession for me but the enjoyment I’m deriving from it is unbelievable.
 
Hi, my first real camera was the PORST CX6 (Practica) SLR in 1973 ... ---
 
Did you wear a duffel coat and listen to jazz? :)

True. And I had a Lambretta scooter.
One of our instructors had a house off Baker Street. And would put on jazz parties, at one the temperance 7 were on the first floor and Ken Colyer on the ground floor. People in the big houses around regents park complained about the noise. They stayed with us for over half an hour listening before asking us to try to keep it down. I left about 5 in the morning, jazz was still being played quietly by individual musicians to mostly sleeping couples. On another occasions he got us tickets to see Lewis Armstrong playing at Wembley stadium. They had been sold out for weeks. I never knew how he did it.
 
They look like a couple of still shots from an episode of Quatermass Terry.

Lovely pictures though :D

Thanks. The Late fifties had a style that was easy to be part of. It became the way you saw things.
 
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True. And I had a Lambretta scooter.
One of our instructors had a house off Baker Street. And would put on jazz parties, at one the temperance 7 were on the first floor and Ken Colyer on the ground floor. People in the big houses around regents park complained about the noise. They stayed with us for over half an hour listening before asking us to try to keep it down. I left about 5 in the morning, jazz was still being played quietly by individual musicians to mostly sleeping couples. On another occasions he got us tickets to see Lewis Armstrong playing at Wembley stadium. They had been sold out for weeks. I never knew how he did it.
:cool:
 
1970 I got my first instamatic for my birthday then a 110 pocket camera in 1972. SLR's started with the Zenith e and EM and a few Canon Cameras once I started my working life. Had a camera pretty much ever since to this day.:snaphappy:
 
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When I was about 9 or 10, my dad introduced me to his SLR. A Contaflex IV which was old enough that the DIN/ASA didn't match "modern" film and there was a lookup table... He was big pals with an army photographer who used to pass on process-paid slide film (Kodachrome & Ektachrome) by the bag full as it was getting near the process-by date... So I had plenty to learn with essentially for free - I think I had to supply a stamp...

Soon after I saved up & bought a Canon AE-1... Then an A-1... Then a T90.... Then just before I left school, an EOS RT with the pellicle mirror (still use the 50mm f/1.8 from that)... EOS 50E... EOS 5 (still have that)... Then went digital (EOS 10D, 60D, 6DiI)
 
20 years with my own (bought & paid for by me) camera - firstly a Fuji bridge (602?), quickly upgraded to a Nikon D100, although I did have to borrow some of Dad's lenses initially.

Using Dad's camera - off and on from the age of 8 or 10 I guess. Hated the waiting for prints to come back, I never thought I was that impatient but I guess I am!
 
in about 1966 I got a Kodak Instamatic 126 and started taking snaps - living in Hong Kong at the time. Then in about 1969 I got a Exa 1a fitted with a 200mm lens, to shoot aircraft at the local airport as that was my thing. The Exa taught me a lot about exposure, as it was fully manual (obviously Dasd actually taught me but I learned more by trial and error). Then in about 1971 Dad gave me my first Pentax, an SV I think, with a separate meter on top linked to the speed dial. That, with a small but growing set of lenses, became the basis for my obsession with Pentaxes and culminated in a large collection, enhanced when I inherited all my dad's cameras. I didn't venture into medium format until after he died in 1988, when I learnt to use his Bronco SQ-A and then I later acquired a Bronica ETRS. I used film cameras exclusively, mostly the Pentaxes but also a nice Minolta outfit, until 2005 when I bought my first digital camera, a Nikon D300.
In terms of processing, Dad taught me B&W processing and printing back in the early 1970's, which I carried on doing until the late 90's off and on, lparticularly when my first wife took an A level, then HND then degree in photography so we built up a pretty substantial darkroom setup. I've not done any processing and printing at home since the early 2000's, but have all the kit stashed in my garage and will do again one of these days.
 
feeling young at 52 haha. The first camera I used was something like a kodak instamatic 130 in the mid 1970s. I got the bug but only had the time and money to work on it starting about 15 years ago, then took a year's course about 4 years ago and since a couple of years making money with it.
 
Originally started in 1955 whilst stationed at Shape headquarters just outside Paris whilst doing my National service. We had a darkroom in our officers. Got demobbed and left the photography alone for a few years. Then took it up again early 60's, joined the local CC, then other things got in the way, like building rally cars and competing. Nothing then until about 7 or 8 Years ago and started again. Whilst in the local CC I entered a photo comp. and won it, so decided to enter the photo in the club comp. the judge did not even give the print a second look so the next day that was me with photography and CC so I took all my gear ( camera's enlarger dishes etc) to a local photo shop where they bought the lot off me and that was the end of photography for some years. Foolish of me - maybe.
 
In junior school I had a go with a proper camera and darkroom, which clearly sowed a seed.
I bought a Praktica SLR in 1983-84 and from there was hooked. I’ve been fairly serious about photography ever since, so most of my adult life.
 
Seriously for almost 50 years. I had already guessed that most of you were old anyway:).

Dave
 
Since 1959 but never progressed enough to be a 'Photographer' .....although I now have a DSLR and more than one lens! :cool:
 
I guess I must have been eight or nine years old when I was given my first camera; a Kodak 126. this was a cartridge type of consumer camera. Had to manually wind each frame and flas came as these weird cube things.

by the time I was 13 I had my first 35mm SLR; a Praktica MTL-5B & 50mm f/1.8 lens. I remember saving up for it to the grand sum of £49 brand new from Camera Corner in Weymouth.

sooo, bit of math and I can say nearly forty years then off and on.
 
Started about 60 years ago but had to give up developing my own B/W as nowhere for a darkroom when we moved house in 1976.

Trevor
 
as nowhere for a darkroom when we moved house in 1976.
There was always space for a darkroom. My last was was a 5x4 enlarger and a 16x12 Nova tank inside a frame of 2x2 planed timber, which was covered by heavy duty black plastic sheeting. The whole thing covered four feet by four feet of floor space. Here's the innards...

Omega Prolab 45 enlarger and Nova processor.jpg
 
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How does one qualify to be Photographer?

Dave

I only know my interpretation of the word?
A Pro.
An obssesive hobbiest.
A person who spends time and money visiting locations, and even holidays/trips specifically to take photographs.
What ever you want..... I am sure we all have different ideas? :rolleyes: :)
 
How does one qualify to be Photographer?

Dave

I think the general accepted definition of a professional photographer is one whom makes nearly, if not all, of their income from their photography.

I could be wrong...

...in which case please do NOT inform my husband. lest it bust my 97% 'yes dear, you were right' average thus far... ;)
 
We had a darkroom in our officers

my bold.

Ah, you found a use for an officer ;). I was doing National Service in Aden around the same time and never had such luck:).
 
Have always enjoyed taking photos always found if you took the photograph you didn’t have to be in them which suited me quite well. :ROFLMAO:

Really fell in love with photography when I was about 5 and my uncle passed on his beat up Polaroid to me, loved being able to capture something and see it straight away. That was 38 years ago now.

At about 15 I drifted away for a bit being more interested in partying etc.

Got back into it more seriously about 15 years ago just before my eldest was born as I wanted to be able to get some nice photos of her as a baby.

About 7 years ago photography became my full time job.
 
I had access to a darkroom at Uni in '96, which was the only was to get an A4 print on the wall for cheap - mainly friends, places and experiences. Photography then lay dormant for 10 years until I got my first decent digital camera, from which I learnt the technicalities. But I've only just taken considered photos over the last 5 years, and only just started to think of it as an expressive tool. So I have plenty of mileage / road left, I'd say.
From my perspective it can feel like an impossible task to improve to anything near the level of photography here. But its my journey, so it's not entirely comparative, and I enjoy the many small iterations and adjustments that when summed can make a good photograph (one day) great. And I enjoy other people's photographs, and photographers too.
 
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Since 2009, on a serious basis. A few years before that with a 2mp compact.
 
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Since about 1954. A teacher liked my Kodak Brownie photos that I had taken to school to show my friends and he taught me to use the school's Graflex full frame camera. My assignments were then to take group and sports photos for the school yearbook in my junior and senior years. He taught me quite a bit, and it stuck. I've been a photographer ever since, when I had the money to pursue the hobby, and then photography as a business, but I never had my very own studio, until 2019 when I began planning and building one for myself, incorporating many of the ideas that I've collected in my lifetime of experience. Then COVID hit and my new studio has gone almost unused. I hope to change all that this year.

I bought my first digital camera in 1998 (very expensive Sony, but a toy by comparison to today) and my 5th digital camera in 2019. I now have 3 modern digital cameras, 2 Canon (77D & 80D) and one Fuji EXR.

Charley
 
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Purchased my first proper camera last week, I'm a complete novice and currently way out of my depth but I'm determined to learn some skills along the way
 
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