So how did you get started?

Shift patterns during the week and football matches on a weekend were taking their toll on my wife - she said she never saw me and wanted me to give up going to the footy. I said that as it was my only vice, I needed another hobby to replace it. Along came photography.
My dad had always been a keen cine film enthusiast and I suppose the lure of recording the family had passed itself on to me through a different medium.
Now we have much less money in the bank and when we have our time away together, she only gets to see the bit of my head not obscured by my camera.

(And after one season away - I still go to the footy!)


[That's my first post out of the way! ... I just need to hurry up and get my entry in for the February comp and break another duck - I've never put an image up anywhere for C&C ... It's a scary step]
 
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WOW, most of you started very young, I was much later

I did a tour in Gibraltar in 1987 while employed as a civilian tech by the MoD and thought, "how could I live here and not get into photography?"

That was the start of it.
I bought a Minolta X300, several lenses, flash, etc and that was it.
It was followed by an X700 after a while and I carried both in my gadget bag everywhere with me.

When I came back to the UK, life(and specifically my career) got in the way so photography took a back seat.

More recently, I've realised there are more important things in life than a career so I work in a job which gives me a decent standard of living, have remarried, I'm extremely happy

and

I have returned to photography and I'm enjoying it more than ever as I now have more time to dedicate to it;)
 
Grew up in a family of keen amateur photographers, there were always cameras and loads of albums kicking around the house, and was often used as a "model" (it was the time of "bonny baby" photos), and when stuck in bed with childhood illnesses would raid the bookcase for the many photo books - when I was about 7 I was bought a Brownie 127, and since then have had an on/off relationship with photography for the rest of my life - made my living as a photographer for 20 years, then had a while doing "other things", and am now rediscovering the joy of taking pictures, having been forced into early retirement through ill-health.......Probably one of the biggest "off-putters" was my uncle's annual slide shows - he went to Scotland every year on holiday armed with buckets of Kodachrome, and we'd have to sit and watch his interminable collection of technically perfect but sooooo boring picture-postcard "scenic shots" for hours.......:D
Down the years I've used vast array of cameras - A Zentih "E", a Nikkormat, Yashica FRs, Olympus OM1s, Nikon FM2s (with MD12 drives), Canon EOS5. Rolleiflex, Yashicamat, Mamiya 330, and have in the past done the whole "D&P" thing - and would often spend a whole evening getting just one "perfect" toned 16x12 print - my most recent purchase is a Fuji x10
 
Soda Farl said:
My great grandad was a professional photographer and a barber and had a studio / barber shop on the Shankill Road in Belfast for many years.
Click to expand...
Wrong adress... ought to have been.... Penny Lane ....... there is a barber showing photographs / Of every head he's had the pleasure to have known
 
I hated having my photo taken (still do for that matter) and quickly sussed as a kid that If I took the family photo's I'd escape being in them. My dad probably mistook this for being interested in photography, so bought me a camera for my Birthday. Think it was one of those awful 110 instamatics.

As I hit my teens, I got into camping, then walking and climbing and decided I needed a better camera to do justice to the amazing views I was seeing, so I bought a 35mm SLR. The resulting Praktica MTL3 lasted maybe 3 years, until I accidentally dropped it from a Bivi Ledge on a route up the North Face of the Aig. du Midi in the alps. My mother (bless her) wired me the money to replace the lost camera, I purchased a Canon AE1p and 28mm & 50mm lenses, and that was me, a lost cause forever.
 
I like the way you dropped it in the Alps and got a AE1p - almost Karmic :)
 
My immediate family ave never been really into photography, so I kind of picked up the bug through studying Art for GCSE and A'level. During an art trip to Barca for an A level project I bought load of throwaway's and managed to get some decent shots out of them (Barca is a wonderful place to shoot, especially if you're into street shots or architecture)! I inherited a Minolta X-700 which I then learned to use whilst doing a Pro Media: Graphic design degree and found I was doing more photo modules than graphic ones so the bug really bit. Lost interest for a while with jobs and house buying, but really have the urge to get started again after a few years as my current jobs involves a lot of travel and a reasonable amount of downtime - so lots of opportunity to get out and shoot. Need to go and buy some new kit now!

cheers
 
I'd always had a camera as a kid, just a point and shoot thing in the main, but then I bought a Kiev Rangefinder and that got me hooked into a better style of photography. When digital was in its infancy I jumped on it and gave up with film although the first digital cameras were nothing special. I'd had a camcorder for a while by that time and was using that to digitize images with my Amiga computer so to be able to get digital images without having to use a computer and camcorder connected was great.

I went through quite a few compacts as the resolution and technology improved and eventually went for a Panasonic bridge camera, which had fantastic IQ compared with the first digital cameras I'd used. After a few of the bridge cameras, with the optical zoom ever increasing, I was in my element shooting aviation. The only thing that was spoiling it for me was the shutter lag of the bridge cameras but having a lack of funds at the time prevented me from improving.

After getting married I got my first DSLR as a christmas present from the wife, a Canon 550D, and it really was the best present I'd ever had. I totally got me hooked and after receiving a legacy from my gran I had enough to get where I am today. I've built up to a 5D3, 7D, 650D (mainly the wifes) and a crop of decent lenses by way of a few other bodies and lenses and I feel I'm only 1 lens away from having a complete set of gear. Would like to change the 7D for a 7D2 or maybe a 70D depending on ISO performance but that's IT.
 
Borrowed my dad's Kodak compact 4mp camera in 2006 to take some photographs for my AS coursework. He's not a photographer, just had a P&S for shots but his interest has grown as mine has.

Snowballed from there.
 
My sister got her first job at an old independent photo shop in Leicester in the 70's and as she was 8 years older and I was still at school she used to drag me around to help her take pictures. Coincidentally I got my first job at Jessops and at one point was testing all faulty stock sent back for repair from 250+ branches which meant everything from compacts to projectors and medium format cameras. Its only since digital become much cheaper in the last few years that I have really started again though.
 
I think I may have posted similar in an earlier thread.
I have enjoyed photography ever since I asked my father for an air rifle back around 1960. He told me he would get me something to shoot with, come Christmas morn there’s me all excited, opening what Santa had bought me and guess what; yep you’ve guessed it not an air gun but a camera a Kodak Brownie 127. Ha well the rest's history as they say. The history trail took me from the 127 on to a Hallina Paulette Electric, Yashica Minster 3, Praktica Super TL, and then a flagship of a camera the Canon A1 followed by probably the best prosummer 35mm camera I ever had and still use today along with the A1 the fabulous Canon T90. In addition, I have had a Yashica mat 124G with wide and tele attachments, Yashica Electro’s and a Mamiya C330 with all the gummages needed for weddings and such. The world went digital and for someone who never went auto focus, this would be a ginormous step but it had to happen sooner or later. I jumped and bought a very modest 2mp Fuji to play with. I was amazed at it. I gave that to the missus and got myself a Nikon 5700 and the two add on lenses, then a D200 with a Nikon18-200mm and a 50mm for portraits. The 18-200 was a bummer, just out of warranty the A/F failed it cost a fortune to repair, it failed again, the repair would cost more than it was worth so. A Sigma 18-250 came. I have had a couple of other Nikons and other odds and s##s along the way. Last year after a long spell in hospital (Renal failure. Totally out of it for two weeks. At 65yrs old being told you were born with one kidney, and that wasn’t working, isn’t funny) I got myself a Fuji X10, it cheered me up no end, I haven’t used anything else since, I can honestly say it’s the most used friend that I have ever carried. I probably take more photos now then ever.
I use Photoshop to edit my images; my darkroom equipment (Based around a LPL 7700.) went 10 or 11 years ago. I’m self-taught from books and mags on photography and computers.
The picture below was taken with the 127 in 1961, its of my life long friend; we are now both retired, oh how time flies! And you can’t have a second back. So you young uns use your time well, as you will have it only once and when it’s gone, its gone, gone forever.
Rhodese.


john-brooks_cooky_-my-first-photo-with-brownie-127.jpg
 
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Spent many weekends away in Europe and kept coming home with what amounted to snapshots. So I set myself the challenge of learning to take better images.
Bought a panny gf1 and recently shelled out on a 7d and a couple of primes.
Now to get out more and practice.
 
My dad used to have a darkroom in the house and it was just big enough for 2 people, so when i was about 7 i used to watch him print black and white pictures, loved watching the image emerge, so when i was about 8 he bought me a Zenit B that had to have a separate exposure meter, he tought me to develop film and print black and white, when i was about 12 i saved and bought a Cosina CT-1G, couple of years later traded that in for a Minolta X300, that camera went most places with me, finished school, bought an X700 to go with it, worked in a processing lab for a few years and decided to go to college to get a qualification to maybe futher my career.
That was a mistake, although i did learn more, the course did actually lessened my desire to do it as a profession to such an extent i didnt touch my camera for years.
But after different jobs i worked in a big film processing lab just as digital was taking over, that made me get a digital camera, and my intrest was reborn, maybe not as much as it was when i was younger, as i have other commitments but it is getting slowly back to where it used to be.
 
My Dad did the aerial Photographic unit in the RAF. When he came out he ran the Photography club for Parkhurst Prison Officers and I got into it as kid.

From leaving college I got my first job at the Isle of Wight Archeaological Photo unit and never looked back... Then off to London worked in Madame Tussuards studio and a few other studios and then to National Papers doing Photo calls and sports. Few studios later then 7 years in Scenes of Crime Photographic dept and schools work and for the last 4 years my own business.

Beats working for a living.
 
I only got into photography in my thirties. I was always useless with a camera.

Our youngest daughter had not long been born and our friend came to visit. She brought her cannon dslr (rebel or kiss I think it was called) and took some lovely pictures of my wee lass. It inspired me to be better. Saved some money, waited for my birthday, then got a D90. That was two and a half years ago. Never looked back.

It's a pricey addictive hobby. But I love it!!
 
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