as with PhilV - a Praktika from Argos, at the age of 15 for me, because I was getting into cycle-touring, and walking/climbing - and wanted to document what I was doing. Talking about this in class at school caught the ear of the chemistry teacher, who pointed out we had a darkroom that was basically not being used as the school had closed it's photography club a couple of years earlier. Re-Opened it with a friend who was my walking/climbing partner, and the helpful chemistry teacher (who, fair enough, had the ulterior motive of making us better pupils in chemistry lessons - it worked, I got my A-Level Chemistry at an A grade...)
Walking/Climbing escalated from the dales to Scotland, Scotland in Winter, The Alps, Andes, Himalayas... Photography was still for me documenting and showing off where I'd been, but my Mate got into the visual side, wanted to make films, ended up at film school, directed one of his graduation pieces with me as cameraman in the alps, climbing "the Big one, The Nasty one and the Pretty one" (Mt Blanc, Eiger and Matterhorn) in a summer...
Real life and need for a job meant I didn't shoot all that much, but my mate graduated, and "fell into" Pro photography as a side-job to his work as a gopher in a TV facilities house. He'd do anything - Commercial, Advertising, Actors Headshots and even Weddings. I'd help when the jobs were on weekends, or interesting, or if he'd budget to pay me...
So, I built room sets for Bathroom Designers, Wardrobe Manufacturers, Bar Equipment Sellers, came up with tabletop rigs for everything from Pasta Sauce to Cheap Nasty English Sherry. I also second-shot on quite a few weddings - basically doing what's currently the more common "reportage" kind of thing, wandering around with 3-4 rolls of film in a 35mm while the "set peice" stuff was done by my mate on 120 with the 'blad.
I also got dragged into a short stint on a Cruise Ship, a very hectic month while the 'tog had broken his leg in a "falling p***ed off the gangplank" situation...
Eventually my mate Decided to get himself some premises - a shop came up in town, where he could put a minilab in - do film processing downstairs, and have a studio above... Worked brilliantly for 9 months, he was coining it in, then Max Spielman opened 200 yards away and undercut his prices big time - couldn't compete, as the economy of scale on chemistry, paper etc, and the deals they had on the minilabs (it's always gonna be cheaper per unit to buy 50 minilabs direct from Noritsu, than to lease 1 minilab from Agfa) - it was a shame, because I was really enjoying helping in some of the aspects of that business as well - it was great to run a studio upstairs, and basically just send the Client downstairs with a roll of 35mm and say "Tell them to put that through straight away for prints..." Nearly as quick as shooting polaroids for feedback from the felt-tip fairies (art directors).
Anyhoo.... He went bust. Sold all his camera and lighting gear to me before it happened, at a really good price, with the proviso that if he came back to me in the next 3 years, I'd sell it back to him at what it'd cost.
It took him 6 years to get the money together. I sold him all the kit he'd sold me back at cost.
He then GAVE me the EOS-3 and EOS-1V bodies, and the F4 L holy trinity lenses - and told me that any of the other kit I wanted, I could borrow whenever I needed it.
Since then, I've gone digital, discovered this place, helped with the POTY Competition, Learned a bit about Still Life Art stuff, generally been helpful enough around here that they gave me a green badge and told me to help out if I can.
After Nearly dying 3 years ago, photography has taken a bit of a back seat - i've had to concentrate on getting fitter, healthier, and - getting a "day job" after the failure (well, fizzling out) of my freelance work as it seemed my clients weren't over keen in having mission critical IT work done by someone who was possibly doing to drop down dead of another heart attack.
So, it's a while since I picked up a camera in anger, my Photo MoJo isn't really there at the moment, but I still keep "pottering around" on here, and try and be helpful where I can (usually in the F&C section, as that's where the bulk of my years in photography lie)