What sparked your interest in photography?

[Ian]

So how did you get started in photography, and why?

I was about ten years old when my father gave me a booklet on how to develop and print black and white film. The idea of developing chemicals and the paraphernalia that went with it was totally fascinating. But I had to wait several years before that dream could be realised, when I moved up to senior school aged 13. My new school had a darkroom and lots of other people, including teachers, interested in photography. I eventually ran the school photography society and we staged several exhibitions. I even skived off sports successfully by hiding away in the darkroom

My first camera was a plastic 120 roll film camera. It was quite large, the plastic has a strange sweet odour, and picture quality wasn't great - it was a toy really. My mother had a 126 instamatic, and my grandfather had a folding vest-pocket style camera from the 30s, all of which I used and reinforced my interest in photography.

My first serious camera was, from memory, an Agfa Silette compact 35mm of its day, probably from the early 1960s. The first SLR I used was a Zenit E, and I later borrowed, on long term use, a Minolta SRT-101. I also had the use of a 90-230mm zoom lens. Most of my photography was of family and school friends and events, as well as motorsport and primarily black and white or slides (home-processed, first the old Kodak E4 process and later the new E6 process).

So, guys - what got you interested and how far back can you remember!

Ian

[pewidane]

Re: What sparked your interest in photography?

My first camera was a Agfa silette 35 mm i used when i was in the Danish army in 1959-62 in Germany.
One day i came across a book called The wold by Henri cartier Bresson and after reading that i by a Nikon Nikkormat and started taking pictures and i newer stopped ,when i die my camera shal be with me in my coffin
Peder.

[Ian]

Re: What sparked your interest in photography?

My first camera was a Agfa silette 35 mm i used when i was in the Danish army in 1959-62 in Germany.
One day i came across a book called The wold by Henri cartier Bresson and after reading that i by a Nikon Nikkormat and started taking pictures and i newer stopped ,when i die my camera shal be with me in my coffin
Peder.

Peder - you will have to choose which camera, or will you have all of them with you

By the way, I hope your knee gets better soon!

Ian

[pewidane]

Re: What sparked your interest in photography?

Peder - you will have to choose which camera, or will you have all of them with you

By the way, I hope your knee gets better soon!

Ian

well....... the latest are normaly the best

[Patrick]

Re: What sparked your interest in photography?

So how did you get started in photography, and why?

I was about ten years old when my father gave me a booklet on how to develop and print black and white film. The idea of developing chemicals and the paraphernalia that went with it was totally fascinating. But I had to wait several years before that dream could be realised, when I moved up to senior school aged 13. My new school had a darkroom and lots of other people, including teachers, interested in photography. I eventually ran the school photography society and we staged several exhibitions. I even skived off sports successfully by hiding away in the darkroom

My first camera was a plastic 120 roll film camera. It was quite large, the plastic has a strange sweet odour, and picture quality wasn't great - it was a toy really. My mother had a 126 instamatic, and my grandfather had a folding vest-pocket style camera from the 30s, all of which I used and reinforced my interest in photography.

My first serious camera was, from memory, an Agfa Silette compact 35mm of its day, probably from the early 1960s. The first SLR I used was a Zenit E, and I later borrowed, on long term use, a Minolta SRT-101. I also had the use of a 90-230mm zoom lens. Most of my photography was of family and school friends and events, as well as motorsport and primarily black and white or slides (home-processed, first the old Kodak E4 process and later the new E6 process).

So, guys - what got you interested and how far back can you remember!

Ian

Back in the 1950's at the young age of about 10 I entered a competition that Jaffa was running, first prize a bike which is what I really wanted. I however won second prize a Coronet box camera. Both my Grandfather and an Aunt were professional photographers with studio's, they both had cameras that used paper negatives. They were not the inspiration for my interest though, but it probably demonstrates photography is in my blood.

The winning of the camera started me off but only slowly.
The real kick start was when we moved to Morecambe at the age of 16, about 1959/60 and the house we moved to had a dark room in the cellar. I bought a cheap Adox 35mm camera and started processing B/W. I moved on to an old Leica IIIg (hated that camera) and then a brand new Rollicord V (loved that camera) within the space of a 12-18 months.

Patrick

[Ian]

Re: What sparked your interest in photography?

I forgot to mention that my father had a half frame Yashica and we regularly had family slide shows. This was great fun as my father travelled the world with his work and during the slide shows we could almost feel that we were where the pictures had been taken. Strangely, he has lost interest in taking his own pictures.

Ian

[Ian]

Re: What sparked your interest in photography?

Back in the 1950's at the young age of about 10 I entered a competition that Jaffa was running, first prize a bike which is what I really wanted. I however won second prize a Coronet box camera. Both my Grandfather and an Aunt were professional photographers with studio's, they both had cameras that used paper negatives. They were not the inspiration for my interest though, but it probably demonstrates photography is in my blood.

The winning of the camera started me off but only slowly.
The real kick start was when we moved to Morecambe at the age of 16, about 1959/60 and the house we moved to had a dark room in the cellar. I bought a cheap Adox 35mm camera and started processing B/W. I moved on to an old Leica IIIg (hated that camera) and then a brand new Rollicord V (loved that camera) within the space of a 12-18 months.

Patrick

Ah, the RolleiCord, or poor man's RolleiFlex I never got into twin lens reflex cameras, although when I was working in the camera shop in the early 1980s I did sell a few second hand YashicaMats and Mamiya C330s and the like. I had a short-lived passion for medium format when we started to sell Hasselblads

Ian

[Barr1e]

Re: What sparked your interest in photography?

I was perhaps one of the worst picture takers you can imagine.
Now Anne's dad was the complete opposite, he had many pictures published in both the local and national newspapers and many in the periodicals of the time. Anne spent many hours modelling for him and as much time in the darkroom too.
In my twenties I was working for Dunlop in the south and Anne and I were about six weeks from getting married when I was told I had a new position in Scotland. I got interested in cine whilst there but the craft still deserted me.
A trip to Australia and my first digital camera, a Fuji, in 2001 with lots of guidance from Anne set me on a path and a hobby which I so enjoy. The only problem I have - I do like to indulge with the latest equipment. In fact when we moved recently we donated 13 cameras to Oxfam.
Anne still has first camera, a Kodak Brownie.

Regards. Barr1e

[Ian]

Re: What sparked your interest in photography?

I was perhaps one of the worst picture takers you can imagine.
Now Anne's dad was the complete opposite, he had many pictures published in both the local and national newspapers and many in the periodicals of the time. Anne spent many hours modelling for him and as much time in the darkroom too.
In my twenties I was working for Dunlop in the south and Anne and I were about six weeks from getting married when I was told I had a new position in Scotland. I got interested in cine whilst there but the craft still deserted me.
A trip to Australia and my first digital camera, a Fuji, in 2001 with lots of guidance from Anne set me on a path and a hobby which I so enjoy. The only problem I have - I do like to indulge with the latest equipment. In fact when we moved recently we donated 13 cameras to Oxfam.
Anne still has first camera, a Kodak Brownie.

Regards. Barr1e

You are both great examples of how photography has almost becom an every day part of your lives. I'm sure the freedom of digital has been a catalyst - image all that film and developing before digital!

Ian

[Patrick]

Re: What sparked your interest in photography?

Ah, the RolleiCord, or poor man's RolleiFlex I never got into twin lens reflex cameras, although when I was working in the camera shop in the early 1980s I did sell a few second hand YashicaMats and Mamiya C330s and the like. I had a short-lived passion for medium format when we started to sell Hasselblads

Ian

[Bob Ross]

Re: What sparked your interest in photography?

As I recall, shortly after I was born and I opened my eyes there was a camera in my face and it said Kodak. I must have thought to myself,"This is what reality is all about, this is what I do here". I have all those negatives.
First darkroom experience was at 8 (1950) and the magic was magnetic. First camera was a hand-me-down Donald Duck 127 toy from my brother when he got a Brownie Hawkeye, which was my next hand-me-down eventually. The next hand-me-down was a real camera from a business friend of my father's, a Zeiss Contax II with a 50mm f/2.0 and a 28mm f/8. After that camera acquisitions became a compulsion and some folks gave me their old cameras for my collection. My darkroom experiences became real in 1964, while in college and involved B&W and then color around 1972. At the end of the film era, I was printing Cibachromes & B&W.
When I retired in 1998 I figured film photography would be my hobby, but the Great Pixel had other ideas.
Bob
The first camera that I ever saw.... (still works, too)

[Ian]

Re: What sparked your interest in photography?

As I recall, shortly after I was born and I opened my eyes there was a camera in my face and it said Kodak. I must have thought to myself,"This is what reality is all about, this is what I do here". I have all those negatives.
First darkroom experience was at 8 (1950) and the magic was magnetic. First camera was a hand-me-down Donald Duck 127 toy from my brother when he got a Brownie Hawkeye, which was my next hand-me-down eventually. The next hand-me-down was a real camera from a business friend of my father's, a Zeiss Contax II with a 50mm f/2.0 and a 28mm f/8. After that camera acquisitions became a compulsion and some folks gave me their old cameras for my collection. My darkroom experiences became real in 1964, while in college and involved B&W and then color around 1972. At the end of the film era, I was printing Cibachromes & B&W.
When I retired in 1998 I figured film photography would be my hobby, but the Great Pixel had other ideas.
Bob
The first camera that I ever saw.... (still works, too)
[ATTACH]1715[/ATTACH]

My grandparents' Kodak resembled the one in your picture, but I have no idea which model it actually was. It had a waist-level viewer at the lens end of the bellows. I think one of my sisters or my father may well still have it somewhere.

Ian

[Bob Ross]

Re: What sparked your interest in photography?

Hi Ian,
The one that I showed was purchased in 1938, when my brother was born and I have a feeling that my father got his interest in photography from his childhood, as there are a fair number of prints from that generation around in the family archives.
Kodak made a large variety of folders clear up into the 50s and I have seen the one that you described.
If our earliest experiences include parents taking pictures, then the equipment appearance may have an impact. Those born today will have a great variety of impression possibilities, given the blooming of digital form factors we have from tiny P&S to monster DSLRs. In 50 years some may say, "Print? what's a print!". Even today there are many who have never seen a flash bulb go off and with ISO performance being a technological target, they may not know what flash photography is. In the available future it will be available light....
Bob

[Josh Bear]

Re: What sparked your interest in photography?

well compared to some of you I was a late starter.

My first digital camera was a sony P1. I took it along to my brothers wedding in 2002. I had been asked to video the day but had time to snap away on my small point and shoot.

After the wedding I printed off a few photos and sent them to my parents. About a week later I got a request for more copies, then more and more. Turns out my brothers official photographer had gone for "trendy" hi key processed pictures which were not popular with parents, aunts, uncles, gran's etc etc. My pictures were a hit and the confidence I took from this day ignited my hobby.

From the P1 I went to a sony 717 then the canon 300d, the canon 20D, the 5d and now the 5d Mark 2 with olympus Ep1. Along the way I also collected a Canon ixus 700 for my wife.

As some of you may know I gave my children (7 and 10 yrs) the ixus to play with and they have shown a real interest and a desire to learn more, so today I successfully bid for a canon 400 d with kit lens on ebay and will see how they go. With any luck it will cement an interest in photography for the rest of their lives allowing them to tell their story on this thread 30+ years from now

best regards

Josh

[wsearfoss]

Re: What sparked your interest in photography?

My first camera was a Brownie Hawkeye box type camera that you looked down from the top and it used 620 film.

I had my share of other cameras that shot 110, 126, 120 film, but the Camera that made me fall in love with photography was a Praktica MTL-3 made by Kombinat VEB Pentacon Dresden East German. My grandfather bought it for me 30 years ago. It came with a 50mm screw-mount and a 135mm lens. When I put on the 135mm lens and everything came in closer I was hooked I even had a darkroom in the basement.

It went on all vacations and I learned high school photography with it.

The camera is totally manual, no auto focus, no aperture priority, no shutter priority and no scene modes. White balance was achieved through filters like tungsten for indoor light.

The camera would seem archaic to today’s photographers. I still have it sitting right here on a shelf in my office however, it no longer works it’s been repaired once, and the second time I was told it was not worth the expense. But the memories attached to it make it to valuable to get rid of.

Well that’s my stroll down memory lane