What lead you to photography ...

[MrBob]

Hi everyone,

I'm curious to hear how others got started with photography.

My first passion lies with music. I've been playing guitar for years and am in a band. I started photography because I wanted to capture live performances from musicians and artists, so music lead me to taking photos. It ties together two things I love and I can enjoy them both at the same time.

Your turn ...

 

[Lensmeister]

I got given an old second hand 126 thing ... liked it a bit ... saved up my school pocket money and finally got a disc camera ...... then saved more and started taking photos of trains and got a Praktika MTL5B and worked up from their ....

Now it's Canon EOS system and football and just love taking photos ... hence my posts using only a Fuji Finepix A204 ......

Next ?

 

[Nikon Fan]

I was always doing video editing/taping and really loved it...then while on a mission trip took a picture, submitted it in a local photography contest and won...everyone raved about the pic and began telling me that I should think about doing it for a career, I needed a second major at my college, so photography sounded like a plan, and from then I haven't stopped taking pics...

 

[Cuervo79]

well it started when I was younger with the curiousity on my grandpa´s paralax pentax, it had a touch of mistery, he only used it while traveling and was off limits so I allways wanted to use it, at the begining everyting was just capturing images and seeing them in paper, didn´t know about controling exposure, lighting or composition. I just liked the idea of puting images on paper.
It then turned more serious when my mom bought a Canon 500n (rebel) wich is the one I use, and started learning about the workings of taking a photograph, not just point and shoot.

 

[kalee]

i had children and i realized that there was absolutely no way
for a photographer to capture the moments that really mattered.
it's also a lot cheaper than having someone else do it.

 

[Hertz van Rental]

Laziness, I'm afraid.
I started off as a scientist (microbiologist actually) but I was just as much at home doing Art. My arty streak caused me to be too undisciplined for serious scientific work (I used to try and grow my cultures in pretty and interesting patterns, much to the chagrin of the labs director) so I eventually left and worked for a friend as a graphic designer.
I decided to go to College to study Graphics* and whilst there I discovered Photography. I found I had an inate ability - and even better than that, I could achieve in a few minutes what it normally took me days or weeks to draw. This gave me more time to spend in the pub so I took up picture-taking as a career.
I have spent many a happy week in a dim bar thinking what a good idea a career change can be.


*some of my artwork might still be lurking in the Creative Corner...

 

[KevinR]

When I was in boy scouts, one of our assistant scout masters had his camera stolen. It was an old nikon f. The policy he had replaced everything with top of the line at the time. That was an F3 and a few lenses. I started showing some interest and he basically let me have it on campouts and paid for the slide processing. Took off from their, and did some freelance work and worked on my portfolio in my early twenties, gave it up for about ten years and decided to pick it back up when my daughter was born. I realized that I could do a better job at portraits then the morons in some of the studios. Have set up a darkroom and started working on another portfolio.

 

[DIRT]

I cant:
paint,draw, play music or anything else. so, I found photography and I easily learned the mechanics of it and started taking photos. I then started going to school for photography and I cant stop. Im now addicted...ask my wife.

 

[ksmattfish]

I was mostly into drawing and sculpture; photography was too expensive. I was doing a lot of digital illustration in the early 1990s, and digital cameras were just starting to appear on the market. I decided that I needed a digital camera that I could use to capture images that I would then use in my digital drawings.

I bought a Kodak DC-50 (which cost me as much as I just spent on a 20D). I started using it for my illustration projects, but freed up from film and processing costs I began using it to take pics of everything. They all sucked, so I started researching photography so I could take better pics.

The next thing I knew I was hooked. I quickly abandoned digital (it was still the mid 90s), and dug out the 35mm SLR my mom gave me for high school graduation. I took a few classes, read a lot, and my passion was ignited. As everyone else was looking towards the digital future, I began exploring vintage cameras as a way to afford medium and large format photography.

Ten years, and about 200 film cameras later I finally just bought my second digital camera (not counting the Fuji point-n-shoot I gave my wife for Christmas a few years ago).

 

[ksmattfish]

This gave me more time to spend in the pub...

This has been an important consideration in many of my life considerations also.

 

[Mumfandc]

I'm a Fine Arts major. I was never really interested in photography. But during my 2nd year we had to take a photography course specifically designed for our FA major. We were taught how to take slides of our artwork in the studio, lighting, metering etc.

We also focused on conventional painters and other artists who turned to photography as a medium to work with.

Everyone HATED the class. When one person was shooting, everyone else sat around doing nothing...they complained they could be elsewhere doing something more productive.

But our final project was to select a photographer to do an entire series of work based on. I chose Wolfgang Tillmans. My professor selected my portfolio as a sample of the course curriculum, for the chairperson of the photography department to see. He really encouraged me to look more into the direction of photography. All my classmates have told me that I've been addicted ever since we took that course

 

[wxnut]

I am a storm chaser, and I bought my Canon Elan 7 to document and remember the storms I have seen. This was in '99. When there werent storms, I started taking nature pictures. I would show them to co workers and in time some of them started asking me to take pictures of them, pets weddings etc. That started the word of mouth advertising that has spread like wildfire. I started getting calls from strangers asking for me to do weddings and such. In 2002, I bought a Canon D60 and really started pushing my business, by getting cards and a web site. So now I have quit my job and only do photography, with a steady rising client base.

Doug Raflik
[email protected]
http://www.wxnut.net

 

[ThatCameraThingy]

When I was about 7years old my Grandpa had a Readers Digest with pictures in it of high speed things frozen in motion. I am sure most of you have seen these type of pics.

Bullet through playing card
Bullet through light bulb.
milk drop falling , etc.

only got my first camera when i was 21 ( a minolta dynax 300i)
then got my hands on Canon EOS 650
Then Pentax MZ-50
Then ended up between cameras for two years (had to sell the pentax to stay alive - coudn't afford another camera)

I have since acquired my current rig

Canon EOS 30 , EOS 1n (second hand) 28-105 & 100 -300 lenses 550ex flash etc.

Hoping that one day i will be able to afford 20D - in SA a 20D equals about 5 times my current salary -

with normal monthly overheads and a wife and kid to keep alive , this doesn't leave much to save for 20D.

I enjoy high speed photography (built a laser and sound trigger systemto help me with the high speed stuf) , well and just about any other type of photography that allows me to create a nice pic.

there you have it.