What's Your Story?

itsjustbreality · Jan 20, 2017

When browsing, I see so many beautiful images, and gems of advice, but since I'm newer here, feel slightly disconnected. I can probably link your avatar to your latest post, but that is about it. I really want to get to know the person behind the lens, so please feel free to share your story!

I've found photography is a never ending journey, and I would love to know a bit about how you got to where you are today, and where you hope to be in the future.

(How did you get started in photography? How long have you been at it for? What is the most difficult thing you have had to overcome, and what has made it such a fulfillment for you? If you could only give one piece of advice, what would it be?)

TonyBritton · Jan 20, 2017

Hello,

I've been enjoying my "never ending journey" in photography since my very first digital camera, which was purchased in 2002. It sported a whopping 3 megapixels and 8 x zoom with no image-stabilization! From that day to the present, the most fulfilling and promising aspect of my photography has been a deep appreciation of the boundless freedom subjective art forms such as photography offers.

Learning the profound difference between making a photograph and taking a photograph has been the most exciting motivational tool I use every day. My first love remains bird photography and to be in the presence of their beauty is an honor. They are truly living works of art.

My only advice is to discover and fully embrace categories of photography that excite and motivate you to learn about your craft and through practice, steadily improve your skills. And, to make certain that it always remains fun, of course!

Wishing you happiness and success in your journey!

Best regards,

Tony

tonybritton

AceCo55 · Jan 21, 2017

I bought my first slr in 1978 - an Olympus OM-1. Had a of of fun with that camera learning the basics and occasionally doing my own B&W printing in the darkroom at the school I starting teaching at. Met my future wife in 1983 and she also had an Olympus OM-1, so I knew I had found the one! We would take camping holidays and have colour in one camera and B&W in the other.

Around 1995 we had transferred to my wife's home town (1400 people in the whole district). The school had a Sony Mavica digital camera that took a 31/2" floppy disk - wow 1.44MB!! That was my first experience with digital photography. Didn't use it much but it was a revelation.

In 2003 my wife, two daughters and I took 3 months off work and did a tour up through the centre of Australia and then turned right to tour Queensland. We bought a Canon 4MP digital camera with a TINY screen on the back. THAT was the camera that got me hooked into digital photography. To think I could take a photo, see it immediately and later that day send off a copy of the photo to family and friends ... wow!!
Both girls ended up doing student exchanges in Germany, so the collection of digital point-and-shoot cameras grew. By this time I was getting the itch to buy a dSLR and ended up with a 6MP Pentax with some Sigma lenses. I was doing macro/landscapes/abstracts and family.
I started shooting my girls playing netball. My eldest daughter started going out with the best player in our local football team ... so I thought I would grab a few shots of him playing. Looking back now, they were pretty crappy shots but it was another "wow" moment. I started sharing them with some people and the club gave me some wall space to put up the week's photos in the club house.

... and that was the start of my wonderful journey into sports photography! I now shoot junior and senior local sports: football (Australian Rules), netball, dirt karts, cricket, tennis, golf, triathlon, athletics and basketball. I take about 50000 photos a year, keep about 30% of them, post the photos on my website, in the club houses, in the local paper. Sports photography is now "what I do" - I wait all week for the sports competitions to come around again. Hence my avatar.

I have been getting treatment for severe depression for the last decade ... and photography has been a HUGELY positive part of my life. I just don't think I would have got through the last 10 years if it wasn't for the sports photography. It is something I look forward to and with a camera in my hand, I have the confidence to talk to people (at least for a little while. It gives me an "out" when I start to feel overwhelmed ... "Excuse me, I just have to grab a few more shots"). During the Winter season I spend about 30 - 40 hours a week taking and processing photos; in the Summer it would be maybe 20 - 30 hours. I did a couple of weddings to help out a couple - never again!! Couldn't stand dealing with people and telling them where to stand/look etc. I'm glad there are wedding and portrait photographers who love what they do ... I think I would rather poke myself with a burning stick!!!!

I now have a healthy collection of cameras and lenses. I get enough recompense to cover my costs and buy a toy every now and then. I'm happy when I'm shooting. Digital photography has given me the focus (pun intended) to get out of the house and to give back to our little community. I just work part time now, I'll retire in a few years but I love being around the kids at school and seeing them again when they play sport so whilst I might stop "working", I won't stop taking sports photos.

Welcome to the forum. :1247:

AceCo55 · Jan 21, 2017

deleted double post ... oops!!!

itsjustbreality · Jan 21, 2017

TonyBritton said:
Learning the profound difference between making a photograph and taking a photograph has been the most exciting motivational tool I use every day.

Nice to meet you, Tony! Thank you for sharing your story! What you said above really puts things in perspective really well, and really speaks to me.
Your bird/wildlife photography is absolutely beautiful! It is true- birds are loving works of art and there's so many different varieties all unique in their own way.I look forward to seeing more of your work

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using ThePhotoForum.com mobile app

itsjustbreality · Jan 21, 2017

AceCo55 said:
I bought my first slr in 1978 - an Olympus OM-1. Had a of of fun with that camera learning the basics and occasionally doing my own B&W printing in the darkroom at the school I starting teaching at. Met my future wife in 1983 and she also had an Olympus OM-1, so I knew I had found the one! We would take camping holidays and have colour in one camera and B&W in the other.

Around 1995 we had transferred to my wife's home town (1400 people in the whole district). The school had a Sony Mavica digital camera that took a 31/2" floppy disk - wow 1.44MB!! That was my first experience with digital photography. Didn't use it much but it was a revelation.

In 2003 my wife, two daughters and I took 3 months off work and did a tour up through the centre of Australia and then turned right to tour Queensland. We bought a Canon 4MP digital camera with a TINY screen on the back. THAT was the camera that got me hooked into digital photography. To think I could take a photo, see it immediately and later that day send off a copy of the photo to family and friends ... wow!!
Both girls ended up doing student exchanges in Germany, so the collection of digital point-and-shoot cameras grew. By this time I was getting the itch to buy a dSLR and ended up with a 6MP Pentax with some Sigma lenses. I was doing macro/landscapes/abstracts and family.
I started shooting my girls playing netball. My eldest daughter started going out with the best player in our local football team ... so I thought I would grab a few shots of him playing. Looking back now, they were pretty crappy shots but it was another "wow" moment. I started sharing them with some people and the club gave me some wall space to put up the week's photos in the club house.

... and that was the start of my wonderful journey into sports photography! I now shoot junior and senior local sports: football (Australian Rules), netball, dirt karts, cricket, tennis, golf, triathlon, athletics and basketball. I take about 50000 photos a year, keep about 30% of them, post the photos on my website, in the club houses, in the local paper. Sports photography is now "what I do" - I wait all week for the sports competitions to come around again. Hence my avatar.

I have been getting treatment for severe depression for the last decade ... and photography has been a HUGELY positive part of my life. I just don't think I would have got through the last 10 years if it wasn't for the sports photography. It is something I look forward to and with a camera in my hand, I have the confidence to talk to people (at least for a little while. It gives me an "out" when I start to feel overwhelmed ... "Excuse me, I just have to grab a few more shots"). During the Winter season I spend about 30 - 40 hours a week taking and processing photos; in the Summer it would be maybe 20 - 30 hours. I did a couple of weddings to help out a couple - never again!! Couldn't stand dealing with people and telling them where to stand/look etc. I'm glad there are wedding and portrait photographers who love what they do ... I think I would rather poke myself with a burning stick!!!!

I now have a healthy collection of cameras and lenses. I get enough recompense to cover my costs and buy a toy every now and then. I'm happy when I'm shooting. Digital photography has given me the focus (pun intended) to get out of the house and to give back to our little community. I just work part time now, I'll retire in a few years but I love being around the kids at school and seeing them again when they play sport so whilst I might stop "working", I won't stop taking sports photos.

Welcome to the forum.

Hello Ace! Thank you for sharing you story! It sounds like you have had quite the journey and a life full of having a camera in your lense! Photography is definitely cathartic and when you are taking those pictures it is like a sense of inner peace has come over you - at least in my experience!

I really liked how it has been such a big part of your life, and you have made so many beautiful memories! I would love to see some of your work- for some reason your images on the forum are showing up broken to me (maybe because I'm using the app-I will try a computer later)!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using ThePhotoForum.com mobile app

MSnowy · Jan 21, 2017

Here's my story,of a lovely lady
who was bringing up three very lovely girls
all of them had hair of gold, like their mother.
the youngest one in curls.

Here's a story, of a man named Brady
Who was busy with three boys of his own.
They were four men living all together
yet they were all alone

Till the one day when the lady met this fellow.
And they knew it was much more than a hunch,
That this group must somehow form a family,
That's the way we all became the The Photo Forum bunch.

Oh sorry wrong story.

OGsPhotography · Jan 21, 2017

Advice -shoot what you love-

webestang64 · Jan 21, 2017

I started my journey into the photographic world in 1980 after I received a Pentax K1000 for X-Mas. After I graduated from high school in 1983 I took a photo course and a computer course in college. I decided that photography would be my vocation after I got an A in Photo-1 and a C in the computer class.
In 1985 I got my first job working in a photo lab and to this day it is my main source of income (currently a retouch artist for Schiller's Camera here in St. Louis MO who has been in business since 1892). I've also worked in studios taking photos of product for catalogs and selling my "Art" photos in shows and small art/craft stores.
Still shooting film I love to process and print my black-n-white in the darkroom.

My only advice........only YOU have to like your photos.

zombiesniper · Jan 21, 2017

Ex-sailor. Most of that story's NSFW.
Almost always had a camera with me but really started to get serious about wildlife photography a couple years ago. Still just an amateur.
The largest thing I've had to overcome is my G.A.S. I'm afflicted by it with all my hobbies.

snowbear · Jan 21, 2017

I bought my first camera, a Kodak 126 Instamatic, when I was about 12. I knew nothing about photography except I liked to take snapshots. When I was in high school, I decided to join the photography club and yearbook staff where I learned the basics of black & white development and printing. I used to borrow dad's Minolta SRT-101, so for my birthday (1975) he gave me a Minolta Hi-matic 7s rangefinder (I still have it). I quickly learned a few basics of setting exposures, and a few years later I got a Minolta SRT-201 SLR, but was still just taking a bunch of snaps.

A few years ago (2007 or so) I decided I wanted to get serious about the hobby and move to digital, so I bought a Nikon D40 (still my main camera) and a kit lens. I found a nice little free online course and picked up some good tips on composition, exposure and basic lighting. Soon afterward, I stumbled onto this place. I also started back to college on a part-time basis around this time. One semester, I wasn't able to get one of my geography classes for the time I needed (I was still working full time) so I took an art class. Then I took two more. Then I took three photography classes: two film and one digital.

I have no desire to make this a business. I have my sights on a full frame body and some decent glass, and hope to get at least one of them this year.

Luke345678 · Jan 22, 2017

I was introduced to photography during middle school where I instantly fell in love with it. My digital photography teacher shot weddings once in a while and we would always go over the images together. She was extremely talented and had an unbelievable amount of passion that instantly transferred to me. My parents bought my first canon dslr for me and from there it took off.

In High School, I joined the Yearbook staff in hopes to put my growing photography skills to use. I met a MaxPreps photographer at one of the sporting events I had to attend and he instantly took me under his wing. He taught me a lot about sports photography and how to produce better images. After that day, I knew I had finally found the kind of photography I wanted to focus in: sports.

Sports photography is pretty damn expensive if you want to get the best results so it took me a while. After two years in High School I had established my own business, was shooting on a 1dx with a 300mm f2.8, and worked for a few papers as well as MaxPreps. Things really blew up for me but I accredit a lot of my success to luck. I graduate from High School this year which is pretty scary because I've established myself quite well in this area. It's fantastic money and most people can't say they got paid to do what they love while in high school.

Well that's about it.

jcdeboever · Jan 23, 2017

Draw and paint for many years, used photography for snapshots, ideas, and reference for paintings, had no interest in it. No, I am not going to share any paintings, moved on. Put painting down a little over a year ago. Picked up camera, signed up here, and learning. Still stumbling my way through it. I currently like analog photography over digital. Hopefully will be doing wet prints by end of year as the book, Negative, has me jonesing to make the process full circle.

smoke665 · Jan 23, 2017

Played at photograpy (nothing serious) till after college. In 1972 bought my first weekly newspaper, which quickly grew to 3. I learned on the run, all things photography including darkroom skills. 6 years later I sold out and changed direction. Photography pretty much took a back seat to everything else for years. About 2 years ago I started to dabble and it's now become an obsession (according to my wife).

itsjustbreality · Jan 24, 2017

webestang64 said:
I started my journey into the photographic world in 1980 after I received a Pentax K1000 for X-Mas. After I graduated from high school in 1983 I took a photo course and a computer course in college. I decided that photography would be my vocation after I got an A in Photo-1 and a C in the computer class.
In 1985 I got my first job working in a photo lab and to this day it is my main source of income (currently a retouch artist for Schiller's Camera here in St. Louis MO who has been in business since 1892). I've also worked in studios taking photos of product for catalogs and selling my "Art" photos in shows and small art/craft stores.
Still shooting film I love to process and print my black-n-white in the darkroom.

My only advice........only YOU have to like your photos.

Thank you for your story! And your advice is the best I've heard yet!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using ThePhotoForum.com mobile app