What started you?

When I was about 12 years old my grandfather bought a new 35mm Canon camera and gave me his Kodak Duaflex camera, a hand held light meter, 6 rolls of film and a Quickset tripod (still have the tripod). He showed me how to use the meter and set the camera so the ISO on both matched the film. The meter had a needle that pointed to a dot when the speed and aperture numbers were right and it showed you all the combos that would give you the right exposure. Simple, just set the camera to one of the combinations on the meter. Grampa gave me a rudimentary understanding of shutter speed and why it mattered, and told me he would pay to develop and print my first 6 rolls of film. After that I was on my own. I understood that film was precious and that you had to use it sparingly because it might be a while before I could save up enough money to buy more. Black and White film was more affordable so that is what I used for the first few years. At some point before I graduated High School the Kodak gave up the ghost, Mom bought a Polaroid, Dad got a Canon F1 and I found a lot of other things to do besides take pictures. I didn't get another camera until I was in grad school and I found a cheap Pentax 35mm at a garage sale. A few months later the Pentax suffered a catastrophic ocean incident at the Oregon coast. A few years and one marriage later I bought my wife a Canon AE1 Program and quickly learned to leave it on the green P because that is what she wanted. I left the majority of the photo duties to she who must be obeyed. As the years passed, my income and priorities did not facilitate the new digital cameras. So now, as I start back into photography I find that I am having to relearn much of what seemed so easy with that old Kodak and I thank my Grampa for the simple tools that performed the functions that now seem so complicated when explained on youtube. So, how did you all get started and what keeps you involved?

An uncle was a photography nut, and he gave me a very inexpensive 126 rollfilm box camera when I was about 10 or 11, and provided me with some of his surplus darkroom gear and chenical packets because I had expressed an interest after hearing about his hobby. The rest is history.

My mother did fashion modelling and other models appreciated getting photos of themselves during fashion shows, and I used my dad's Fujica rangefinder 135 format. And my mother connected me with an industrial photographer who had a darkroom in his home, and he walked me thru color transparency processing when I was 14. During early high school I convinced my dad to buy a Beseler Auto 100 so I could be part of the high school photography community shooting for the newspaper and for the yearbook, and I also shot headshots for students at a local hairstyling school. Photography lapsed largely from late college years to late 20's when I could afford to buy for myself an Olympus OM-1.

When I was in grade school in the 1950’s I received a “developing kit” (sold in toy stores and consisting of a developing tank, contact printing frame, etc.) as a Christmas gift. My first project was contact printing some 6x9 vacation negatives from my dad’s folding Kodak. Seeing the first print gradually emerge in the tray of developer on the floor of our bathroom under the light of an orange bulb hooked me. I started using my dad’s Kodak to take my own pictures, and he eventually drywalled off the end of an old coal bin in our basement for me to use as a darkroom. I later picked an old Federal enlarger from a garage sale.

In high school I was a photographer on the yearbook staff, where we used a 4x5 Speed Graphic and did our own developing and printing, all black & white. By this time I also had my own 35mm camera. Very few days went by where I wasn’t shooting or processing photos.

After high school photography started to take a back seat to the rest of my life. I never really lost interest though. I would occasionally start to get back into it, but the darkroom had always been a big part of it for me, and after leaving home I no longer had access to one. Dropping film off at one hour labs wan't the same. Then many, many years later, I picked up a digital camera and realized I had a darkroom in my computer.

I now work mainly with digital equipment, but occasionally use vintage medium format cameras with black and white film - mainly, I think, because it takes me back to those early days.

I was working on a large passenger rail project in 2000. I wanted to document - by photograph - the progress of this construction project.
So in 2001 I bought my first digital camera, the Kodak DC3400. It was compact and light, and got some good reviews on the net. And it was a Kodak!

The camera worked well for a time, but I soon wished for a digital camera with more focal length and mp. I decided to move to a dslr. At the time the
Olympus E-420 was the smallest dslr on the market, a feature I liked. In my youth my best friend and his dad were big into film photography, and held
Olympus cameras in high regard. For those reasons I bought the E-420 and a couple of lenses. With that camera I started my journey into digital photography.

After a while I moved to the Olympus E-620, a great camera that served me well. I used it to document projects at work and as an all-around camera.
One day I was surfing the net and found photos of aircraft in flight, taken by enthusiasts who visit air shows with their camera gear. It was fascinating
photography. I had always been interested in aviation (at one time I worked for Pan Am) so I figured this would be a great hobby for me. I bought the
Olympus 50-200 lens and 1.4x tc. In 2010 I shot my first air show using Olympus gear and had a blast!

The forum members and photos posted here motivated me to become a better aviation photographer. I learned a lot from the folks here.
Over time I moved from the E-420 to the Canon 7D. Then later the 1D4 and 5D4. I saved all my nickels and dimes and bought the Canon 300mm f2.8.

Been having fun ever since.

When I was about 12 I really got into shooting with some time of Kodak with a flash cube. I really liked B&W film and used the flash cube once in a while. A few years later cars and girls kinda put that on the back burner.

I became friends with fellow at work. Before we met our wives we went to Hawaii in 1980 and he had a high end Minolta and liked to shoot both B&W and tons of slides. He was also a fan of Ansel Adams and I started to appreciate it. I got a couple of SLR's, read all of Ansel's books, built a 4 by 5 field kit, set up dark room and was good for about 15 years.

Later I dropped most of it except taking slides or film. In 2005 I got a 20D and my hobby took off again. There were on line forums to share ideas and learn. Between 2005 and 2008 I participated in a daily on like contest called Digital Image Cafe. Only a few thousand members but it was excellent. I photo courses to expand my interests and took PP classes.

Besides travel it is still my #1 hobby. The fellow I met in the late 70's. Until a few years ago we were still going on photo shoot road trips as his wife worked for an airline. I went on a buddy pass. We would go to places like Hong Kong, Sydney Australia, London or some other major city for 3 or 4 days. It was a blast. I'd like to do one more of those one day.

Back in the 1970's my brother, who's three years older than me and 16 at the time, borrowed $460 from our grandfather to buy a Canon F1. The loan was made with interest paid (I don't know what the rate was) and my brother kept track of the payments on the top of the box. He still has that camera. He still has the box, too.

He built a darkroom in our basement. We didn't have running water in the basement, so it was a little bit of a challenge, but he made it work. I used to marvel at watching him go into the basement and come out with photos he'd taken only hours earlier. He worked at a local camera store "The Shutterbug". I always remember it was pretty sparsely stocked, but I do remember seeing a used Canon TLb in the case. Joel, the owner of the store, sold me the body and two really cheap lenses for $50. This was in 1977, my freshman year of high school.

Instantly I was on the yearbook staff and shooting for the school paper. I was taking photography classes, so that gave me access to a really well equipped darkroom at school. I simply could not shoot enough. I got my film for free from the school, and used either their darkroom or our basement darkroom to process and print.

My brother eventually moved into medium format while I, on the other hand, started to move away from photography. I'd bought a guitar and was heavily into music for a time. In the late 1980's, I was visiting my brother in Palm Coast, Florida and we made a trip to a camera store in Jacksonville. I ended up leaving with a used Canon FTb for $180. I'm not sure what happened to that TLb, but I used the hell out of that FTb. While in the Navy, none off the ships I was assigned to had Photographer's Mates, so that duty fell to me. During Desert Storm I would shoot film while we were at sea and then get the film developed at a one-hour place when we'd pull into Abu Dhabi.

I used the FTb until I retired in 2001, and then sparingly after that. I bought my first digital camera, an Olympus something or other, at Ritz Camera in San Diego. About two years later I bought my digital Rebel from them. I then climbed through the ranks of different bodies to where I am now, a 5D, 5D MKIV, a 6D and a 6D MKII and a bunch of lenses. I'm one of the house photographers at two local concert venues, and I work for a local magazine. I also contract out with other a couple of national companies.

Between my Navy pension and photography, I've somehow successfully avoided having to get a real job since 2013...

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As a kid I loved wildlife and hunting, and my Dad would take me to the newsstand frequently, to buy the latest hunting magazines. . I spent hours and hours looking at the photos of the game animals, fascinated by them. . Ruffed Grouse. . Whitetail Deer. . Pheasants. . Mountain Goats. . Bighorn Sheep. . Black Bears and Grizzly Bears. . And all of the many species of ducks - how especially fascinated was I by the ducks! . I remember cutting the photos out of the magazines and pinning them to a cork bulletin board that hung on the wall in my bedroom.

So because I was so impassioned by photos of wild animals, it naturally followed that I wanted to photograph them myself. . My Dad bought me a Nikon FE film SLR when I was 14, and a cheap 3rd party lens or two - I vaguely remember a 400mm Vivitar, perhaps?

We joined a local photography club and Dad would take me to the twice-a-month meetings and the field trips to area parks and wildlife refuges. . I loved going afield with the camera and seeing the wildlife, but was honestly never very excited about any of the photos I got. . The photos never looked as clean and sharp and detailed and dramatic as the animals looked when I saw them with my own eyes.

Fast forward to the early 2000s when, as an adult, I got my first decent digital cameras and started photographing wildlife again. . What a difference! . Now the photos looked every bit as great as the animals did to my own eyes. . At times, even better than they looked in real life!

So I became obsessed with photographing wild animals, and pretty much pushed everything else in life aside, or to the back burner, so that I could spend most of my time doing wildlife photography.

Guess things have kinda come full circle, as now my photos are in many hunting and outdoor magazines. . Who knows - maybe some kid somewhere will see some of those photos and become passionate about wildlife because of them, the same way I became impassioned about wildlife because of the photos I saw in magazines as a kid!


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Some great stories here. Thanks for sharing.

My start was pretty boring. My daughter became enamored with track when she was about a 4th grader. We had a T3i that mostly sat around and I thought I might as well take a few photos of her, especially when she ran the hurdle events. Things just progressed from there as she got older, I continued shooting, eventually getting a used 7D and some better glass and then progressing to the 7DII and now the R6. She is a scholarship track athlete at a D2 school and I still take photos for her and her teammates/coaches.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #19342074
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As a kid I loved wildlife and hunting, and my Dad would take me to the newsstand frequently, to buy the latest hunting magazines. . I spent hours and hours looking at the photos of the game animals, fascinated by them. . Ruffed Grouse. . Whitetail Deer. . Pheasants. . Mountain Goats. . Bighorn Sheep. . Black Bears and Grizzly Bears. . And all of the many species of ducks - how especially fascinated was I by the ducks! . I remember cutting the photos out of the magazines and pinning them to a cork bulletin board that hung on the wall in my bedroom.

So because I was so impassioned by photos of wild animals, it naturally followed that I wanted to photograph them myself. . My Dad bought me a Nikon FE film SLR when I was 14, and a cheap 3rd party lens or two - I vaguely remember a 400mm Vivitar, perhaps?

We joined a local photography club and Dad would take me to the twice-a-month meetings and the field trips to area parks and wildlife refuges.

Sounds like you have a great dad. Was he able to see your success with digital photography?

Because I live in California I was reading this site and came across your photo!

https://www.busytouris​t.com …s-to-visit-in-california/

Perfectly Frank wrote in post #19342152
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Sounds like you have a great dad. Was he able to see your success with digital photography?
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Yes. . Dad is still alive and well, as is my Mom. . Any time he sees one of my pics in a magazine or a calendar or whatever, he buys it and calls me to say that he found another of my pics. . It's great to have such supportive parents. . I'm blessed beyond anything I deserve.
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Perfectly Frank wrote in post #19342152
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Because I live in California I was reading this site and came across your photo!

https://www.busytouris​t.com …s-to-visit-in-california/
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Cool! . Thanks for sharing that. . It's always interesting to see where these photos end up.

I shot that way back in 2010, on my first trip to the Redwood part of CA.

Been spending a lot of time in your state the past 3 or 4 years, both on firefighting duty and for wildlife photo trips. . Really love how diverse California is, from a geographical standpoint. . Was just there a couple weeks ago shooting on the beach, and then shooting inland. . Freshwater marshes with thousands of wintering ducks and geese one day, then Elephant Seals and Surf Scoters on the coast the next day. . Gotta love that!

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Back in the 60's as a young boy, I was given a box camera I played with for awhile. Then when I was in university in the early 80's I found a film camera with several lenses for $40 at a yard sale. I used that for about 5-6 years during university and after in the military. I didn't shoot again many years. I won a Canon 400D in a sales contest at work. That really got me started and I have been shooting ever since.

With a couple exceptions here and there, I took note that women were frequently repulsed by my very presence (can’t blame ‘em), so I figured I needed to get a hobby. Drumming in punk bands was no longer plausible due to unceasing aging and a growing disdain for the codependency required (there’s always something nagging behind the music). For decades, photography had survived as a latent interest, so I dug it out from its subterranean state, notably motivated by the advent of digital. Once comfy, I jumped back to film, though ironically this was due in part to economics, whereby a digital rangefinder (and oh how I needed a rangefinder) proved cost prohibitive. Anyway, that’s where I’m at. And as it turns out, photography is super swell for introverts; seriously, just the thought of a group photo outing threatens an emetic reaction. But I digress…

i grew up with 2 of the 4 kids of the local paper's chief photographer and photo editor and always thought he had a cool job. my grandfather had had a membership with the National Geographic for decades and i loved the photos in them when they used to be just about the only color images of quality in the late 60s...

i convinced my mom and dad to let me play around with the Kodak 404 instamatic (it had auto wind and auto flash advance) to shoot some 126 film but i never knew anything about photography...

in 1976 i joined the junior high yearbook and the advisor/teacher had a Canon EXAuto (also sold as a Bell and Howell) and she let me use it to shoot school events and 'candids' of the kids for the yearbook. she signed us up for a half-day seminar at another school and took about 5 of us. i remember to this day an instructor drawing progressively smaller circles on the chalkboard and putting the f-stops underneath them. i didnt really understand how all that affected my photos because the EX was a sort of forerunner to the AE-1. i never set an aperture (it really hasnt got predetermined stops anyway and its on the body, not the lenses) and used it pretty much like a point and shoot that needed focusing...

when i got to high school i didnt get on the yearbook because i was busy with other pursuits but took a 1-semester class for photography that was strictly black and white and used instamatics since 126 film will spool up on the same reels as 135. i found out through the teacher and other teachers that the now-defunct school newspaper had a couple of Canon FTbs and a couple of lenses. my mom was a teacher and so everyone in school knew me and i was able to sign out one of the bodies as needed for the class. i also borrowed a YashicaMatG to use. we learned how to process the film and print. I dont remember where i came up with it but i had a couple of packs of Agfa paper (real paper not RC plastic coated) and convinced the instructor to let me use the drum dryer. it was huge, probably 3' in diameter. i also "found" a spare key to the darkroom that i snagged so i could get into the darkroom before school started or if i had another class i could ditch (study hall or if i was doing something for band or student council). i shot a lot of film then. my mom found a Kodak Signet 40 with flash gun at a garage sale and i used it 9th-11th grade and still have it but i dont know where i can find an "N" battery for the flash, or flash bulbs...

after my junior year i told my parents i didnt want a typewriter for graduation but wanted a camera and if POSSIBLE, before my senior year started. they agreed and after a trip to one of the biggest stores in the metro detroit area, we were on our way home with a brand new AE-1/50mm f1.8 kit. i must have shot 200 rolls of film thru that camera that summer and all of 12th grade...

i enrolled at the local community college and joined the newspaper. it was a sad affair at first. i think we published 3 maybe 4 issues the first semester. when the "upper classmen" moved on, my new friend became the editor in chief and i got the photo editor job. his dad was the publisher of the local Gannett newspaper and put a lot of pressure on him to produce a good product. i was working at a custom print house/camera store at the time and after fixing the beseler 23 enlarger, buying proper OC filters for the safe lights, scrapping the junk that had accumulated in the dark room and doing it all for 1/2 of what it normally would have cost we went to town. 8 editions every semester for the next year and a half with some hellaciously long hours there after 10 hours of work (or combination of work and other classes)...

i bought a handful of additional lenses for my AE-1/50 combo. a 24 f2, 35 f2, 85 f1.8 and a 200 f2.8. and then left for the Air Force. I wanted Photography but was assigned and sent to school for Graphic Arts but ended up working with the photo lab on my first assignment. my wife bought me a Canon F1-new for Christmas, then the following summer we split up. i earned my qualifications for Still Photographer in the Air Force and all was good...

when i got out of the service after 8 years, i really had no interest in photography, only playing around with it a little bit. when my new wife and i were expecting our daughter i bought my first digital. an Olympus C4040. 4.1mp and i shot a lot of images with that camera too. when my daughter was 10, my wife wanted a good SLR type so i got her a T1i. I started using it and so i got a T2i to use. when i started getting asked to shoot things for other people we gave the T1 to our daughter, my wife took the T2 and i got a 7D. it got sold off because i didnt like the quality and moved to a 5D3 and later a 5D4...

i shoot (what WAS) my daughters marching band (still going on 7 years), her school's football and baseball teams, i shoot for a local news/vlog website freelance and cover a semi-pro hockey team (4th of 8 seasons due to the owner going back and forth on what he wants to pay for)...

whew! i apologize if this was way more than anyone wanted to read. I left out a LOT of details of working for Gannett, buying and using other cameras, buying a lot of darkroom gear for home but not being able to convince my dad to let me build a darkroom (i had access to the college newspaper's darkroom 24/7 anyway) and all of the different photo classes i took...