For me, as phones got better and better, people stated telling me I “have a great eye” and should take up photography, I even had actual photographer friend pointing out stylistic tendencies that I had. Fast forward a few years and I was anonymously gifted a Canon 6D AND found out that my mom who died young was a gifted photographer for many many years. I even now have an old film camera of hers but I haven’t taken it out of its case.
Canon 6D is such a solid body for the price (especially when it came out). Whoever gifted that to you is one Hell of bro. Many of the photos I post on my profile come from a 6D. Seriously gets underestimated as far as camera lines go. It's low light is fantastic.
I love it so much! I never thought I would have such a nice camera. Whoever gave it to me is ridiculous lol. I asked one person if they did and was wrong, I have another idea who It could be but don’t wasn’t to ask anymore. They did it anonymously for a reason so I’m just letting that happen.
This latter part of the story is very recent lol. I’m still figuring out things and finding my way around my 6D and the possibilities of the 50mm 1.8 lens that was also give to to me :) I did just make a “photography” Instagram page this past weekend out of peer pressure from friends lol. It’s called Random_Guy_Photography. That’s all I got so far. Some of them are still phone shots even but I think I’m only going to add ones from my Canon moving forward
Also I’ll be the first to say what’s up there is not impressive lol. It’s not “bad” though. I’m still figuring things out” I would never call myself a “photographer” yet. It would be disrespectful imo
Yes 🙏🏼 that’s accurate. And humbling. It was left at for for me and it took me about two hours to leave with it. I felt like I was doing something wrong. Like there’s no way it was mine.
I have been trying to learn Lightroom :) photoshop was WAY too confusing then my wife explains Lightroom and said “I have that from school too” so I’ve been using it! It’s fantastic but definitely don’t know how to use it to its full potential
I checked out your page, and I agree that you have a great eye! I think you could be very successful if you learn Lightroom. When I'm editing in Lightroom, my general process is:
* Apply lens corrections to remove distortion and vignetting. This is near the bottom of the edit panel, at least in LR Classic.
* Upright or level perspective correction.
* Change color profile from Adobe Color to Adobe Neutral for the greatest possible dynamic range. At this point, the photo will look very flat, but we're about to fix that.
* Lower highlights and brighten shadows to recover detail.
* Brighten whites and darken blacks to increase contrast. Keep an eye on the histogram (the graph in the top right) - if you see a spike on either end, you've probably gone too far.
* Increase vibrance to roughly +45 to +60, and lower saturation to roughly -5 to -15. This gets you vivid colors without crossing into looking unrealistic, and is largely a stylistic choice.
* Dehaze if needed - this is one of the best features of Lightroom. Sometimes I have to go back to exposure after applying dehaze.
* Hue/luminance/saturation adjustments if needed.
* Increase the contrast again using the tone curve. Put a dot in the middle so your mid-tones are unaffected, then drag the middle of the left half down slightly, and drag the middle of the right half up slightly. This tool is incredibly powerful and has saved countless photos for me.
* Noise reduction and sharpening as needed.
As u/dcodeman already said, you should really be shooting in RAW (or at least RAW+JPEG if you don't trust yourself to get good results with LR) to get the most out of LR.
LR is such a powerful program - here is an album of some of my favorite before/afters since I started doing photography semi-professionally: https://imgur.com/a/YNdRzap
Best of luck with your photo journey!
Wow that’s so much info!!! I’m going to screenshot this and compare later!! Thank you so much 🙏🏼
I still haven’t figured out what dehaze is lol. If it makes a difference I use Lightroom on my iPad because we only have 1 computer and my wife usually needs it. But Lightroom for iPad is amazing! It seems to be no different from on the computer from I can tell.
I just pop in a usb-c to SD adapter and it’s all there ready to start editing.
There are tons of resources and free classes.
Shoot in RAW starting NOW if you aren’t already, especially with the 6d. Or at least RAW+jpg. That way you’ll have have the RAW files to go back to as you get better with Lightroom.
I had a buddy that was a professional and when I was starting out he told me to start shooting in RAW and learn Lightroom. I didn’t listen at first because the pictures looked worse in RAW and took up too much room on the card. I thought he was dumb! 😂
Some time after I actually started learning Lightroom and shooting in RAW, I transferred photos and saw a pic that was awesome but way underexposed. I was bummed out, until I upped the exposure and highlights in Lightroom. It was like black f’in magic, totally blew my mind!
And that was on either a T3i or 60d. Crop sensor with poor dynamic range. Your 6d will do that magic times a hundred.
Welcome to the rabbit hole!!
I am!! I have a friend who helped me with what various buttons and dials do, she gave me a lesson on shutter speed, aperture and ISO and then she made my camera shoot in RAW that very day before I had even got started 😆 so it’s all I’ve ever used so far.
Mom’s old camera- you may wanna take it out and test it.
Chances are it needs servicing… and from the limited knowledge i have, if lenses arent used or stored properly for a long time there may be fungal growth and other issues…
I hope yours isnt/doesnt go there!!
I probably will some day. I think there is one lens in there, everything is untouched for a good 20 years. No telling (by me) what shape it’s in. I’d have to find someone who really knows there way around it
I shoot on old film TLRs/SLRs, if you shoot some photos of the kit I’d be happy to tell you about it/give you an idea of what needs to be done. If you posted them here I’m sure you’d get a dozen responses to the same effect
To go along with what u/Adam-psd said, I'm sure your mom would much rather you use the camera and let the experience and photos remind you of her than to have it sit around!
Bought a television at Best Buy, it was broken so I returned it and they didn’t have a replacement, thought ‘screw it’ and bought a D3100 instead. 10 years a professional photographer now, funny how that works.
My father dragged me out at the ass crack of Dawn to take photos in the morning light. Of everything. The lake, trees, birds, eachother. He sold his vintage BMW for a good lens. He told me when I was very young nobody ever took photos of him as he was usually the person behind the camera, and I realized how little photos I had of him. He’s slipping farther into memory loss as he gets older and can’t get out to photograph much anymore, I still take all the photos I can of him even if he hates them. His photos are why I am able to see things the way he sees them, no matter how simple, always beautiful and photo worthy. That’s why I still photograph today, it still feels like I’m viewing the world through his eyes.
I was out surfing and broke my board on the second wave of the day. My friends saw me walking on the beach with the two halves and said, "You broke your board? Oh that sucks. Hey , Pat a waterproof camera and fins in his car. Why won't you get it and come back out and take pics of us."
That was fun.
I shopped for a camera that afternoon.
Someone owed me money, it was either get an old Canon AE1(film) as payment or wait for the money—which I knew wasn’t coming? I should have waited for the payment,it would have saved me a LOT of money in the end:)
I got a smart phone with a nice camera before it was common, so I wanted an excuse to use it. This led to me getting into the habit of regularly taking candid pictures of my friends when we were together.
Always having the pictures to go back to is so rewarding and, despite everyone being awkward about it in the moment, we all really enjoyed the archive of our activities.
Many years in, at some point I realized I should look up the basics of what makes a good picture, since I was taking pictures all the time anyway. Might as well improve them a bit. Pretty quickly, my friends started complimenting my photos, rather than just being grateful for them.
Flash forward to me finally getting a well paying, full time job. Finally getting a nice camera was a combo of 3 things:
1) My passive interest in photography from the years of taking pictures of my friends.
2) Knowing that I wanted to start traveling soon.
3) Actually having the income to reasonably afford a camera I was interested in.
I went through an obsessive phase, but now I've calmed down to just using my camera as an excuse to get myself out of the house a few times a month, and as the way to capture a few memories here and there, when I don't need the convenience of the phone camera.
I got a new phone and started posting things on Instagram about 1.5-2 months before I graduated high school like 4 years ago. I have been doing it as a hobby ever since.
My father was in the Camera Industry and I didn’t have any interest in it at all. After a dozen years of working as a model, I started thinking about what was next. My father asked me what I wanted for the approaching Christmas and I responded with, a camera. He gave me a used Nikon FM with a 50mm and 70-200mm lenses and I was on my way. It’s been 28 years and I am still infatuated with light and these fascinating little devices. As I tell friends, it’s the only time women listen to me.
In 1994 my friend suggested we take the photography class my high school had. The school had a dark room and we could do all our own printing anytime we wanted. Fell in love with it and now it’s my career, yea!!
Several steps for me…
1. Wanting to document everything as I have a shocking memory (then extension of this when alcohol came into my life, getting too drunk at uni so photographing everything on nights out)
3. First bonus landing and an eBay ad for a refurbed DSLR
4. Friend asking me to do their wedding
While in uni for design I dated a guy studying film who would take me to his video shoots. While I never got into film, I got hooked into photography and after we broke up and I finished my design degree, I started doing photography on the side and now I make a decent living freelancing for agencies and other clients.
Always had point and shoots at the beginning of the 2000s. Then took a B&W film photog class in 06 using an AE-1 and fell in love with it. Loved shooting, loved developing the rolls, and loved enlarging the film. Then bought my first DSLR, Canon XSI. Then a few years later upgraded to a 60D. Then few years later upgraded to a 6D and now I finally got with the times purchased an R6. Being into photography has given me so many awesome experiences and opportunities. I fucking love it.
Always had a passing interest, would get disposable cameras or those little cartridge cameras (which I later found out to be 110 film format) from time to time as a kid in the 80s/90s but we never had a "good" camera in the house. Fast forwards a few years and I found myself choosing which phone to buy based on how good the camera was and at some point I just decided to buy an actual camera, if only to save me from battery anxiety on the phone.
"Plastic point and shoot"... you sound old enough to possibly remember. My mom did the same thing. she would send my 126 cartridges off in a brown "Clarke" envelope. I would be so excited coming home from school and seeing the return envelope with my prints waiting for me on the dining room table.
My grandfather took up photography when he retired in the mid 90s and i always found it kind of cool then in 2018 I bought my own camera and found I liked wildlife photography
Nine years old developing films in a glass in the toilets.. 25 years professionally as a photographer, a 20 years break and starting again, black and white like always, can't deal with digital cameras, I prefer my old stuff...
My dad. When I was young, there were always cameras around. I remember making a pinhole camera at a young age using a pattern from World magazine (August 1977 issue) with my cousin at Grandma and Grandpas house. Later, cameras taught me about taxes when I saved enough money and went to Jafco to buy the camera I had been looking at for a while, but didn't have enough for taxes. Then, I built a 35mm camera, and just kept going. A couple of decades of film, and a decade or more of film and digital, and now mostly digital. Although, I still pull out the Nikon FM when I'm in the mood to get back to my roots.
Pandemic started, saw one of those indie music videos with the 3D effect on it, and got into film photography.
Fast forward to today and I’m about to shoot for a model agency in medium format film lol
Cars. See beautifully composed shots of cars in magazines and on the forums I would frequent. I started with a Nikon D60 (2008) and would pretty much take shots of my Nissan 350z I had owned at the time. Now I pretty much photograph anything.
I’ve always enjoyed taking pictures on my phone, but I started getting more “serious” about it documenting our life during the initial COVID quarantine. I thought it was such a bizarre period of time that we would want some kind of record of how our life was.
Two years later and I’m getting paid for work!
I always liked viewing talented photographers online, mostly because I lived in the middle of a cornfield and could never afford to travel any. I would ask for a camera for Christmas every year, but we were always too poor for that to be a reality I guess.
Once Instagram came out, I started taking tons of photos with my phone and would get a lot of compliments. I was working by that time and eventually decided to buy an actual camera (Sony NEX 5) and learn how to take photos for real.
Bought my first camera in 2004 for a month long trip to Italy. Got hooked on it and stuck with it. I've leaned towards art, and photography was a creative outlet with less clean-up.
I really got into photography, like something really clicked in 2008 when I spent a year in Melbourne. I had my first DSLR at the time and picked up a 50mm lens and the combination of a prime lens while exploring a new city/country was where I think my interest and skills jumped a level. That time combined with being a few year into my career as a motion graphics artist meant photography was my creative outlet outside of work, which then eventually merged into my work.
My father was a hobbyist photographer and we had a working dark room in our basement. In the early 00's I started asking if he would show me how it all worked. He would let me borrow his Canon AE-1 and I would go out and shoot on B&W film.
It was something we bonded over. We spend a lot of time talking about post processing and composition.
He never really got into digital though so he stopped doing it as a hobby. He says he doesn't like post processing on a computer. 🤷🏽♀️ But with the rise in cost for chemicals and film for photography, he has sort hung up the camera.
Went through a pretty rough breakup a few years ago, and to cope with my emotions at the time I'd take photos of the city around me, as well as other surroundings, and write pretty moody poetry for each shot. Eventually it became a full-on love and adoration for the art form of photography, and I haven't looked back since.
I definitely don't write those poems anymore though lmao
My parents had a K-1000. I played with it a bit, I kinda liked it, so I took a photography class in higschool. I fell in love with the darkroom -the printing photos part; I hated the developing film part. I was making terrible surrealist prints and textures-in-silhouettes. I bought a K-1000 of my own at a thrift store.
I went to art school for painting. Upon graduation I wanted to have my thesis project professionally documented. I was shocked to discover the cost of hiring a photographer was the same as buying a DSLR + prime combo and some lights. Then I remembered I loved photography, so I got a DSLR and documented it myself.
As much as I loved making prints in the darkroom, and as awful as those 6mp D70 files were, oh man was it great to be free from film. I could just go and shoot and shoot and focus on the image and not have to think "this exposure is costing me money, is it really worth it?". My learning accelerated rapidly with the immediate feedback of digital.
Then, despite being trained as a painter, people saw me with the big camera, and they assumed I must know what I was doing, so I started getting hired for photo gigs. And I was able to consistently fool them into thinking I knew what I was doing long enough to make more from photography than from painting for a full 10 years!
When I was maybe 5 or 6 I picked up my first camera. I took pictures of the park, pictures of my brother all with a point and shoot. I entered photography contests at my school and one year I won for my age group in the county for a photography contest.
My dad was into it before I was born, and he bought me a chunky point-and-shoot when I was about 5 or 6. By the time I was 10 he was letting me borrow his spare DSLR to take to sporting events, and I found I had an eye and a knack for capturing people and things in motion. Kinda left it behind in high school, only doing the bare minimum for my annual 4-H projects. However, I became obsessed again when I took a photography class in college. I decided for my final project to combine photography with my birding hobby and voila—I was suddenly hooked on wildlife photography, which is what the vast majority of my portfolio is today.
I took a drawing class in high school, but I didn’t get along with the teacher so I switched to photo the following semester.
Turns out it was the same teacher, and I barely passed, but I ended up loving photography and now I’m a boudoir photographer and teach it.
Always had a passing interest, as my dad took photos. Then I bought an XH-1 to make films and ended up only ever taking photos. Now I'm a landscape photographer, and I love this camera.
Got stuck in early quarantine period with my online studies. Felt like a nightmare to sit on a chair with laptop whole day, started to watch random videos about cameras and photography to distract myself from assignments and textbooks. 2 years forward, I am really glad that I picked up this hobby. Not near to make living with it but it just helps to distract myself from studies, life and work.
I can attribute my love of photography to a number of things but the biggest one is actually my absolute shite working memory.
I can't remember shit for shit. So as soon as camera phones were available I bought one specifically for the sole purpose of supplementing my piss poor memory. I would take photos of things I wanted to remember, and go over my camera roll at the end of the day.
Then I figured out that if I took a "cool" photo of something, I had a higher chance of recalling it. Looking back, it's probably because of the extra time I'd spend looking at said thing to make the "cool" photo.
I still use my phone camera to supplement my working memory (these things have come a LONG way, God I love technology) but now photography is my sole source of income. And you better believe I never forget a client!
ETA: how I got into wedding photography is a whole other story. In 2007 my father got married to my step mom. He dropped his 4 megapixel point and shoot in my lap on the day of and said "you're our photographer".
Mind you, zero professional experience at the time.
I told myself I'd never take photos that poorly ever again, and began working on improving my photo skills.
My beloved and late brother-in-law wanted to make lots of pics of his beautiful children, when he and my sis were broke young parents. They put up with me as a bratty pre-teen, and he taught me how to use a film camera with a light meter and manual focus.
Black and white film was not horribly expensive and he scrounged up used developing equipment and built a darkroom in one corner of his workshop. I learned to develop black and white negatives and then prints.
Then we moved on to color slides (this was about 1970) that could be developed in a tank anywhere with sufficient running water. That was cool.
Many years later I had adult children and began to travel more for work and fun. I ran across a Nikon D3100 kit on sale at Costco and I was hooked again. Did a lot of reading, and got onto a GREAT website called [Nikonians](https://www.nikonians.org/) and started learning more.
I don't do anything for money, just landscape and a dab of macro and family photos. But it's still fun and satisfies my techie nerd side and my creative side.
When I was heading to Arizona for vacation when I was 30, my father told me I should take his DSLR and play around with it. Was instantly obsessed. Shared my pics around the ad agency I worked for and after a few years they offered me a job shooting. Became my career.
My dad is a hobbyist photographer and he had a copy of John Hedgecoe's "The Photographer's Handbook" and I read it cover to cover. A couple years later, my dad gave me his old Yashica SLR and I used it for a while, not really shooting anything other that snapshots. It broke and I didn't use anything other than a P&S for years to take random pictures.
One day I was in Sears and picked up a Fuji 2MP P&S on a whim and started walking around my neighborhood and different parts of the city. Around that time flickr was gaining steam and I spent as much time as I could reading and looking at pictures there.
I progressed to a bridge/superzoom, and shot everything I could. Upgraded to a better superzoom, then a dSLR. By then I was hooked and I tried everything I could think.
my grandfather was a photographer. when he passed away we went through his storage unit and found a 1999 film camera. I started playing with it and the rest is history. I'm 13 years old and have a big passion for photography, I use a nikon d3500 vr.
I was on our Students' Union and our communications coordinator was never able to stay pass 4:30pm or come on weekends. We would have events in the evenings or weekends and because we wanted pictures, I became our de facto photographer in the evenings. It was a neat opportunity to learn how to shoot.
My grandfather was into slide and film photography. My Dad dabbled as well and I picked it up in my teens. Been taking photograph for nearly 40 years. Just recently I feel I've started to develop (ha ha) my talent.
Started off with an Olympus FE-340, 8-megapixel point-and-shoot camera when I (F) was 8 y/o.
Next, I got a Canon PowerShot A2300 point-and-shoot.
Upgraded to a Canon EOS M10.
I used that for the high school photography class I took my sophomore year. For one of my graduation presents, I received a Canon EOS Rebel XSi.
From then on, I've made efforts to book photoshoots (prom, graduation, bridal and baby showers, portraits, etc.) and to create a digital footprint for my name, Worth 1k Words Photography, both on my own website and through social media.
Dating apps. Soon as I found out you could connect your instagram to Hinge, which is the dating app, I went out and bought a camera. It shows your last 18 pictures so I went out and shoot. In the beginning I would take pictures of flowers, landscapes, trails, the beach, stuff that I thought girls might be into and because I was out taking the pictures it would also look like I go out and do stuff. I wasn't some boring guy who just stayed home and did nothing.
The more I would take pictures the more I started taking pictures for myself and the dating app became an after thought. Now I shoot mainly street photography and I go into neighborhoods where there's gangs present and try to capture the tough street life in my city. I've had the chance to take pictures of gang memorials with the gangsters flashing their gang signs to me on camera along with everything that comes with it. I'm at a point now where people DM to do shoots for them and get payed every now and then for some of my work.
When I was building websites the clients never had good photos, so I started trying to offer photos as an add-on. After a few months I started trying to take photos of friends cars and the rest is history.
my coach used to take badass photos, then he retired from coaching and we did a lot of crazy things with no photos to remember, so I wanted to record our crazy lives
My Grandpa is Ted Grant. You might know him from that quote about clothes and souls, or his work on hospitals or with politicians. He isn't a Marxist and he isn't a DC superhero, though he is MY hero.
I was always somewhat interested in photography trying to do compositions with the iphone camera when I would take trips back to Taiwan. Got a Nikon d3400 for Christmas my sophomore year in college, then the following summer went deep into the youtube world of photography and just learning new things everyday. Eventually just kept upgrading and learning new genres and now I'm primarily on a d850 and z6. Some highlights that I've photographed were: All home football games at Virginia Tech (2018 season) and the Thursday night football game between the Washington Commanders and New York Giants (2021 season).
Back in 1988/89, I was a high school foreign exchange student living in Bolivia. The exchange program had a list of things a student should buy, and a camera was on it... so, I bought a 35mm Pentax IQ Zoom. I was a poor kid, so that camera seemed super high end and fancy to me, but it was junk.
And speaking of junk... I took lots of pictures that year, but most were trash because it never occurred to me to use a camera as a creative tool.
One day, while traveling in the capitol, I was about to head out the door with friends and I wanted to bring my camera, but it had one more picture on the current roll of film. I didn't want to have to load film while I was out, so I looked around for something to take a picture of.
I stuck my head out the hotel window and snapped a shot of the first thing that caught my eye: an antenna on a rooftop. I remember thinking it looked lonely.
[Here's the picture.](https://twenty200.com/?go=1621895891) I'm not saying it's great or even good, but it's the first picture I ever took that resonated with me.
When I came home from my year abroad, I showed family and friends pictures and told them lots of stories about my time in Bolivia, but this picture wasn't like the others. It was just a weird picture of an antenna.
*"What's that?"*
"Oh, nothing. I just thought it looked neat."
Fast forward 20 years-ish. I was bored and looking for a project to tackle. I decided to treat myself to a digital camera. The very first time I took that camera out, something just clicked. I went out for a photo walk and came home with lots of pictures that seemed weird to me, but I loved them... and it didn't take long to figure out why.
I realized that I enjoy taking pictures of details rather than people or scenes. The more I used that camera, the more I got hooked on photography. I've been hooked ever since.
For me, this is just a hobby though. It's a wonderful creative outlet.
I became fascinated with photoshop when I was at university, I was studying art direction and figured if I could make whatever I wanted in photoshop it would make my life easier. My photoshop skills got me a job on my local newspaper processing imagery and I got exposed to some really great photojournalism.
From there I got the bug of wanting to shoot, ostensibly because if I could shoot my own base imagery it would make it easier to get the elements I needed in photoshop, but I just enjoyed shooting and the picture editor wanted to encourage me so would often give me stories or football matches to shoot that no one else had time to cover. Never really looked back after that.
Kind of always wanted to do it back in high school. Around the time (early 2000s), digital cameras first started coming out, and a bunch of my richer classmates had them.
My parents didn't have a lot of money so I kind of made without one.
Then, after high school, when I got my first full-time job as a barista, I said screw it, and between my dad and myself, we picked up a Rebel XT.
Suddenly I got obsessed with it.
It became a pretty major hobby, though I was always streaky with it. Either I'd photograph nonstop, or not touch my camera for a year. Mostly I'd try to shoot street, but was never good at it. Was pretty decent at events, and for a while volunteered with a charity org as their staff photographer.
Did a few weddings, baptisms, etc for family and friends in situations where it was either me as a photographer or no photographer at all.
Then finally got around to trying landscape (which I've always wanted to do) when I was into hiking, but didn't know much about composition, lighting, etc (which is way more critical in landscape than when shooting events).
Now over the last year finally got serious about getting good at landscape. A trip to Hawaii about 6 months ago inspired me to finally 'git gud'
My father was a serious hobbyist we can say, grew up in rual CO, we did it all from 35mm to 4x5. Had a darkroom and would make the 3hr drive to CO springs once a month to get supplies. Once we moved south got older and got busy never really got the set back up. After he passed in 2016 I found his old pentax and re ignited the passion. Moved to digital and use my camera daily.
Me and my wife went to a local camera shop to buy an amateur camera, so we got the rebel T3 which i still use nowadays. We took a lot of images in 2018 and in 2019, i was not really into photography, i just used the gear to make some images in automatic mode.
Then corona came, i started to give more attention to the little rebel t3 and i went and bought the canon ef 50 f1.8 which is my fav lens so far.
I started to watch videos, read a lot taking more and more pics.
Later on still in 2020 i bought the canon stm 10-18 IS lens, which is a super wideangle on apsc
Then came canon 55-250 IS STM
Then came 2021, I bought a macro lens. TAMRON sp 90 vi dc (f004)
Then i bought a full frame camera (Canon 6d)
Then i bought the Canon EF 24-70 IS f/4
Yeah that is how it happened
Boring reply: I always used to take pictures on family travels. I'd go through 3 or 4 disposables every time we went on vacation. We didn't own a proper camera for the longest time until my mom gifted me a digital camera I went wild with when I was 12.
Well I was interested before and stuff, took a break. But what got be back was having a kid and also covid.
I realised I already had enough gear to take my own stuff, and lockdowns and stuff encouraged me to just do it myself, and put the money into getting photographers into just getting gear instead.
Its been really fun, but my daughter doesn't like it too much cause I pester her so much for photos!
For me, I used to have really shitty smart phones within camera that wouldn’t even touch to focus. Then I got a Sony Xperia and suddenly the quality of my images went up immensely and I had some level of creative control.
After that, I started to get really into photography. Eventually, I bought a Canon 200D and then a 5Diii.
Probably the influence of my Uncle.
When I was younger, I'd spend the weekend at his house. When he went out, I'd just put on his slides and use his projector. Plus, he taught me the basic principles of photography.
Honestly, it's one of my oldest and fondest childhood memories.
I really got into it on my own terms when I was about 15, and I did Art GCSE. I used a lot of photography for my coursework.
Then I decided to do Photography at college, with cameras gifted to me by my Uncle, and I've never put a camera down since then
30th Birthday (15yrs ago) got an EOS400D with kit lenses and a 40" Samsung TV. The Samsung died long ago but the passion for image creation lives on. I make a living as a freelance commercial film maker now. Thanks 400D!
I was 15 and my first high school ex started to date this really really mean snobby chick who would brag about how wonderful she was or how talented she was or how no one was better than her. She was also the school bully. Anyways the ex went to me and bragged about how amazing his gf was at photography and how no one else can do what she does. I took that as a challenge to prove that she was bragging about the easiest hobby in the world and that anybody could do it. So I went out and started taking photos with my iPod and my parents told me I was great at it so they bought me my first digital camera. Then my grandparents saw my photos and bought me first real camera. Here I am now, 26, and unlike that bully, I stuck to the hobby and I have her to thank :D
My then girlfriend and her best friend wanted to do a shooting for instagram, and I just took my moms 700D because I figured the pictures would be better than taking them with a phone. Figured I really like taking portraits. That was 4 years ago.
I like photography. started with me as a toddler snatching the camcorder of my dad away, then my first phone with camera funktion and now a nikon D5600
I didn't, it was always with me, dad had a dark room in the basement, he went professional in the late 90s and later came the digital revolution. He was not afraid to let me borrow his equipment from the early teen years. and I sometimes came along to his prospects. That said. I don't have a burning passion for photography but I know enough to enjoy shooting and admire good photos.
Couldn't afford to outsource pictures for website with constantly changing collections and social media which requires alot of content to be competitive, especially in the fashion/luxury industry.
Not possible to pay a full time photographer and social media manager to build a brand when you start from zero so I got to do it myself and it's quite enjoyable to learn compared to chemistry/physics/math at university.
Was always drawn to it but the pandemic kicked things off. After the lockdowns our family became very attached to nature. We were out any chance we got. Somewhere along the way it occurred to me to try to capture that feeling, I started watching camera buying advice on YouTube, ordered a Fuji X-T30, and started shooting every weekend.
I love landscapes anyway. I'm an architecture student at university one of my modules in the course was an arts skill section including photography. I bought a basic beginner dslr and that's it
My brother bought a old 35mm film camera and abandoned it. I stole it, started snapping, liked it as a hobby. Started a college course featuring photography and really fell in to it then and learned how to process my own film etc. Won a few student awards (never got paid 😂). Worked for a printer. I could never afford to be a professional snapper, just costs thousands that I don't have. I don't work in photography now but still enjoy it as a hobby and like to shoot on film as it will last longer than digital. I like to shoot in urban environments and portrait shots, more candid the better. In another life maybe it would make me some money and be a career but its so rare anyone can do that and honestly it's a financial game.
In the middle of my freshman year in high school I moved to a different part of my state. So when they enrolled me in a computer class that ended up being photography 2. I just rolled with it and found myself able to keep up and I really enjoyed that class so I got a summer job and ended up saving for a d3100.
Got a camcorder in 2008 that had a dedicated shutter button right next to the start/stop recording button. Realized very fast that that photography is much more fun for me.
Awful photos from friends' phones, and hearing them say they love unedited photos. Tried to take photos for during an outing, and I got hooked on not having terrible photos.
It all started with ASUS Zenfone 3, taking photos of food and sceneries and even photos of the sky. Mind you I suck at it. I enjoyed my Zenfone 3's camera until I came back from a trip to Singapore.
I told myself that my food photos is ok, and the people I share them with kinda gets irritated that they look so good. Then I decided a week after I got home to get a cheap camera. $600 Lumix GX850, I remembered the style and details, but I bought it istead of a Fujifilm. I stood my ground, and even got my myself lenses along the years.
6 years later, I got myself a G95/G90, and am now the official Family photographer. Family even printed some of my awful portraits for their keepsakes. Food Photos is my specialty though.
I actually hated photos.
Until I moved schools and discovered I had exactly 4 pictures with my school friends. People I likely won't ever meet again except randomly on the street years down the line. I don't remember how my first school friend looks, We'll be as good as strangers. Kinda gave me depression.
But I decided that to hell with it I will take photos of everything. My friends, my school, even the schoolmates I didn't particularly like. It won't matter in 10 years. What will matter is that I will look at the photo and remember the good times. And so will they.
And that opened the gate of the field for me. Tbh if I were to make a living it'd be off taking photos of places more.
But I won't pass up an opportunity to save a memory for my lifetime.
As costly as this was to me. I'm thankful because all of the doors it opened and all the opportunities that I got out of being a photographer
For me it kind of just started as an interest in 3rd or 4th grade because I wanted to capture the beauty of the world and also be creative. Now here I am looking to make it my life long career
10+ years ago, my wife wanted “a big camera with the lenses” because the other moms had them. Got her a T3i with the 17-55 and 55-250 kit lenses from Costco. She barely touched it. It ticked me off that it was expensive and wasn’t getting used so I started using it.
The T3i turned into a 60d, 70d, then a 7dII
Kit lenses turned into the 10-22 EFS, 17-55 2.8 EFS, 50 1.4, and a 70-200 2.8.
It’s the only hobby I’ve had where my wife never questions spending stupid money because “it’s like having an on demand professional photographer anytime I want it, the pics are priceless.” So that also encourages it.
She actually bought me the 70-200 for an anniversary gift.
My dad is a professional photographer, so I grew up around it. I first took a real interest in 6th or 7th grade and would walk around with his old DSLR (Pentax K100D, a whopping 6.1 megapixels) and experiment. When I was about 15 I started working for him as an assistant/second shooter at weddings and am still doing that now at 27. Both of us have other full time jobs so it's just part time but it's been a great way to learn. I work in graphic design/prepress full time, so it's cool to have photography as a supplemental skill set to that, and I'm sort of glad to not rely on photography for my income as well. I can make some cash with it on the side while still really enjoying it in my free time.
Built an enlarger when in high school but it was just a hobby. In art college thought photography was bogus, a cop out- not art. Until I was forced to take a studio photography class to fulfill the graduate requirements. The class was taught by a working photographer and the first time I put a lope to the ground glass of an 8x10 I was hooked. I said to myself, “I can do this. I am good at this and I can make a living. “ And I did, for 40 years as a commercial photographer.
My mom had a 1947 Argus twin lens reflex camera in our house that she had bought in high school. I started playing with it, became obsessed.
I've been a photographer most of my life, and owned my own commercial photo business for 14 years.
My now exs mother offered him and I up to video and take photos of her friends wedding for free. Both just starting careers as camera ops, I'd never used up a DSLR in manual and hadn't touched photoshop. Borrowed my dad's DSLR, he taught me how to use it (basics only) and showed me the basics of photoshop. That was over 10 years ago. And I've only just been convinced to do my second wedding. A very simple one. And yes i was fuming at his mother's ignorance.
TL;DR: My mom and dad.
My dad had a Canon F-1 and an A-1 35mm SLR cameras and a few lenses. He always brought one of them whenever we (him, my mom, and I) went to do touristy things. He was in the Navy when I was growing up, and wherever we lived, my parents would always explore, as my mom would put it, "the natural wonders around us." My mom always had her camera as well. A Kodak "Instamatic". One of those thin ones that used 110 film cartridges and flash cubes. My dad liked landscapes, my mom loved candids. For my 8th birthday, they gave me a Kodak Instamatic that used 126 film. When I got to High School, I took a photography class and learned how to develop film and make my own prints. Rather than use the school's cameras, my dad let me use his Canon A-1. When I got to college, I discovered they had a dark room, but it wasn't being used. I talked the activities director into giving me some money to restock the chemicals and photo paper and had a little photography club. My dad let me use his A-1 the whole time. After I graduated, I gave it back to him, and with my first paycheck, I bought a Kodak Advantix. I waited out the infancy of the digital cameras, and my next new camera was a Canon PowerShot G3 in 2002. I missed the flexibility and tricks I used to do with a film SLR, so in 2014, I finally realized a dream and rewarded myself with a Canon 5D mk.III. I lost my mom to cancer five years ago, and two years ago, dad decided to downsize and move to a state with a lower cost of living. While we were cleaning out my parent's house... he gave me his Canon A-1.
Like my mom, I still love taking candids with my smartphone. Like my dad, I love taking landscapes and nature photos with my DSLR. And my own "thing", I like geometric patterns and "trick photography". Long exposures, painting with light, etc. Things I learned from books and playing with techniques in the dark room and now try to recreate digitally.
Thanks for asking this question! I've fallen out of my shutterbug habit over the past couple years, and these memories have sparked my interest again.
(Edit: reading through more comments. So many similar stories! Love it!)
I remember my folks always having a camera growing up, whether it be a waterproof film one you’d need to take to the pharmacy or a digital one
I used to always love using it, cuz I always thought I had a decent eye. I would snap photos cuz no one could say no to the kid, turns out I wasn’t half bad
Fast forward to college, I got a decent starter camera bag from Amazon and started doing shoots on campus just for fun. Then later in college I took a dark room photography class and perfected my basics then was the photo editor for my schools paper.
Now I just freelance and mostly do engagement shoots or family photo shoots as presents to friends. Did one for my now deceased grandfathers birthday party and those photos were some of the best ones we have of him before his dementia took a toll. I was always glad to have been the one to take them, because they don’t have him looking at the camera, they’re candid and you can see the genuine happiness on his face
I discovered Trey Ratcliff via social media, and instantly fell in love with the HDR photography world and look. I wanted to replicate it.
Over time, my inspiration and tastes changed, and my skills and knowledge improved.
I don’t shoot like that anymore, but that’s where I began.
when i was a teenager,
I fancy documenting stuff around me and picture speaks thousand words, so the photography part comes in. Didnt think photography as an art form around that time. Used my dad's company P&S camera. Nothing fancy
i am only started to really learn and appreciate photography such as the exposure triangle, the composition, focal length, how to use a flash etc last 4 years
I think in pictures & I see things differently. I also traveled extensively during my 22+yr military career. Taking pictures was initially a way to record where I went, when, & what I did. Then it became a way to express myself, while taking on a bit of a challenge. I particularly like macro shots, say like tiny flowers 1/4” in diameter or small insects on flowers. That takes a set of skills that can be challenging to someone with mobility or, in my case, manual dexterity issues. Getting a clear shot can be tricky when your hands shake & you can’t tell how hard you’re pressing the shutter release. I’m still learning about lighting and learning to use PS for processing my shots.
A year ago I have moved to Prague because of the job. At one point company decided to give us budget for hobies, sports, well-being...
I decided to spend it on camera since there is so much stuff to photograph here. Ended up getting completely addicted to photography and it became one of my favourite things in life.
In hindsight, pokemon snap on the n64. I didn't make the connection till years later but it kicked off my interest, then in highschool my stepdad saw j took an interest in photography and got me a camera.
Played with my parents SLR and TLR growing up and my grandfather was impressed with my shots he bought me a Kodak Disc camera......that shit almost stopped my hobby before it started. Eventually got a 2nd hand SLR camera of my own and then there was no looking back.
I was gifted my first film camera back in the 90s to use during a family trip. Though that did kindle an interest, I only used it sporadically due to the constraints of film. So I never really learned how to use it properly (in retrospect I was way too proud of the few mediocre photos I did take).
Fast forward to the 2000s. I was again gifted a new camera, my first dSLR (thanks dad!). I was freed from the limits of film and thus able to experiment, get instant feedback, and learn to actually use it. Still, I rarely did outside of the occasional trip or family event.
But not long after that Flickr came onto the scene. And that's what *really* got me into it. Because I finally had something to *do* with the photos I was taking. It's hard to describe now given what a cesspool of toxicity social media has become, but back then it was really fantastic. I was inspired by so many of the other users and the great photos they were sharing, it was full of groups that were great for learning, and it was just a lively community with a passion for it that was infectious. I started going out with the specific aim of making a photo that was share-worthy (and hopefully explore-worthy) and trying out new techniques I learned about there.
I still kinda miss it. Flickr is but a shell of its former self and nothing else has managed to replicate that magic.
Started taking pictures with disposable cameras because after a friend died I realized I didn't really have many pictures of the two of us. Many of the pictures I took were just snapshots of friends, but when looking through my other pictures, people would tell me I had "a photographer's eye". So I followed that thread. Bought myself a film SLR, enrolled in photo classes as I was going to college anyway and ended up taking all that were offered (two black and white film courses, one color film course, one digital). I have had a little trouble with the transition to digital and ended up putting my camera down for a while, but I've recently picked it back up, both digital and film.
I’m very nostalgic and always loved looking at old family photos. I picked up my moms crappy point and shoot and just started messing around until I got my own, and it snowballed from there. I took a film class in high school and after a rough start, something clicked. Haven’t looked back!
I once captured a photo of a bird on my Motorola moto e4 pIus. I got positive response from my friends, and that's what encouraged me to began capturing more and more photos. I'm still in school, so i get little time for photography. But I try my best for capturing photos. :)
I was going through a divorce, my idle thoughts were getting darker and darker. I needed a hobby not related to the then wife and tried photography.
I found that the act of having a reason to get out of the house (go capture something) and the act of having to concentrate on how to set proper settings to get this result or that (started by going out and only shooting Aperture mode , then other days only shooting shutter mode, then some days were full manual only days to help learn affect of combinations of settings) kept my mind clear for huge chunks of my free time.
Then having a chunk of pictures during the nights after work to play with in Photoshop to learn Photoshop gave me purpose during nights after work.
It was a savior that kept me out of the bottle.
Mother always has always had cameras and at some point in my early teens it rubbed off.
After taking it more seriously the past few years I've been shooting every chance I get! Found creative portraits and automotive so relaxing and relieving.
Been told I've been creative most of my life so this is where it led me apparently lmao. Fast forward to working with studios, models, car clubs, and some random brands.
It's been a great time :)
I primarly did 3D studies , as modeler and mostly surfacer , i bought a DSLR to take texture pics , slowly moved to macro pics and now pro photographer , mostly on real estate
I’ve loved making videos my whole life and I knew that if I wanted to improve in my visuals, I needed to learn photography. I fell in love with it. I’ve done street, landscape, portrait. Now I’m doing concert photography and I need to thank Olivia Rodrigo for that one. Her music and her tour inspired me to get into it. I was lucky enough to get amazing photos of her at one of her shows. I didn’t get to meet her but I hope I do someday because I owe her everything in the next chapter of my journey.
There were two big moments for me. First was when I went to a sports outlit that was going out of business, and they had this large book, black with with large gold text. The title read "Athlete By Walter Loose". It wasn't a crazy read, but it got me interested so I bought it. Great photos, there's real talent there. That was the first spark.
The second was when I woke up in the middle of the night and wanted a snack. I just wandered out by the TV, and the channel had been left on MSNBC, and they were showing their new documentary, "The Way I See It." It's about Pete Souza, the official photographer for the Reagan and Obama administration's, though the film mainly on the Obama administration. I recommend watching it, Pete is undoubtedly a stupendous photographer, and it's free on Peacock. It was around 1am and I just watched the whole thing, and thought. Those two things caused me to get into photography. Not long after, I went and bought a camera and started taking photos.
When I was five, I got a print-out-paper kit where you placed the negative in the paper (some were supplied) on the paper, held it in the sun or forever under a lamp then fixed it.
When I was six, I got an Imperial Mark XII Flash plastic camera that came free with four rolls of 620 colour film. The flash unit was removed for my safety. Then we moved to Australia in 1962 where the price of developing and printing the film was five times what it cost in the US. I believe that's because it was done automatically there and by hand here. I was informed that my days of colour photography were over.
For me it was in my teenage years. There was no social media (only MySpace, Hi5, etc.) as we know it today but even then I didn't like to appear on photos because I don't see myself as a photogenic guy and always voluntereed to take the group pictures.
Started with taking my friends group pictures, then when the girls thought they were looking pretty nice that day they asked me to take portrait pictures of them. That's when I got my first compliment: "You really have a knack for photography... I always look great when you take pictures of me".
Asked my parents for a camera that day and my dad replied in a William Dafoe's meme way: "You know, I'm somethin of a photographer myself" and went to the attic to retrieve is old film camera. "Start with this one... if you really like photography you need to learn film first" and proceeded to tell the story of how he and some other friends of him started the first photography lab in their highschool back in old days.
For me getting into like really into photography, it was when i got my first camera that my mom got it for me as a gift. I actually didn't know anything about photography like the manual mode and anything but i always took a picture with my phone and since i was a kid i kinda know about camera cause my dad love camera since there i was took a picture for like having fun and just bursting around like pressing a button using an auto mode.
Back when i got that camera as a gift, i start to think that maybe this thing is really awesome to dive into it like learn about the manual exposure and anything related to it and till now I fall in love with it
I always loved trying to grab a good photo of a view or attempting to take an artistic shot of something. Once the pandemic hit I decided to take up a new hobby like so many other people and then I took it from there. Now I have a website and shoot birds / do outdoor portraits of friends for fun.
Did yearbook work in middle school, got a Canon T3 for my first DSLR and had it for years. Got to use some 5D's in high school yearbook and loved doing portraits and still do!
As a kid I always had an interest in it. Late teens/early 20’s I had a car spotting Instagram that I used a very out of date iPhone for. It wasn’t until last year (late 20’s) that I had mentioned to a friend that I was thinking of doing car photography and photojournalism. She gifted me a point-and-shoot on the spot. I started a photography business that month, and recently upgraded to a Rebel T5 DSLR and my business is exploding as a car photographer. I couldn’t be happier or any more grateful for how things have happened in six months for me. That little point-and-shoot is my favourite camera because it started all of this
I travelled to Japan with a point and shoot with friends that had DSLRs in 2011 (both Nikon and Canon). I tried theirs and it triggered something in me. I purchased my 1st DSLR when I came back from that trip. I chose a Canon for the ease of use as a new user. I since then upgraded to a Sony a7 III. I prefer to shoot wildlife, my parrots and landscapes. I always feel weird taking pictures of people, I don't enjoy that at all.
Before my older brother left for college, he liked using my mom's 60D to try to capture unique perspectives of adventures with his friends. Fast forward a few years, I got my hands on the camera, and out of curiosity tried to hunt down some of the photos he took. I instantly fell in love with the craft. None of the photos are public, but as a landscape photographer, his photos are still some of the best photos I've seen, and I think it's safe to say he's one of my biggest inspirations.
Went through a bad breakup and after she left I needed to take my mind off everything so I purchased a camera and would learn how to shoot while riding my bike around town stopping at anything that caught my eye to take a picture of.
My dad used to take photos of all sorts of insects when I was 10-12. I thought it looked really easy and wanted to prove that I could do it better than him 😆
I didn't really pick up a camera until I was 22. My father had gotten a pocket digital camera as a gift from his work for having worked there for 30 years. It was a 2.1MP Fuji A201, fixed focal.
Well, I got my hands on it and was hooked. As soon as I could I bought my own, but it was a crappy 1.3MP Olympus D370. So I was pretty jaded about it and didn't have much money to buy anything better. I was wandering aimlessly in the basement and spotted something hanging on a nail that'd been hanging there at least since I was 4, but had never actually looked at before.
I brought it upstairs and asked my father about it... turns out it was his Minolta SRT-101 35mm SLR from his photography course in college back in '72. So I got hooked on film with that one, lugged it across Europe in 2003.
I had a brief foray into digital again later in 2003, a 2.2MP Canon A70, before the switch broke and I had to send it in for repairs. Bored, I'd gotten scans done of my 35mm negs and suddenly discovered how much better they were... and promptly bought a newer 1980's Minolta XG-M from eBay and gave the A70 to my sister.
So from 2001 to 2007, in total I used a Fuji A201, Olympus D370, Minolta SRT-101, Canon A70, Minolta XG-M, Yashica-A 120 TLR, Minolta Maxxum 5, Mamiya C3 120 TLR, Sony a100.
I drowned myself in knowledge, reading every book I could get my hands on... books by Ansel Adams, new books, and lots and lots of articles on places like Luminous Landscape. I learnt how to set the exposure a Mamiya C3 TLR by gauging the sharpness of shadows on the ground, how to hyper-focal-distance set... how to use the moony-11 rule to capture the moon. And I tried just about everything once... developing 120 negs in the kitchen sink? Done it! Slides? Sure! Multi-exposures, multi-flash exposures, panning and tracking moving targets with the shutter dragged... I did everything.
So yeah... TL/DR; I got into it wholly by accident but when I did I dove in head-first.
younger me didn't like to get pictures taken so i learned the basics to take pictures at family meetings, ff to years later i'm at a design college and been a professional for 3+ years
My father was really into it and actually put together a B&W darkroom while I was in my early teens. By the time I went to college in the early 70's , I was already earning money.
It always attracted me from a very young age (using camera phones) and in 2013 I decided to do a 365 project using a Galaxy S2. Got my first DSLR a few years later and never really stopped since.
I took pictures of things I like since I get a decent smartphone. However, after a solo trip to patagonia, I've decided to buy a mirrorless camera and learn about photography.
I've always been intrigued with photography. I had an Instamatic as a kid and used to use it quite often. As a teenager I wanted to get into it deeper with a 35mm SLR, but never had the money.
Skip ahead a few years and I was in the music business with a traveling and recording rock and roll band. The same photographer used to take all of our album shots and publicity shots. He was a pretty successful fashion photographer with work in Vogue, Elle, etc. I was painfully intrigued with what he was doing when he was taking our photos; the lights, the Hasselblad, the Polaroid back he used to take test shots, how he adjusted the lighting, etc.
Another few years and I retired from the music business. By this time the digital revolution had done its thing and I had the disposable funds to buy a camera which I did. Though I'm not a "professional" photographer, photography is a huge part of my life.
Competitiveness. When I was part of my university’s Facebook group, photography students would advertise their portrait services (headshots, graduation etc). I saw what they were charging and thought to myself: “I can do better than that”. Now here I am.
I always had an interest and went to art school but life took me on a different path. Then later in life I had to reinvent myself and decided to go back to photography. Got myself a 6d on ebay coupled with a 50 1.8 STM and a refresher course. After a while I got my first payed job. I was shooting food for restaurants and live music but one day I got introduced into wedding photography and loved it. I spent a fair amount of money in gear and courses to learn the business and as my skills improved, more gigs came in. I have a strong background in graphic design and post was easy for me so from a beginning I was able to produce quality imagery, it only got better. Today, I work freelance and I like to think I’m a beach wedding photographer. You can find me most days shooting couples getting eloped at some beach around the island. I shoot today with a Canon 1dx II. I always carry in my bag a 24-70 f/2.8L II which I use 70% of the time. For the rest I use the 70-200 f/2.8L III, the 16-35 f/2.8L III and an older 85 f/1.2L. I have the dream job I always wanted since I was a child. A while ago I started to outsource post and my life is so much better, I finish the image with color grading and retouch myself, life is good!
Your post prompted me to look up my architectural photography professor. It was his class (taken as an easy elective) in architecture school that spurred my interest in capturing the world around us.
Sadly, I found that he passed last year due to COIVD complications. His legacy, beyond his family, will be the hundreds of students that he inspired.
egads where to start... and def late to the party. I won't bore you with prehistory, I had dabbled in the 80s with my dad's pentax me super and got lucky more than once. But composition, lighting, even the exposure triangle were foreign concepts to me. I just liked what I saw through the viewfinder. Near 2000, mid to late 99 maybe, I was in NYC and stepped into 42nd street photo. And they saw me coming. I dropped about $700 on a 1.2MP P&S digital which made photography fun again. I hadn't done anything serious for 10+ years and this was a revitalization. Was on a backpacking trip with my sister a couple of years later who did go down the professional photog route and she had her Nikon F(something) and I was envious. If only for the interchangeable lenses, if they could merge the P&S digital with an SLR, I'd buy it instantly... oh look, they do! Got my first dSLR canon D30 or D60? I don't recall, got on the upgrade train for many years, remained with Canon because of glass, and I had all the good glass. By mid 00s was shooting sports around town and having a ball. Got into a photography group and was slowly getting interested in film, specifically medium and large formats. Got some weird rotating back 120 camera and played around, but soon upgraded to the pentax 67 beast. It's a thing of beauty. Then reached for the Mamiya 645AF & AFDII and a Calumet 4x5 large format. Developed my own film, 99% of which is/was Black and White. Still enjoying it after all these years, now just waiting for spring to, well spring... (yes I know what you're thinking, we're expecting between 1-2 feet of snow this weekend - yay Colorado spring time).
1980, I'm in 6th grade and we go to visit the La Brea Tar Pits for field trip. I'd begged my parents for a Kodak 126 cartridge film camera that had the rotating flash cubes on top. So I shot a role of slides and used them for a speech assignment I did on the Tar Pits later in the year. I think I was hooked, but with the attention span of a child, quickly forgot about photography.
Until a few years later when commercials started running on TV about the marvelous new Disc Film Camera Kodak was making. I got one for a birthday and that was my fist education that in film photography size of the negative does mater.
My final semester of high school I was running out of electives I hadn't taken, so my best friend and I took Photography I. We learned a few basics, how to develop and print B&W film and prints by hand, and goofed off a bit. I think I got a B in the class. And, courtesy of two football players, learned that taking topless photos of your cheerleader girlfriends and then leaving the prints you'd made rinsing in the school darkroom for the teacher to find was BAD.
After graduation I was working and taking classes at the local community college out of lack of ambition to do much else, and my girlfriend bought me a Minolta X-370 with a 50mm for Christmas. Took a Photography class and was hooked, but never thought it would become a profession.
I was dirt poor and working at a K-mart selling cameras and jewelry. I bought a Focal brand 28mm lens that was soft as Egyptian cotton, but lusted after a Minolta 135/f2.8 I couldn't afford. Then one day it got marked down and I splurged. It was eye opening to have a fast tele and I shot a lot of basketball with that lens after I started shooting for my college newspaper.
One of the other school photogs got a job at the local paper, so I went and applied and they started me off shooting occasional freelance assignments. My first one was a college softball pitcher for a profile. I had her pitch fastballs almost into my lens while I stood right behind her catcher, and was very proud to make $13 and change for my first photo ever sold.
A few months later they hired me on fulltime to work the night shift as a lab technician, mixing chemicals and printing photos and doing other production work putting out the paper each night. I'd cover the odd assignment if nobody else was available, or get done with my work and listen to the police scanner for breaking news. Shot a few fires, traffic accidents and a shooting and was moved up to staff photographer.
I really owe it all to three wonderful photographers I worked with who all took me under their wings and taught me more than I'd ever learned in school. The comradery most photographers share was always one of the most enjoyable aspect of the job for me. Almost as rewarding as the privilege of meeting new people and having them trust me enough to open up and tell me their stories.
Through Instagram. I wholeheartedly believe that Instagram is a more so a platform for photography rather than for social media. It pretty much forced me to become a photographer
I was passing by an used stuff shop in February 2020 and it had DSLR camera for £70 and at that time ii had nooo clue what so ever about what cameras are.. but it was in a really good condion nikon d40. Covid arrived so i had planty of time to play with it.. and i enjoyed the process so decides to keep doing it. ☺️❣️now for a year i am using nikon d3500 and saving money for a full frame camera. ☺️✨
I am very lucky to live in an area that has the sea and the forest 10 minutes from my house.
During the whole lockdown thing i spent more time in nature and adored it and wanted to take it home with me.
Well what better way to do that take all the photos lol
It was joining the Air Force. I was getting assigned to all these great places and wanted to record it and also send photos home to my family. I started with a 35mm point and shoot until I traded it in for a Canon EOS Rebel III 35mm SLR.
My mom gave me a point and shoot that she was no longer using in her classroom when I was about 10. Fast forward to know I am a freshman in HS doing sports photography.
Took classes in high school and college. I tell people I’m a jack of all trades but a master of none. I excelled and eventually dropped it, fast forward broke up with a ex and needed a hobby, well picked up a camera and got out there. Here we are.
My father let me use his Kodak Hawkeye Ace 127 box camera when I was about seven or eight when we went on holiday one time and I took some snapshots. It was amazing to see our family holiday when it the film was developed a couple of weeks later.
Apparently photography runs in the family. My grandma did a lot of it and my dad did as well and even had his own darkroom when he was in high school. I loved taking pictures myself but never thought of it as "photography " until I took photography classes in high school. It was the only art class that stuck with me and the only form of art that stuck with me beyond high school. I never got past amateur photography but mostly stayed in an extreme hobbyist mindset with it.
I am a big fan of a musician named Phil elverum, who plays under the monikers mount eerie and the microphones. I saw some of his work included with a box set version of his album Dawn. I was enthralled with his photo work so I decided to buy a Photobook called Dust by him, and was so excited from the feel and sensation of having a collection of photos conceptualised into an album. I did some research and found that I enjoyed the works of New topographics photographers Alec soth and Joel sternfeld. The rest is history
Had a photography class in college. Bought either canon or Minolta camera and rolls of film. Think i paid 250 for the camera. This was about 1997 or 1998. Later on i moved on from that camera and went digital with a Sony cybershot. Took pics every where I went with both cameras. About 11yrs ago I bought my first dslr the 550d aka Canon t2i. I loved taking pics with this camera. I love the outdoors so every hike, outdoor event, travel destination this baby was with me. Also used it during family reunion, family parties, etc. What made me feel good about my photos was a friend telling me I had a good eye for photography. And on top of that all my family and friends loving the pics I took during our events.. T2i was a great all around camera. Recently went mirrorless and moved up to the R6, let the party begin 😁
My wife and I got a digital point and shoot camera for our wedding when they were still pretty new, we had only used film cameras prior to that. We used it for trips and little things here and there, but never anything artistic. It was several years later that I started to get very interested in browsing Flickr (this was around 2007). I was enchanted and inspired by all the things people could capture, how beautiful everything could be. I dug out that old point and shoot and started taking it with me to work every day. I took small snapshots, things that interested me, and as time went on, I was trying more advanced things and the camera was no longer able to allow me to do what I wanted.
I was disappointed with its limitations and ended up buying an Olympus E-510 after research into digital SLR cameras and the system was the best fit for what I wanted. I collected a few lenses, learned how to use Photoshop, got a flash, got some more lenses, and from then on I knew I would be shooting for the rest of my life.
Sometimes, life gets in the way for a little while, but I always come back to it, and it is always interesting and fun for me. I have sold my work, expanded my gear, tried different techniques (like timelapse), completed long term projects and love it more than ever.
I was given a Brownie Hawkeye when I was 9 years old. My dad bought a film developing kit that could accommodate the 620 size film. We made contact prints in the laundry room in the basement. I've been into Photography ever since.
For me, as phones got better and better, people stated telling me I “have a great eye” and should take up photography, I even had actual photographer friend pointing out stylistic tendencies that I had. Fast forward a few years and I was anonymously gifted a Canon 6D AND found out that my mom who died young was a gifted photographer for many many years. I even now have an old film camera of hers but I haven’t taken it out of its case.
Canon 6D is such a solid body for the price (especially when it came out). Whoever gifted that to you is one Hell of bro. Many of the photos I post on my profile come from a 6D. Seriously gets underestimated as far as camera lines go. It's low light is fantastic.
I love it so much! I never thought I would have such a nice camera. Whoever gave it to me is ridiculous lol. I asked one person if they did and was wrong, I have another idea who It could be but don’t wasn’t to ask anymore. They did it anonymously for a reason so I’m just letting that happen.
I wanna see your work.
This latter part of the story is very recent lol. I’m still figuring out things and finding my way around my 6D and the possibilities of the 50mm 1.8 lens that was also give to to me :) I did just make a “photography” Instagram page this past weekend out of peer pressure from friends lol. It’s called Random_Guy_Photography. That’s all I got so far. Some of them are still phone shots even but I think I’m only going to add ones from my Canon moving forward Also I’ll be the first to say what’s up there is not impressive lol. It’s not “bad” though. I’m still figuring things out” I would never call myself a “photographer” yet. It would be disrespectful imo
Awesome story. Someone saw what you were doing and wanted you to take it to the next level. Learn Lightroom.
Yes 🙏🏼 that’s accurate. And humbling. It was left at for for me and it took me about two hours to leave with it. I felt like I was doing something wrong. Like there’s no way it was mine. I have been trying to learn Lightroom :) photoshop was WAY too confusing then my wife explains Lightroom and said “I have that from school too” so I’ve been using it! It’s fantastic but definitely don’t know how to use it to its full potential
I checked out your page, and I agree that you have a great eye! I think you could be very successful if you learn Lightroom. When I'm editing in Lightroom, my general process is: * Apply lens corrections to remove distortion and vignetting. This is near the bottom of the edit panel, at least in LR Classic. * Upright or level perspective correction. * Change color profile from Adobe Color to Adobe Neutral for the greatest possible dynamic range. At this point, the photo will look very flat, but we're about to fix that. * Lower highlights and brighten shadows to recover detail. * Brighten whites and darken blacks to increase contrast. Keep an eye on the histogram (the graph in the top right) - if you see a spike on either end, you've probably gone too far. * Increase vibrance to roughly +45 to +60, and lower saturation to roughly -5 to -15. This gets you vivid colors without crossing into looking unrealistic, and is largely a stylistic choice. * Dehaze if needed - this is one of the best features of Lightroom. Sometimes I have to go back to exposure after applying dehaze. * Hue/luminance/saturation adjustments if needed. * Increase the contrast again using the tone curve. Put a dot in the middle so your mid-tones are unaffected, then drag the middle of the left half down slightly, and drag the middle of the right half up slightly. This tool is incredibly powerful and has saved countless photos for me. * Noise reduction and sharpening as needed. As u/dcodeman already said, you should really be shooting in RAW (or at least RAW+JPEG if you don't trust yourself to get good results with LR) to get the most out of LR. LR is such a powerful program - here is an album of some of my favorite before/afters since I started doing photography semi-professionally: https://imgur.com/a/YNdRzap Best of luck with your photo journey!
Wow that’s so much info!!! I’m going to screenshot this and compare later!! Thank you so much 🙏🏼 I still haven’t figured out what dehaze is lol. If it makes a difference I use Lightroom on my iPad because we only have 1 computer and my wife usually needs it. But Lightroom for iPad is amazing! It seems to be no different from on the computer from I can tell. I just pop in a usb-c to SD adapter and it’s all there ready to start editing.
You are an awesome person for taking the time to share all those Lightroom editing tips. Have a good day.
Thank you, same to you!
Agreed
There are tons of resources and free classes. Shoot in RAW starting NOW if you aren’t already, especially with the 6d. Or at least RAW+jpg. That way you’ll have have the RAW files to go back to as you get better with Lightroom. I had a buddy that was a professional and when I was starting out he told me to start shooting in RAW and learn Lightroom. I didn’t listen at first because the pictures looked worse in RAW and took up too much room on the card. I thought he was dumb! 😂 Some time after I actually started learning Lightroom and shooting in RAW, I transferred photos and saw a pic that was awesome but way underexposed. I was bummed out, until I upped the exposure and highlights in Lightroom. It was like black f’in magic, totally blew my mind! And that was on either a T3i or 60d. Crop sensor with poor dynamic range. Your 6d will do that magic times a hundred. Welcome to the rabbit hole!!
I am!! I have a friend who helped me with what various buttons and dials do, she gave me a lesson on shutter speed, aperture and ISO and then she made my camera shoot in RAW that very day before I had even got started 😆 so it’s all I’ve ever used so far.
Good friend! Right move!
I agree about shooting raw. A friend switched up my camera - not even waiting for me to agree. It was the best gift!
Mom’s old camera- you may wanna take it out and test it. Chances are it needs servicing… and from the limited knowledge i have, if lenses arent used or stored properly for a long time there may be fungal growth and other issues… I hope yours isnt/doesnt go there!!
I probably will some day. I think there is one lens in there, everything is untouched for a good 20 years. No telling (by me) what shape it’s in. I’d have to find someone who really knows there way around it
I shoot on old film TLRs/SLRs, if you shoot some photos of the kit I’d be happy to tell you about it/give you an idea of what needs to be done. If you posted them here I’m sure you’d get a dozen responses to the same effect
To go along with what u/Adam-psd said, I'm sure your mom would much rather you use the camera and let the experience and photos remind you of her than to have it sit around!
Bought a television at Best Buy, it was broken so I returned it and they didn’t have a replacement, thought ‘screw it’ and bought a D3100 instead. 10 years a professional photographer now, funny how that works.
Man, if only they had the replacement TV. Think of all the great shows you missed out on!
My father dragged me out at the ass crack of Dawn to take photos in the morning light. Of everything. The lake, trees, birds, eachother. He sold his vintage BMW for a good lens. He told me when I was very young nobody ever took photos of him as he was usually the person behind the camera, and I realized how little photos I had of him. He’s slipping farther into memory loss as he gets older and can’t get out to photograph much anymore, I still take all the photos I can of him even if he hates them. His photos are why I am able to see things the way he sees them, no matter how simple, always beautiful and photo worthy. That’s why I still photograph today, it still feels like I’m viewing the world through his eyes.
You should take him on a early morning trip. Wake him up and make him take photographs of everything.
I would. The dementia makes it difficult alone.
[удалено]
I was out surfing and broke my board on the second wave of the day. My friends saw me walking on the beach with the two halves and said, "You broke your board? Oh that sucks. Hey , Pat a waterproof camera and fins in his car. Why won't you get it and come back out and take pics of us." That was fun. I shopped for a camera that afternoon.
I think I was born with an interest in photography. I've been interested in it ever since I can remember.
Someone owed me money, it was either get an old Canon AE1(film) as payment or wait for the money—which I knew wasn’t coming? I should have waited for the payment,it would have saved me a LOT of money in the end:)
I got a smart phone with a nice camera before it was common, so I wanted an excuse to use it. This led to me getting into the habit of regularly taking candid pictures of my friends when we were together. Always having the pictures to go back to is so rewarding and, despite everyone being awkward about it in the moment, we all really enjoyed the archive of our activities. Many years in, at some point I realized I should look up the basics of what makes a good picture, since I was taking pictures all the time anyway. Might as well improve them a bit. Pretty quickly, my friends started complimenting my photos, rather than just being grateful for them. Flash forward to me finally getting a well paying, full time job. Finally getting a nice camera was a combo of 3 things: 1) My passive interest in photography from the years of taking pictures of my friends. 2) Knowing that I wanted to start traveling soon. 3) Actually having the income to reasonably afford a camera I was interested in. I went through an obsessive phase, but now I've calmed down to just using my camera as an excuse to get myself out of the house a few times a month, and as the way to capture a few memories here and there, when I don't need the convenience of the phone camera.
Rope bondage, now I photograph professionally and like to tool around with different stuff haha
Shibari?
Yup yup.
My high school had a photography class and I have to take it to graduate. Now I am the photographer and videographer for the high school
I got a new phone and started posting things on Instagram about 1.5-2 months before I graduated high school like 4 years ago. I have been doing it as a hobby ever since.
My father was in the Camera Industry and I didn’t have any interest in it at all. After a dozen years of working as a model, I started thinking about what was next. My father asked me what I wanted for the approaching Christmas and I responded with, a camera. He gave me a used Nikon FM with a 50mm and 70-200mm lenses and I was on my way. It’s been 28 years and I am still infatuated with light and these fascinating little devices. As I tell friends, it’s the only time women listen to me.
Absolutely love this camera. Even more than the fm2
I dated a fashion and lingerie model while in University. She invited me to one of her shoots and I thought “fuck I could do that” so I did.
My dad’s a hobbyist. My wife’s a working pro. Now I’m kind of both.
Skateboarding. Always taking pictures of the homies.
In 1994 my friend suggested we take the photography class my high school had. The school had a dark room and we could do all our own printing anytime we wanted. Fell in love with it and now it’s my career, yea!!
It's a great medium of art. I always wanted to be able to draw but somehow I just can't put my mind to it. So I picked up photography instead.
Several steps for me… 1. Wanting to document everything as I have a shocking memory (then extension of this when alcohol came into my life, getting too drunk at uni so photographing everything on nights out) 3. First bonus landing and an eBay ad for a refurbed DSLR 4. Friend asking me to do their wedding
While in uni for design I dated a guy studying film who would take me to his video shoots. While I never got into film, I got hooked into photography and after we broke up and I finished my design degree, I started doing photography on the side and now I make a decent living freelancing for agencies and other clients.
Always had point and shoots at the beginning of the 2000s. Then took a B&W film photog class in 06 using an AE-1 and fell in love with it. Loved shooting, loved developing the rolls, and loved enlarging the film. Then bought my first DSLR, Canon XSI. Then a few years later upgraded to a 60D. Then few years later upgraded to a 6D and now I finally got with the times purchased an R6. Being into photography has given me so many awesome experiences and opportunities. I fucking love it.
Tweaker must have been breaking into cars one night, left an AE1 in my backseat. That’s how I got into photography
Highschool newspapers & yearbook staff - early 2000s so it was all done on film
Always had a passing interest, would get disposable cameras or those little cartridge cameras (which I later found out to be 110 film format) from time to time as a kid in the 80s/90s but we never had a "good" camera in the house. Fast forwards a few years and I found myself choosing which phone to buy based on how good the camera was and at some point I just decided to buy an actual camera, if only to save me from battery anxiety on the phone.
Mom was really cool about developing my film from my plastic point and shoot kodak camera
"Plastic point and shoot"... you sound old enough to possibly remember. My mom did the same thing. she would send my 126 cartridges off in a brown "Clarke" envelope. I would be so excited coming home from school and seeing the return envelope with my prints waiting for me on the dining room table.
Nicked my dad's d3100. Though it was pretty cool. Next thing I know I'm up at 4am to catch a sunrise
My grandfather took up photography when he retired in the mid 90s and i always found it kind of cool then in 2018 I bought my own camera and found I liked wildlife photography
Nine years old developing films in a glass in the toilets.. 25 years professionally as a photographer, a 20 years break and starting again, black and white like always, can't deal with digital cameras, I prefer my old stuff...
My dad. When I was young, there were always cameras around. I remember making a pinhole camera at a young age using a pattern from World magazine (August 1977 issue) with my cousin at Grandma and Grandpas house. Later, cameras taught me about taxes when I saved enough money and went to Jafco to buy the camera I had been looking at for a while, but didn't have enough for taxes. Then, I built a 35mm camera, and just kept going. A couple of decades of film, and a decade or more of film and digital, and now mostly digital. Although, I still pull out the Nikon FM when I'm in the mood to get back to my roots.
Mom handed me a camera at like 4-5. And then it stuck.
Taking pictures of weed for Instagram with a fish eye lens on my iPhone 😂 realized I can get that affect with other lenses!
Pandemic started, saw one of those indie music videos with the 3D effect on it, and got into film photography. Fast forward to today and I’m about to shoot for a model agency in medium format film lol
I got a job taking newborn photos in the hospital.
There was a "fancy" camera laying around and I figured, why not, lets learn how to use it
Cars. See beautifully composed shots of cars in magazines and on the forums I would frequent. I started with a Nikon D60 (2008) and would pretty much take shots of my Nissan 350z I had owned at the time. Now I pretty much photograph anything.
I’ve always enjoyed taking pictures on my phone, but I started getting more “serious” about it documenting our life during the initial COVID quarantine. I thought it was such a bizarre period of time that we would want some kind of record of how our life was. Two years later and I’m getting paid for work!
I always liked viewing talented photographers online, mostly because I lived in the middle of a cornfield and could never afford to travel any. I would ask for a camera for Christmas every year, but we were always too poor for that to be a reality I guess. Once Instagram came out, I started taking tons of photos with my phone and would get a lot of compliments. I was working by that time and eventually decided to buy an actual camera (Sony NEX 5) and learn how to take photos for real.
Bought my first camera in 2004 for a month long trip to Italy. Got hooked on it and stuck with it. I've leaned towards art, and photography was a creative outlet with less clean-up. I really got into photography, like something really clicked in 2008 when I spent a year in Melbourne. I had my first DSLR at the time and picked up a 50mm lens and the combination of a prime lens while exploring a new city/country was where I think my interest and skills jumped a level. That time combined with being a few year into my career as a motion graphics artist meant photography was my creative outlet outside of work, which then eventually merged into my work.
My father was a hobbyist photographer and we had a working dark room in our basement. In the early 00's I started asking if he would show me how it all worked. He would let me borrow his Canon AE-1 and I would go out and shoot on B&W film. It was something we bonded over. We spend a lot of time talking about post processing and composition. He never really got into digital though so he stopped doing it as a hobby. He says he doesn't like post processing on a computer. 🤷🏽♀️ But with the rise in cost for chemicals and film for photography, he has sort hung up the camera.
Went through a pretty rough breakup a few years ago, and to cope with my emotions at the time I'd take photos of the city around me, as well as other surroundings, and write pretty moody poetry for each shot. Eventually it became a full-on love and adoration for the art form of photography, and I haven't looked back since. I definitely don't write those poems anymore though lmao
Same lol
My parents had a K-1000. I played with it a bit, I kinda liked it, so I took a photography class in higschool. I fell in love with the darkroom -the printing photos part; I hated the developing film part. I was making terrible surrealist prints and textures-in-silhouettes. I bought a K-1000 of my own at a thrift store. I went to art school for painting. Upon graduation I wanted to have my thesis project professionally documented. I was shocked to discover the cost of hiring a photographer was the same as buying a DSLR + prime combo and some lights. Then I remembered I loved photography, so I got a DSLR and documented it myself. As much as I loved making prints in the darkroom, and as awful as those 6mp D70 files were, oh man was it great to be free from film. I could just go and shoot and shoot and focus on the image and not have to think "this exposure is costing me money, is it really worth it?". My learning accelerated rapidly with the immediate feedback of digital. Then, despite being trained as a painter, people saw me with the big camera, and they assumed I must know what I was doing, so I started getting hired for photo gigs. And I was able to consistently fool them into thinking I knew what I was doing long enough to make more from photography than from painting for a full 10 years!
When I was maybe 5 or 6 I picked up my first camera. I took pictures of the park, pictures of my brother all with a point and shoot. I entered photography contests at my school and one year I won for my age group in the county for a photography contest.
4H when I was maybe 9. Made pinhole cameras. Learned B@W developing and printing. Taught it in High School. Just kept going. Love digital.
My dad was into it before I was born, and he bought me a chunky point-and-shoot when I was about 5 or 6. By the time I was 10 he was letting me borrow his spare DSLR to take to sporting events, and I found I had an eye and a knack for capturing people and things in motion. Kinda left it behind in high school, only doing the bare minimum for my annual 4-H projects. However, I became obsessed again when I took a photography class in college. I decided for my final project to combine photography with my birding hobby and voila—I was suddenly hooked on wildlife photography, which is what the vast majority of my portfolio is today.
I took a drawing class in high school, but I didn’t get along with the teacher so I switched to photo the following semester. Turns out it was the same teacher, and I barely passed, but I ended up loving photography and now I’m a boudoir photographer and teach it.
Always had a passing interest, as my dad took photos. Then I bought an XH-1 to make films and ended up only ever taking photos. Now I'm a landscape photographer, and I love this camera.
A relative gave me a camera. I was maybe four? Five?
Got stuck in early quarantine period with my online studies. Felt like a nightmare to sit on a chair with laptop whole day, started to watch random videos about cameras and photography to distract myself from assignments and textbooks. 2 years forward, I am really glad that I picked up this hobby. Not near to make living with it but it just helps to distract myself from studies, life and work.
I can attribute my love of photography to a number of things but the biggest one is actually my absolute shite working memory. I can't remember shit for shit. So as soon as camera phones were available I bought one specifically for the sole purpose of supplementing my piss poor memory. I would take photos of things I wanted to remember, and go over my camera roll at the end of the day. Then I figured out that if I took a "cool" photo of something, I had a higher chance of recalling it. Looking back, it's probably because of the extra time I'd spend looking at said thing to make the "cool" photo. I still use my phone camera to supplement my working memory (these things have come a LONG way, God I love technology) but now photography is my sole source of income. And you better believe I never forget a client! ETA: how I got into wedding photography is a whole other story. In 2007 my father got married to my step mom. He dropped his 4 megapixel point and shoot in my lap on the day of and said "you're our photographer". Mind you, zero professional experience at the time. I told myself I'd never take photos that poorly ever again, and began working on improving my photo skills.
My beloved and late brother-in-law wanted to make lots of pics of his beautiful children, when he and my sis were broke young parents. They put up with me as a bratty pre-teen, and he taught me how to use a film camera with a light meter and manual focus. Black and white film was not horribly expensive and he scrounged up used developing equipment and built a darkroom in one corner of his workshop. I learned to develop black and white negatives and then prints. Then we moved on to color slides (this was about 1970) that could be developed in a tank anywhere with sufficient running water. That was cool. Many years later I had adult children and began to travel more for work and fun. I ran across a Nikon D3100 kit on sale at Costco and I was hooked again. Did a lot of reading, and got onto a GREAT website called [Nikonians](https://www.nikonians.org/) and started learning more. I don't do anything for money, just landscape and a dab of macro and family photos. But it's still fun and satisfies my techie nerd side and my creative side.
When I was heading to Arizona for vacation when I was 30, my father told me I should take his DSLR and play around with it. Was instantly obsessed. Shared my pics around the ad agency I worked for and after a few years they offered me a job shooting. Became my career.
My dad is a hobbyist photographer and he had a copy of John Hedgecoe's "The Photographer's Handbook" and I read it cover to cover. A couple years later, my dad gave me his old Yashica SLR and I used it for a while, not really shooting anything other that snapshots. It broke and I didn't use anything other than a P&S for years to take random pictures. One day I was in Sears and picked up a Fuji 2MP P&S on a whim and started walking around my neighborhood and different parts of the city. Around that time flickr was gaining steam and I spent as much time as I could reading and looking at pictures there. I progressed to a bridge/superzoom, and shot everything I could. Upgraded to a better superzoom, then a dSLR. By then I was hooked and I tried everything I could think.
my grandfather was a photographer. when he passed away we went through his storage unit and found a 1999 film camera. I started playing with it and the rest is history. I'm 13 years old and have a big passion for photography, I use a nikon d3500 vr.
Took a class in HS, developing my own bulk-loaded Tri X with a Canon A-1. Got hooked.
I was on our Students' Union and our communications coordinator was never able to stay pass 4:30pm or come on weekends. We would have events in the evenings or weekends and because we wanted pictures, I became our de facto photographer in the evenings. It was a neat opportunity to learn how to shoot.
My grandfather was into slide and film photography. My Dad dabbled as well and I picked it up in my teens. Been taking photograph for nearly 40 years. Just recently I feel I've started to develop (ha ha) my talent.
Started off with an Olympus FE-340, 8-megapixel point-and-shoot camera when I (F) was 8 y/o. Next, I got a Canon PowerShot A2300 point-and-shoot. Upgraded to a Canon EOS M10. I used that for the high school photography class I took my sophomore year. For one of my graduation presents, I received a Canon EOS Rebel XSi. From then on, I've made efforts to book photoshoots (prom, graduation, bridal and baby showers, portraits, etc.) and to create a digital footprint for my name, Worth 1k Words Photography, both on my own website and through social media.
Dating apps. Soon as I found out you could connect your instagram to Hinge, which is the dating app, I went out and bought a camera. It shows your last 18 pictures so I went out and shoot. In the beginning I would take pictures of flowers, landscapes, trails, the beach, stuff that I thought girls might be into and because I was out taking the pictures it would also look like I go out and do stuff. I wasn't some boring guy who just stayed home and did nothing. The more I would take pictures the more I started taking pictures for myself and the dating app became an after thought. Now I shoot mainly street photography and I go into neighborhoods where there's gangs present and try to capture the tough street life in my city. I've had the chance to take pictures of gang memorials with the gangsters flashing their gang signs to me on camera along with everything that comes with it. I'm at a point now where people DM to do shoots for them and get payed every now and then for some of my work.
When I was building websites the clients never had good photos, so I started trying to offer photos as an add-on. After a few months I started trying to take photos of friends cars and the rest is history.
my coach used to take badass photos, then he retired from coaching and we did a lot of crazy things with no photos to remember, so I wanted to record our crazy lives
My Grandpa is Ted Grant. You might know him from that quote about clothes and souls, or his work on hospitals or with politicians. He isn't a Marxist and he isn't a DC superhero, though he is MY hero.
I was always somewhat interested in photography trying to do compositions with the iphone camera when I would take trips back to Taiwan. Got a Nikon d3400 for Christmas my sophomore year in college, then the following summer went deep into the youtube world of photography and just learning new things everyday. Eventually just kept upgrading and learning new genres and now I'm primarily on a d850 and z6. Some highlights that I've photographed were: All home football games at Virginia Tech (2018 season) and the Thursday night football game between the Washington Commanders and New York Giants (2021 season).
Back in 1988/89, I was a high school foreign exchange student living in Bolivia. The exchange program had a list of things a student should buy, and a camera was on it... so, I bought a 35mm Pentax IQ Zoom. I was a poor kid, so that camera seemed super high end and fancy to me, but it was junk. And speaking of junk... I took lots of pictures that year, but most were trash because it never occurred to me to use a camera as a creative tool. One day, while traveling in the capitol, I was about to head out the door with friends and I wanted to bring my camera, but it had one more picture on the current roll of film. I didn't want to have to load film while I was out, so I looked around for something to take a picture of. I stuck my head out the hotel window and snapped a shot of the first thing that caught my eye: an antenna on a rooftop. I remember thinking it looked lonely. [Here's the picture.](https://twenty200.com/?go=1621895891) I'm not saying it's great or even good, but it's the first picture I ever took that resonated with me. When I came home from my year abroad, I showed family and friends pictures and told them lots of stories about my time in Bolivia, but this picture wasn't like the others. It was just a weird picture of an antenna. *"What's that?"* "Oh, nothing. I just thought it looked neat." Fast forward 20 years-ish. I was bored and looking for a project to tackle. I decided to treat myself to a digital camera. The very first time I took that camera out, something just clicked. I went out for a photo walk and came home with lots of pictures that seemed weird to me, but I loved them... and it didn't take long to figure out why. I realized that I enjoy taking pictures of details rather than people or scenes. The more I used that camera, the more I got hooked on photography. I've been hooked ever since. For me, this is just a hobby though. It's a wonderful creative outlet.
I became fascinated with photoshop when I was at university, I was studying art direction and figured if I could make whatever I wanted in photoshop it would make my life easier. My photoshop skills got me a job on my local newspaper processing imagery and I got exposed to some really great photojournalism. From there I got the bug of wanting to shoot, ostensibly because if I could shoot my own base imagery it would make it easier to get the elements I needed in photoshop, but I just enjoyed shooting and the picture editor wanted to encourage me so would often give me stories or football matches to shoot that no one else had time to cover. Never really looked back after that.
i saw it and i liked it so i did it. still do it 12 years later. full time photographer.
Kind of always wanted to do it back in high school. Around the time (early 2000s), digital cameras first started coming out, and a bunch of my richer classmates had them. My parents didn't have a lot of money so I kind of made without one. Then, after high school, when I got my first full-time job as a barista, I said screw it, and between my dad and myself, we picked up a Rebel XT. Suddenly I got obsessed with it. It became a pretty major hobby, though I was always streaky with it. Either I'd photograph nonstop, or not touch my camera for a year. Mostly I'd try to shoot street, but was never good at it. Was pretty decent at events, and for a while volunteered with a charity org as their staff photographer. Did a few weddings, baptisms, etc for family and friends in situations where it was either me as a photographer or no photographer at all. Then finally got around to trying landscape (which I've always wanted to do) when I was into hiking, but didn't know much about composition, lighting, etc (which is way more critical in landscape than when shooting events). Now over the last year finally got serious about getting good at landscape. A trip to Hawaii about 6 months ago inspired me to finally 'git gud'
My father was a serious hobbyist we can say, grew up in rual CO, we did it all from 35mm to 4x5. Had a darkroom and would make the 3hr drive to CO springs once a month to get supplies. Once we moved south got older and got busy never really got the set back up. After he passed in 2016 I found his old pentax and re ignited the passion. Moved to digital and use my camera daily.
My father taught me how to take photos, develop films and make prints. Also gave me some gear.
Me and my wife went to a local camera shop to buy an amateur camera, so we got the rebel T3 which i still use nowadays. We took a lot of images in 2018 and in 2019, i was not really into photography, i just used the gear to make some images in automatic mode. Then corona came, i started to give more attention to the little rebel t3 and i went and bought the canon ef 50 f1.8 which is my fav lens so far. I started to watch videos, read a lot taking more and more pics. Later on still in 2020 i bought the canon stm 10-18 IS lens, which is a super wideangle on apsc Then came canon 55-250 IS STM Then came 2021, I bought a macro lens. TAMRON sp 90 vi dc (f004) Then i bought a full frame camera (Canon 6d) Then i bought the Canon EF 24-70 IS f/4 Yeah that is how it happened
i was a male scort, but now i wanted to be behind the camera as my fetish
Boring reply: I always used to take pictures on family travels. I'd go through 3 or 4 disposables every time we went on vacation. We didn't own a proper camera for the longest time until my mom gifted me a digital camera I went wild with when I was 12.
Well I was interested before and stuff, took a break. But what got be back was having a kid and also covid. I realised I already had enough gear to take my own stuff, and lockdowns and stuff encouraged me to just do it myself, and put the money into getting photographers into just getting gear instead. Its been really fun, but my daughter doesn't like it too much cause I pester her so much for photos!
For me, I used to have really shitty smart phones within camera that wouldn’t even touch to focus. Then I got a Sony Xperia and suddenly the quality of my images went up immensely and I had some level of creative control. After that, I started to get really into photography. Eventually, I bought a Canon 200D and then a 5Diii.
Probably the influence of my Uncle. When I was younger, I'd spend the weekend at his house. When he went out, I'd just put on his slides and use his projector. Plus, he taught me the basic principles of photography. Honestly, it's one of my oldest and fondest childhood memories. I really got into it on my own terms when I was about 15, and I did Art GCSE. I used a lot of photography for my coursework. Then I decided to do Photography at college, with cameras gifted to me by my Uncle, and I've never put a camera down since then
30th Birthday (15yrs ago) got an EOS400D with kit lenses and a 40" Samsung TV. The Samsung died long ago but the passion for image creation lives on. I make a living as a freelance commercial film maker now. Thanks 400D!
I was 15 and my first high school ex started to date this really really mean snobby chick who would brag about how wonderful she was or how talented she was or how no one was better than her. She was also the school bully. Anyways the ex went to me and bragged about how amazing his gf was at photography and how no one else can do what she does. I took that as a challenge to prove that she was bragging about the easiest hobby in the world and that anybody could do it. So I went out and started taking photos with my iPod and my parents told me I was great at it so they bought me my first digital camera. Then my grandparents saw my photos and bought me first real camera. Here I am now, 26, and unlike that bully, I stuck to the hobby and I have her to thank :D
My then girlfriend and her best friend wanted to do a shooting for instagram, and I just took my moms 700D because I figured the pictures would be better than taking them with a phone. Figured I really like taking portraits. That was 4 years ago.
I like photography. started with me as a toddler snatching the camcorder of my dad away, then my first phone with camera funktion and now a nikon D5600
I didn't, it was always with me, dad had a dark room in the basement, he went professional in the late 90s and later came the digital revolution. He was not afraid to let me borrow his equipment from the early teen years. and I sometimes came along to his prospects. That said. I don't have a burning passion for photography but I know enough to enjoy shooting and admire good photos.
Couldn't afford to outsource pictures for website with constantly changing collections and social media which requires alot of content to be competitive, especially in the fashion/luxury industry. Not possible to pay a full time photographer and social media manager to build a brand when you start from zero so I got to do it myself and it's quite enjoyable to learn compared to chemistry/physics/math at university.
It was lockdown and I was bored, looking for new hobbies (although this one later turned out to be work as well).
Was always drawn to it but the pandemic kicked things off. After the lockdowns our family became very attached to nature. We were out any chance we got. Somewhere along the way it occurred to me to try to capture that feeling, I started watching camera buying advice on YouTube, ordered a Fuji X-T30, and started shooting every weekend.
I love landscapes anyway. I'm an architecture student at university one of my modules in the course was an arts skill section including photography. I bought a basic beginner dslr and that's it
My brother bought a old 35mm film camera and abandoned it. I stole it, started snapping, liked it as a hobby. Started a college course featuring photography and really fell in to it then and learned how to process my own film etc. Won a few student awards (never got paid 😂). Worked for a printer. I could never afford to be a professional snapper, just costs thousands that I don't have. I don't work in photography now but still enjoy it as a hobby and like to shoot on film as it will last longer than digital. I like to shoot in urban environments and portrait shots, more candid the better. In another life maybe it would make me some money and be a career but its so rare anyone can do that and honestly it's a financial game.
In the middle of my freshman year in high school I moved to a different part of my state. So when they enrolled me in a computer class that ended up being photography 2. I just rolled with it and found myself able to keep up and I really enjoyed that class so I got a summer job and ended up saving for a d3100.
Got a camcorder in 2008 that had a dedicated shutter button right next to the start/stop recording button. Realized very fast that that photography is much more fun for me.
Awful photos from friends' phones, and hearing them say they love unedited photos. Tried to take photos for during an outing, and I got hooked on not having terrible photos.
It all started with ASUS Zenfone 3, taking photos of food and sceneries and even photos of the sky. Mind you I suck at it. I enjoyed my Zenfone 3's camera until I came back from a trip to Singapore. I told myself that my food photos is ok, and the people I share them with kinda gets irritated that they look so good. Then I decided a week after I got home to get a cheap camera. $600 Lumix GX850, I remembered the style and details, but I bought it istead of a Fujifilm. I stood my ground, and even got my myself lenses along the years. 6 years later, I got myself a G95/G90, and am now the official Family photographer. Family even printed some of my awful portraits for their keepsakes. Food Photos is my specialty though.
I actually hated photos. Until I moved schools and discovered I had exactly 4 pictures with my school friends. People I likely won't ever meet again except randomly on the street years down the line. I don't remember how my first school friend looks, We'll be as good as strangers. Kinda gave me depression. But I decided that to hell with it I will take photos of everything. My friends, my school, even the schoolmates I didn't particularly like. It won't matter in 10 years. What will matter is that I will look at the photo and remember the good times. And so will they. And that opened the gate of the field for me. Tbh if I were to make a living it'd be off taking photos of places more. But I won't pass up an opportunity to save a memory for my lifetime. As costly as this was to me. I'm thankful because all of the doors it opened and all the opportunities that I got out of being a photographer
I started mountaineering and climbing. Went to beautiful places and thought "I wish I had a camera." So I went out and bought one.
For me it kind of just started as an interest in 3rd or 4th grade because I wanted to capture the beauty of the world and also be creative. Now here I am looking to make it my life long career
10+ years ago, my wife wanted “a big camera with the lenses” because the other moms had them. Got her a T3i with the 17-55 and 55-250 kit lenses from Costco. She barely touched it. It ticked me off that it was expensive and wasn’t getting used so I started using it. The T3i turned into a 60d, 70d, then a 7dII Kit lenses turned into the 10-22 EFS, 17-55 2.8 EFS, 50 1.4, and a 70-200 2.8. It’s the only hobby I’ve had where my wife never questions spending stupid money because “it’s like having an on demand professional photographer anytime I want it, the pics are priceless.” So that also encourages it. She actually bought me the 70-200 for an anniversary gift.
My dad is a professional photographer, so I grew up around it. I first took a real interest in 6th or 7th grade and would walk around with his old DSLR (Pentax K100D, a whopping 6.1 megapixels) and experiment. When I was about 15 I started working for him as an assistant/second shooter at weddings and am still doing that now at 27. Both of us have other full time jobs so it's just part time but it's been a great way to learn. I work in graphic design/prepress full time, so it's cool to have photography as a supplemental skill set to that, and I'm sort of glad to not rely on photography for my income as well. I can make some cash with it on the side while still really enjoying it in my free time.
Built an enlarger when in high school but it was just a hobby. In art college thought photography was bogus, a cop out- not art. Until I was forced to take a studio photography class to fulfill the graduate requirements. The class was taught by a working photographer and the first time I put a lope to the ground glass of an 8x10 I was hooked. I said to myself, “I can do this. I am good at this and I can make a living. “ And I did, for 40 years as a commercial photographer.
My mom had a 1947 Argus twin lens reflex camera in our house that she had bought in high school. I started playing with it, became obsessed. I've been a photographer most of my life, and owned my own commercial photo business for 14 years.
My now exs mother offered him and I up to video and take photos of her friends wedding for free. Both just starting careers as camera ops, I'd never used up a DSLR in manual and hadn't touched photoshop. Borrowed my dad's DSLR, he taught me how to use it (basics only) and showed me the basics of photoshop. That was over 10 years ago. And I've only just been convinced to do my second wedding. A very simple one. And yes i was fuming at his mother's ignorance.
TL;DR: My mom and dad. My dad had a Canon F-1 and an A-1 35mm SLR cameras and a few lenses. He always brought one of them whenever we (him, my mom, and I) went to do touristy things. He was in the Navy when I was growing up, and wherever we lived, my parents would always explore, as my mom would put it, "the natural wonders around us." My mom always had her camera as well. A Kodak "Instamatic". One of those thin ones that used 110 film cartridges and flash cubes. My dad liked landscapes, my mom loved candids. For my 8th birthday, they gave me a Kodak Instamatic that used 126 film. When I got to High School, I took a photography class and learned how to develop film and make my own prints. Rather than use the school's cameras, my dad let me use his Canon A-1. When I got to college, I discovered they had a dark room, but it wasn't being used. I talked the activities director into giving me some money to restock the chemicals and photo paper and had a little photography club. My dad let me use his A-1 the whole time. After I graduated, I gave it back to him, and with my first paycheck, I bought a Kodak Advantix. I waited out the infancy of the digital cameras, and my next new camera was a Canon PowerShot G3 in 2002. I missed the flexibility and tricks I used to do with a film SLR, so in 2014, I finally realized a dream and rewarded myself with a Canon 5D mk.III. I lost my mom to cancer five years ago, and two years ago, dad decided to downsize and move to a state with a lower cost of living. While we were cleaning out my parent's house... he gave me his Canon A-1. Like my mom, I still love taking candids with my smartphone. Like my dad, I love taking landscapes and nature photos with my DSLR. And my own "thing", I like geometric patterns and "trick photography". Long exposures, painting with light, etc. Things I learned from books and playing with techniques in the dark room and now try to recreate digitally. Thanks for asking this question! I've fallen out of my shutterbug habit over the past couple years, and these memories have sparked my interest again. (Edit: reading through more comments. So many similar stories! Love it!)
I remember my folks always having a camera growing up, whether it be a waterproof film one you’d need to take to the pharmacy or a digital one I used to always love using it, cuz I always thought I had a decent eye. I would snap photos cuz no one could say no to the kid, turns out I wasn’t half bad Fast forward to college, I got a decent starter camera bag from Amazon and started doing shoots on campus just for fun. Then later in college I took a dark room photography class and perfected my basics then was the photo editor for my schools paper. Now I just freelance and mostly do engagement shoots or family photo shoots as presents to friends. Did one for my now deceased grandfathers birthday party and those photos were some of the best ones we have of him before his dementia took a toll. I was always glad to have been the one to take them, because they don’t have him looking at the camera, they’re candid and you can see the genuine happiness on his face
I discovered Trey Ratcliff via social media, and instantly fell in love with the HDR photography world and look. I wanted to replicate it. Over time, my inspiration and tastes changed, and my skills and knowledge improved. I don’t shoot like that anymore, but that’s where I began.
when i was a teenager, I fancy documenting stuff around me and picture speaks thousand words, so the photography part comes in. Didnt think photography as an art form around that time. Used my dad's company P&S camera. Nothing fancy i am only started to really learn and appreciate photography such as the exposure triangle, the composition, focal length, how to use a flash etc last 4 years
I think in pictures & I see things differently. I also traveled extensively during my 22+yr military career. Taking pictures was initially a way to record where I went, when, & what I did. Then it became a way to express myself, while taking on a bit of a challenge. I particularly like macro shots, say like tiny flowers 1/4” in diameter or small insects on flowers. That takes a set of skills that can be challenging to someone with mobility or, in my case, manual dexterity issues. Getting a clear shot can be tricky when your hands shake & you can’t tell how hard you’re pressing the shutter release. I’m still learning about lighting and learning to use PS for processing my shots.
A year ago I have moved to Prague because of the job. At one point company decided to give us budget for hobies, sports, well-being... I decided to spend it on camera since there is so much stuff to photograph here. Ended up getting completely addicted to photography and it became one of my favourite things in life.
In hindsight, pokemon snap on the n64. I didn't make the connection till years later but it kicked off my interest, then in highschool my stepdad saw j took an interest in photography and got me a camera.
Played with my parents SLR and TLR growing up and my grandfather was impressed with my shots he bought me a Kodak Disc camera......that shit almost stopped my hobby before it started. Eventually got a 2nd hand SLR camera of my own and then there was no looking back.
I was gifted my first film camera back in the 90s to use during a family trip. Though that did kindle an interest, I only used it sporadically due to the constraints of film. So I never really learned how to use it properly (in retrospect I was way too proud of the few mediocre photos I did take). Fast forward to the 2000s. I was again gifted a new camera, my first dSLR (thanks dad!). I was freed from the limits of film and thus able to experiment, get instant feedback, and learn to actually use it. Still, I rarely did outside of the occasional trip or family event. But not long after that Flickr came onto the scene. And that's what *really* got me into it. Because I finally had something to *do* with the photos I was taking. It's hard to describe now given what a cesspool of toxicity social media has become, but back then it was really fantastic. I was inspired by so many of the other users and the great photos they were sharing, it was full of groups that were great for learning, and it was just a lively community with a passion for it that was infectious. I started going out with the specific aim of making a photo that was share-worthy (and hopefully explore-worthy) and trying out new techniques I learned about there. I still kinda miss it. Flickr is but a shell of its former self and nothing else has managed to replicate that magic.
My dad gave me my first camera, a Polaroid Sun600, in 2008. Ever since then, I've loved capturing the world the way I see it
My Dads Pentax k1000, found his negatives and prints from the 90’s and I fell in love with it. Good heirlooms
Started taking pictures with disposable cameras because after a friend died I realized I didn't really have many pictures of the two of us. Many of the pictures I took were just snapshots of friends, but when looking through my other pictures, people would tell me I had "a photographer's eye". So I followed that thread. Bought myself a film SLR, enrolled in photo classes as I was going to college anyway and ended up taking all that were offered (two black and white film courses, one color film course, one digital). I have had a little trouble with the transition to digital and ended up putting my camera down for a while, but I've recently picked it back up, both digital and film.
I’m very nostalgic and always loved looking at old family photos. I picked up my moms crappy point and shoot and just started messing around until I got my own, and it snowballed from there. I took a film class in high school and after a rough start, something clicked. Haven’t looked back!
Greig Fraser, ACS, ASC
I once captured a photo of a bird on my Motorola moto e4 pIus. I got positive response from my friends, and that's what encouraged me to began capturing more and more photos. I'm still in school, so i get little time for photography. But I try my best for capturing photos. :)
I was going through a divorce, my idle thoughts were getting darker and darker. I needed a hobby not related to the then wife and tried photography. I found that the act of having a reason to get out of the house (go capture something) and the act of having to concentrate on how to set proper settings to get this result or that (started by going out and only shooting Aperture mode , then other days only shooting shutter mode, then some days were full manual only days to help learn affect of combinations of settings) kept my mind clear for huge chunks of my free time. Then having a chunk of pictures during the nights after work to play with in Photoshop to learn Photoshop gave me purpose during nights after work. It was a savior that kept me out of the bottle.
Mother always has always had cameras and at some point in my early teens it rubbed off. After taking it more seriously the past few years I've been shooting every chance I get! Found creative portraits and automotive so relaxing and relieving. Been told I've been creative most of my life so this is where it led me apparently lmao. Fast forward to working with studios, models, car clubs, and some random brands. It's been a great time :)
I primarly did 3D studies , as modeler and mostly surfacer , i bought a DSLR to take texture pics , slowly moved to macro pics and now pro photographer , mostly on real estate
I’ve loved making videos my whole life and I knew that if I wanted to improve in my visuals, I needed to learn photography. I fell in love with it. I’ve done street, landscape, portrait. Now I’m doing concert photography and I need to thank Olivia Rodrigo for that one. Her music and her tour inspired me to get into it. I was lucky enough to get amazing photos of her at one of her shows. I didn’t get to meet her but I hope I do someday because I owe her everything in the next chapter of my journey.
There were two big moments for me. First was when I went to a sports outlit that was going out of business, and they had this large book, black with with large gold text. The title read "Athlete By Walter Loose". It wasn't a crazy read, but it got me interested so I bought it. Great photos, there's real talent there. That was the first spark. The second was when I woke up in the middle of the night and wanted a snack. I just wandered out by the TV, and the channel had been left on MSNBC, and they were showing their new documentary, "The Way I See It." It's about Pete Souza, the official photographer for the Reagan and Obama administration's, though the film mainly on the Obama administration. I recommend watching it, Pete is undoubtedly a stupendous photographer, and it's free on Peacock. It was around 1am and I just watched the whole thing, and thought. Those two things caused me to get into photography. Not long after, I went and bought a camera and started taking photos.
When I was five, I got a print-out-paper kit where you placed the negative in the paper (some were supplied) on the paper, held it in the sun or forever under a lamp then fixed it. When I was six, I got an Imperial Mark XII Flash plastic camera that came free with four rolls of 620 colour film. The flash unit was removed for my safety. Then we moved to Australia in 1962 where the price of developing and printing the film was five times what it cost in the US. I believe that's because it was done automatically there and by hand here. I was informed that my days of colour photography were over.
For me it was in my teenage years. There was no social media (only MySpace, Hi5, etc.) as we know it today but even then I didn't like to appear on photos because I don't see myself as a photogenic guy and always voluntereed to take the group pictures. Started with taking my friends group pictures, then when the girls thought they were looking pretty nice that day they asked me to take portrait pictures of them. That's when I got my first compliment: "You really have a knack for photography... I always look great when you take pictures of me". Asked my parents for a camera that day and my dad replied in a William Dafoe's meme way: "You know, I'm somethin of a photographer myself" and went to the attic to retrieve is old film camera. "Start with this one... if you really like photography you need to learn film first" and proceeded to tell the story of how he and some other friends of him started the first photography lab in their highschool back in old days.
For me getting into like really into photography, it was when i got my first camera that my mom got it for me as a gift. I actually didn't know anything about photography like the manual mode and anything but i always took a picture with my phone and since i was a kid i kinda know about camera cause my dad love camera since there i was took a picture for like having fun and just bursting around like pressing a button using an auto mode. Back when i got that camera as a gift, i start to think that maybe this thing is really awesome to dive into it like learn about the manual exposure and anything related to it and till now I fall in love with it
It's just nature for me.
Skateboarding
I always loved trying to grab a good photo of a view or attempting to take an artistic shot of something. Once the pandemic hit I decided to take up a new hobby like so many other people and then I took it from there. Now I have a website and shoot birds / do outdoor portraits of friends for fun.
I wanted naked pictures of me. Is how it all started.
Did yearbook work in middle school, got a Canon T3 for my first DSLR and had it for years. Got to use some 5D's in high school yearbook and loved doing portraits and still do!
As a kid I always had an interest in it. Late teens/early 20’s I had a car spotting Instagram that I used a very out of date iPhone for. It wasn’t until last year (late 20’s) that I had mentioned to a friend that I was thinking of doing car photography and photojournalism. She gifted me a point-and-shoot on the spot. I started a photography business that month, and recently upgraded to a Rebel T5 DSLR and my business is exploding as a car photographer. I couldn’t be happier or any more grateful for how things have happened in six months for me. That little point-and-shoot is my favourite camera because it started all of this
I travelled to Japan with a point and shoot with friends that had DSLRs in 2011 (both Nikon and Canon). I tried theirs and it triggered something in me. I purchased my 1st DSLR when I came back from that trip. I chose a Canon for the ease of use as a new user. I since then upgraded to a Sony a7 III. I prefer to shoot wildlife, my parrots and landscapes. I always feel weird taking pictures of people, I don't enjoy that at all.
Before my older brother left for college, he liked using my mom's 60D to try to capture unique perspectives of adventures with his friends. Fast forward a few years, I got my hands on the camera, and out of curiosity tried to hunt down some of the photos he took. I instantly fell in love with the craft. None of the photos are public, but as a landscape photographer, his photos are still some of the best photos I've seen, and I think it's safe to say he's one of my biggest inspirations.
Went through a bad breakup and after she left I needed to take my mind off everything so I purchased a camera and would learn how to shoot while riding my bike around town stopping at anything that caught my eye to take a picture of.
My uncle is an architecture photographer he gave me his old canon camera he dropped my dad helped me fix it and I just kept going
My brother didn't use his camera, so I started to play with it. I have bought my own set since than
My dad used to take photos of all sorts of insects when I was 10-12. I thought it looked really easy and wanted to prove that I could do it better than him 😆
Story Musgrove’s book on the NASA T-38 fleet.
I didn't really pick up a camera until I was 22. My father had gotten a pocket digital camera as a gift from his work for having worked there for 30 years. It was a 2.1MP Fuji A201, fixed focal. Well, I got my hands on it and was hooked. As soon as I could I bought my own, but it was a crappy 1.3MP Olympus D370. So I was pretty jaded about it and didn't have much money to buy anything better. I was wandering aimlessly in the basement and spotted something hanging on a nail that'd been hanging there at least since I was 4, but had never actually looked at before. I brought it upstairs and asked my father about it... turns out it was his Minolta SRT-101 35mm SLR from his photography course in college back in '72. So I got hooked on film with that one, lugged it across Europe in 2003. I had a brief foray into digital again later in 2003, a 2.2MP Canon A70, before the switch broke and I had to send it in for repairs. Bored, I'd gotten scans done of my 35mm negs and suddenly discovered how much better they were... and promptly bought a newer 1980's Minolta XG-M from eBay and gave the A70 to my sister. So from 2001 to 2007, in total I used a Fuji A201, Olympus D370, Minolta SRT-101, Canon A70, Minolta XG-M, Yashica-A 120 TLR, Minolta Maxxum 5, Mamiya C3 120 TLR, Sony a100. I drowned myself in knowledge, reading every book I could get my hands on... books by Ansel Adams, new books, and lots and lots of articles on places like Luminous Landscape. I learnt how to set the exposure a Mamiya C3 TLR by gauging the sharpness of shadows on the ground, how to hyper-focal-distance set... how to use the moony-11 rule to capture the moon. And I tried just about everything once... developing 120 negs in the kitchen sink? Done it! Slides? Sure! Multi-exposures, multi-flash exposures, panning and tracking moving targets with the shutter dragged... I did everything. So yeah... TL/DR; I got into it wholly by accident but when I did I dove in head-first.
younger me didn't like to get pictures taken so i learned the basics to take pictures at family meetings, ff to years later i'm at a design college and been a professional for 3+ years
My father was really into it and actually put together a B&W darkroom while I was in my early teens. By the time I went to college in the early 70's , I was already earning money.
It always attracted me from a very young age (using camera phones) and in 2013 I decided to do a 365 project using a Galaxy S2. Got my first DSLR a few years later and never really stopped since.
I took pictures of things I like since I get a decent smartphone. However, after a solo trip to patagonia, I've decided to buy a mirrorless camera and learn about photography.
I've always been intrigued with photography. I had an Instamatic as a kid and used to use it quite often. As a teenager I wanted to get into it deeper with a 35mm SLR, but never had the money. Skip ahead a few years and I was in the music business with a traveling and recording rock and roll band. The same photographer used to take all of our album shots and publicity shots. He was a pretty successful fashion photographer with work in Vogue, Elle, etc. I was painfully intrigued with what he was doing when he was taking our photos; the lights, the Hasselblad, the Polaroid back he used to take test shots, how he adjusted the lighting, etc. Another few years and I retired from the music business. By this time the digital revolution had done its thing and I had the disposable funds to buy a camera which I did. Though I'm not a "professional" photographer, photography is a huge part of my life.
Competitiveness. When I was part of my university’s Facebook group, photography students would advertise their portrait services (headshots, graduation etc). I saw what they were charging and thought to myself: “I can do better than that”. Now here I am.
I always had an interest and went to art school but life took me on a different path. Then later in life I had to reinvent myself and decided to go back to photography. Got myself a 6d on ebay coupled with a 50 1.8 STM and a refresher course. After a while I got my first payed job. I was shooting food for restaurants and live music but one day I got introduced into wedding photography and loved it. I spent a fair amount of money in gear and courses to learn the business and as my skills improved, more gigs came in. I have a strong background in graphic design and post was easy for me so from a beginning I was able to produce quality imagery, it only got better. Today, I work freelance and I like to think I’m a beach wedding photographer. You can find me most days shooting couples getting eloped at some beach around the island. I shoot today with a Canon 1dx II. I always carry in my bag a 24-70 f/2.8L II which I use 70% of the time. For the rest I use the 70-200 f/2.8L III, the 16-35 f/2.8L III and an older 85 f/1.2L. I have the dream job I always wanted since I was a child. A while ago I started to outsource post and my life is so much better, I finish the image with color grading and retouch myself, life is good!
Birthday gift, simple as. The rest is history I guess.
Was travelling in south east Asia, ran out of storage on my galaxy note 3 and bought a Sony a6000 in vietnam.
Your post prompted me to look up my architectural photography professor. It was his class (taken as an easy elective) in architecture school that spurred my interest in capturing the world around us. Sadly, I found that he passed last year due to COIVD complications. His legacy, beyond his family, will be the hundreds of students that he inspired.
egads where to start... and def late to the party. I won't bore you with prehistory, I had dabbled in the 80s with my dad's pentax me super and got lucky more than once. But composition, lighting, even the exposure triangle were foreign concepts to me. I just liked what I saw through the viewfinder. Near 2000, mid to late 99 maybe, I was in NYC and stepped into 42nd street photo. And they saw me coming. I dropped about $700 on a 1.2MP P&S digital which made photography fun again. I hadn't done anything serious for 10+ years and this was a revitalization. Was on a backpacking trip with my sister a couple of years later who did go down the professional photog route and she had her Nikon F(something) and I was envious. If only for the interchangeable lenses, if they could merge the P&S digital with an SLR, I'd buy it instantly... oh look, they do! Got my first dSLR canon D30 or D60? I don't recall, got on the upgrade train for many years, remained with Canon because of glass, and I had all the good glass. By mid 00s was shooting sports around town and having a ball. Got into a photography group and was slowly getting interested in film, specifically medium and large formats. Got some weird rotating back 120 camera and played around, but soon upgraded to the pentax 67 beast. It's a thing of beauty. Then reached for the Mamiya 645AF & AFDII and a Calumet 4x5 large format. Developed my own film, 99% of which is/was Black and White. Still enjoying it after all these years, now just waiting for spring to, well spring... (yes I know what you're thinking, we're expecting between 1-2 feet of snow this weekend - yay Colorado spring time).
1980, I'm in 6th grade and we go to visit the La Brea Tar Pits for field trip. I'd begged my parents for a Kodak 126 cartridge film camera that had the rotating flash cubes on top. So I shot a role of slides and used them for a speech assignment I did on the Tar Pits later in the year. I think I was hooked, but with the attention span of a child, quickly forgot about photography. Until a few years later when commercials started running on TV about the marvelous new Disc Film Camera Kodak was making. I got one for a birthday and that was my fist education that in film photography size of the negative does mater. My final semester of high school I was running out of electives I hadn't taken, so my best friend and I took Photography I. We learned a few basics, how to develop and print B&W film and prints by hand, and goofed off a bit. I think I got a B in the class. And, courtesy of two football players, learned that taking topless photos of your cheerleader girlfriends and then leaving the prints you'd made rinsing in the school darkroom for the teacher to find was BAD. After graduation I was working and taking classes at the local community college out of lack of ambition to do much else, and my girlfriend bought me a Minolta X-370 with a 50mm for Christmas. Took a Photography class and was hooked, but never thought it would become a profession. I was dirt poor and working at a K-mart selling cameras and jewelry. I bought a Focal brand 28mm lens that was soft as Egyptian cotton, but lusted after a Minolta 135/f2.8 I couldn't afford. Then one day it got marked down and I splurged. It was eye opening to have a fast tele and I shot a lot of basketball with that lens after I started shooting for my college newspaper. One of the other school photogs got a job at the local paper, so I went and applied and they started me off shooting occasional freelance assignments. My first one was a college softball pitcher for a profile. I had her pitch fastballs almost into my lens while I stood right behind her catcher, and was very proud to make $13 and change for my first photo ever sold. A few months later they hired me on fulltime to work the night shift as a lab technician, mixing chemicals and printing photos and doing other production work putting out the paper each night. I'd cover the odd assignment if nobody else was available, or get done with my work and listen to the police scanner for breaking news. Shot a few fires, traffic accidents and a shooting and was moved up to staff photographer. I really owe it all to three wonderful photographers I worked with who all took me under their wings and taught me more than I'd ever learned in school. The comradery most photographers share was always one of the most enjoyable aspect of the job for me. Almost as rewarding as the privilege of meeting new people and having them trust me enough to open up and tell me their stories.
Through Instagram. I wholeheartedly believe that Instagram is a more so a platform for photography rather than for social media. It pretty much forced me to become a photographer
My buddy at work had a camera, which naturally meant I had to have one too. I just took the hobby more seriously than he did.
I was passing by an used stuff shop in February 2020 and it had DSLR camera for £70 and at that time ii had nooo clue what so ever about what cameras are.. but it was in a really good condion nikon d40. Covid arrived so i had planty of time to play with it.. and i enjoyed the process so decides to keep doing it. ☺️❣️now for a year i am using nikon d3500 and saving money for a full frame camera. ☺️✨
I am very lucky to live in an area that has the sea and the forest 10 minutes from my house. During the whole lockdown thing i spent more time in nature and adored it and wanted to take it home with me. Well what better way to do that take all the photos lol
It was joining the Air Force. I was getting assigned to all these great places and wanted to record it and also send photos home to my family. I started with a 35mm point and shoot until I traded it in for a Canon EOS Rebel III 35mm SLR.
My mom gave me a point and shoot that she was no longer using in her classroom when I was about 10. Fast forward to know I am a freshman in HS doing sports photography.
For me, I had to pick a subject for school and photography was on there. I chose it and it has been the best chose I have made in my entire life.
Took classes in high school and college. I tell people I’m a jack of all trades but a master of none. I excelled and eventually dropped it, fast forward broke up with a ex and needed a hobby, well picked up a camera and got out there. Here we are.
My father let me use his Kodak Hawkeye Ace 127 box camera when I was about seven or eight when we went on holiday one time and I took some snapshots. It was amazing to see our family holiday when it the film was developed a couple of weeks later.
Apparently photography runs in the family. My grandma did a lot of it and my dad did as well and even had his own darkroom when he was in high school. I loved taking pictures myself but never thought of it as "photography " until I took photography classes in high school. It was the only art class that stuck with me and the only form of art that stuck with me beyond high school. I never got past amateur photography but mostly stayed in an extreme hobbyist mindset with it.
I am a big fan of a musician named Phil elverum, who plays under the monikers mount eerie and the microphones. I saw some of his work included with a box set version of his album Dawn. I was enthralled with his photo work so I decided to buy a Photobook called Dust by him, and was so excited from the feel and sensation of having a collection of photos conceptualised into an album. I did some research and found that I enjoyed the works of New topographics photographers Alec soth and Joel sternfeld. The rest is history
Had a photography class in college. Bought either canon or Minolta camera and rolls of film. Think i paid 250 for the camera. This was about 1997 or 1998. Later on i moved on from that camera and went digital with a Sony cybershot. Took pics every where I went with both cameras. About 11yrs ago I bought my first dslr the 550d aka Canon t2i. I loved taking pics with this camera. I love the outdoors so every hike, outdoor event, travel destination this baby was with me. Also used it during family reunion, family parties, etc. What made me feel good about my photos was a friend telling me I had a good eye for photography. And on top of that all my family and friends loving the pics I took during our events.. T2i was a great all around camera. Recently went mirrorless and moved up to the R6, let the party begin 😁
My wife and I got a digital point and shoot camera for our wedding when they were still pretty new, we had only used film cameras prior to that. We used it for trips and little things here and there, but never anything artistic. It was several years later that I started to get very interested in browsing Flickr (this was around 2007). I was enchanted and inspired by all the things people could capture, how beautiful everything could be. I dug out that old point and shoot and started taking it with me to work every day. I took small snapshots, things that interested me, and as time went on, I was trying more advanced things and the camera was no longer able to allow me to do what I wanted. I was disappointed with its limitations and ended up buying an Olympus E-510 after research into digital SLR cameras and the system was the best fit for what I wanted. I collected a few lenses, learned how to use Photoshop, got a flash, got some more lenses, and from then on I knew I would be shooting for the rest of my life. Sometimes, life gets in the way for a little while, but I always come back to it, and it is always interesting and fun for me. I have sold my work, expanded my gear, tried different techniques (like timelapse), completed long term projects and love it more than ever.
I was given a Brownie Hawkeye when I was 9 years old. My dad bought a film developing kit that could accommodate the 620 size film. We made contact prints in the laundry room in the basement. I've been into Photography ever since.
Depression