So, How did you get here?

<p>I'm assuming that if we are using PhotoNet most of you are photographers and some are just like me.... wanna be's... :-)<br>

Anyway, I was looking at some photographs from the days I was just having fun, roller skating, playing basketball at the court close to my home....<br>

I think I got interested on cameras since I was in elementary school. I used to play with my father's camera. I have no idea what it was. <br>

Then maybe on the 7th or 8th grade I got my first 110 mm camera. I guess we would call it a cropped camera. If I am not wrong it was a Kodak camera. I used to carry that camera everywhere and what is good about it is coz of it I still have so many photographs I took in my younger years. I think that was really good to help me remember how life used to be.....<br>

On my last year of High School I saved as much money as I could. I spent half of it drinking Johnnie Walker, Black Label of curse, and the rest on my first SLR. A black Canon AE1-P which I still have. It came with a NFD 50 1.4. That was incredible for me. I really didn't get any good glass for it coz I couldn't afford them but it was much better than my 110 mm Kodak....<br>

Then in 1985 or 1986 my wife bought me a Canon T90 as a birthday present. I still have it too. Working perfectly. That camera help me keep the memories of my 20's and my first born growing up.<br>

It wasn't until 2006 when my T90 broke down and I was told that Canon wouldn't be able to fix it anymore. Still, I sent it to Canon here in Japan but I didn't here from them for 2 long months. That's when I decided I needed I new camera. I went to a shop and tried everything that was there. I knew nothing about DSLR's so I bought what felt better in my hands, a Nikon D80. Maybe a week after I bought it, I got a call from Canon telling me that my T90 was ready to be ship back. <br>

After a year, I got rid of my D80 and upgraded to a D300. Then I added a D700 and a V1.<br>

So that's how it started....... I just wonder how it will end.......<br>

So? Do you have a story to tell? </p>

<p>When I was a teenager I borrowed a girlfriends Olympus 35mm camera to take on a canoe camping trip. I shot photos of what I consider to be some wonderful moments and scenes. When I returned home and got the film processed I discovered that every single image sucked! I had utterly failed to capture or convey any of the magic or majesty which I found present in that wonderful place. My epiphany was to realize that my mind's eye and the camera captured the world in very different ways. A full time college program, time working in commercial photography and 40 years of exploration later I am still trying to close that gap.</p>

This almost belongs in the "Casual Conversations" forum as your topic really isn't "Off Topic" to the site.

 

My story: The longer I take photos, the greater my interest in seeing the photos of other photographers, yours included. Many thanks for posting them.

<p>I turned 40 four years ago, I was given some money and decided to buy an entry level Nikon D40. We had travelled thousands of miles around the US and the pictures were terrible, I had a really cheap point and shoot with a sticky lens cover that sometimes wouldn't open, some of my pictures looked as if they were taken through a letter box where the lens protector only opened slightly. So I bought an entry level Nikon D40.</p>

<p>This was the first manual camera I had ever owned and it fascinated/confused me. I don't think there has been anything in my life that I felt so compelled to learn, it's been a very life enriching experience to this day, I'm so glad I didn't buy an X Box instead :)</p>

<p>I may move this to the Casual Photo Conversations forum, since some folks avoid the Off Topic forum.</p>

<p>I got the photo bug at age 8 or 9. A relative gave me a rollfilm box camera and within a year my mom gave me a darkroom kit for contact printing. A month after that she and my brother were hollering "Get out of the bathroom and give someone else a chance, why don'cha! What are you doing in the bathroom all the time?" With most boys you don't hear that until puberty.</p>

<p>Joined the Y camera club, learned b&w darkroom basics. Got my first SLR with 13th birthday money, a new Miranda Sensorex. I've told this story before, so... lovely camera, sexy ads, little trollop broke my heart, blah-blah-blah....</p>

<p>Prowled around NYC, a 15-minute train ride away, taking snapshots of people and ... stuff. Had no concept of "street photography", just found it and the broad range of documentary and photojournalism more interesting than other subjects.</p>

<p>Eventually I migrated here to photo.net in the late 1990s from CompuServe, which had an excellent group of photographers. But CS itself didn't adapt quickly enough to the web. Around 1998 I read Philip Greenspun's travel adventures and photos here and decided to haunt this place for awhile. Got lost in the hallway, couldn't find my way back out, so here I am.</p>

<p>Photography was important in my family. We took snapshots at events, birthdays, and holidays, and those photos were revered regardless of the quality of the images or the gear that we used.</p>

<p>My high school had a camera club. I saw students walk the halls with their SLRs, which looked like fabulous gadgets, but I was too busy with other pursuits to get involved.</p>

<p>For a long time I was a "someday I'll buy a good camera" person. Eventually, I started reading photo magazines. I was fascinated by the photos and the techniques described within. But my first SLR was still years off in the future. I read the ads at the back of the magazines, but the gear selection was confusing. All of those brands and models! The lenses confused me the most, and everything seemed to be a little out of my budget.</p>

<p>One day I saw a display of Galen Rowell's photography from the Tongas rain forest (Alaska) at a natural history museum. I had never seen that kind of color and detail before. I was astonished. I just couldn't believe that photographs like this could exist, yet someone had figured out how to make them. I wanted to learn the secret. I wanted to learn how it was possible to make a photograph look like that.</p>

<p>I dabbled a bit with early digital cameras, but the technology was in its infancy, and the results were disappointing. Eventually, I bought a Nikon F100, one lens, and forty rolls of Velvia, and my photography education began.</p>

<p>The early going was rough. I made countless mistakes as I worked my way though a truckload of film, but I learned along the way. Eventually, I bought a modest medium format film setup and got back into digital when the D70 came along. I spent lots of time shooting, celebrating my successes and learning from my mistakes. The education continued when I shot large format film and started to learn more about digital post processing.</p>

<p>I continue to learn as I try new techniques and push myself to work in different genres and take on new challenges. For instance, after years as an available light shooter, I've been doing more with multiple speed light setups in the last couple of years. I hope to continue growing and learning for as long as I'm able to carry a DSLR - or whatever technology replaces them.</p>

<p>I learned in the early 60's that girls will do the darndest things if you will take their picture. </p>

<p>I grew up in an old industrial town in the English Midlands - coal mines, brickyards, potteries, iron foundries, boiler yards, railways and so forth. In the early 1960s, the old industries began to die; then the local railway - the colliery exchange sidings which had been my childhood stamping ground - first became derelict, then they began to rip up the track. So, that day, with my little grey plastic Ilford Sprite 127 camera, I took my first four 'serious' photographs and discovered the documentary power of photography. It went on from there.</p><div></div>

<p>By "here", I thought you meant Photo.net. That's another story all together.</p>

<p>I'm on the same page as Mark. Although I started shooting and working in my father's darkroom when I was twelve, when I got some photography annual a few years later and saw all the mostly naked chicks, I decided it was time.</p>

<p><center><img src="http://spirer.com/images/mynx11.jpg" alt="" width="467" height="700" /></center></p>

<p>By accident. I spent a year in college studying engineering; very early the next year I feel very ill and had to withdraw. For various reasons, I enrolled in the local community college and picked two classes: online calculus and Introduction to Photo... and fell right in. I used my dad's SLR (an Olympus OMG) for that class, and picked up my next two cameras (a Konica Auto S2 and a (now sadly broken) Ikonta) by the time it was done... and I reenrolled in the college as an art student. Soon after, I bought my first darkroom set from a local photographer going into semi-retirement, and have become the guy that people give old photo stuff to. <br>

I'm sure it was Google that brought me here originally, but I can't remember when or where...</p>

<p>It all started when my father met my mother, fell in love, and . . .</p>

<p>It's a long story.</p>

<p>Cameras and photography have been part of our family for generations - I have photos that my grandfather shot on the family farm in the 20's. It was just assumed that I would want to be involved, so I had my first serious camera when I was 14 - and immediately got a lecture about the horrendous cost of each shot. My interest waxed and waned for decades. Photography was about documenting our lives and trips until the past decade with the advent of digital, and since then its become a serious hobby. As far as "here" on photo.net that's because I was looking for a place where adults discussed all things photography and nothing else comes close.</p>

<p>Had no interest until I had this brilliant office mate at my first university post in Japan. He was a fantastic photograph and insisted I get an SLR with my first bonus. But what got me started was when my borrowed Minolta Hi-Matic was stolen in Moscow (I'd left the SLR at home). There was a camera shortage all over the Soviet Union and I couldn't get a half-way good camera until I got to Warsaw. I bought a Zenit-B, a primitive machine that made me start thinking about the process of photography. I was hooked. My desire for a quiet camera for shooting lectures led me to rangefinders and eventually to Leicas. For years I did street photography without an audience, save for an occasional exposition that won me a few minor awards. I came upon Photo.net around 2000 or so and my life changed. I had a place to learn and an audience. I became a digital photographer before I got my first digital camera, which was in 2006. I still shoot film (which I san) but in every other way I am a creature of the digital age.</p>

<p>My dad bought me a Nikon F60 when I was in college in 2000.<br>

I really thought that owning a DSLR I could automatically get good pictures. I was wrong...<br>

I went to Grand Teton National Park, with a friend hoping to get postcard quality pics. Auto Everything.<br>

had all my pics processed at wal-mart. Came out flat. I was shocked.<br>

I asked my self why. That's how I progressed.</p>