The first photo you ever took...

[joshroot]

<p>Excerpt from this month's Newsletter opening paragraphs:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Here is the first photo taken by my son Oliver (Canon 5D + EF 16-35/2.8L in case anyone is interested). No, he didn’t hold it himself, he’s only 18 months old. But he did look through the viewfinder, point it at his cousin, and press the button himself.</p>

<p>It got me thinking, could I remember the first photo I ever took (or even something close to the first)? I remember the first roll of film from my first camera, a Kodak Pocket Instamatic 100. It was mostly of people’s knees, I was a short kid. Can you remember your first photo?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>So how about it? Can anyone remember their first photo? Even better, does anyone have it that they can share? I sure can't, the best I can do is recall seeing a lot of photos of legs and knees from that first roll of 110 film. Of course I thought they were all amazing, but my parents encouraged me to aim higher, both figuratively and literally.</p>

<p>If I were going to critique Oliver's image, I might say that the better photo could have included all of his cousin's arms, as he was leaning on his elbows very cutely. But the direct look into the camera, the soft light from the right, and the off center composition work for me. The slightly unlevel framing might work or might not depending on your viewpoint. Some might argue that it is too close to level to be "edgy" but too off-kilter to not be distracting. I am undecided. Probably because my cute nephew is too distracting in and of himself.</p>

<p><a href="../photo/14423672"><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/14423672-md.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="453" /></a></p>

[Charles_Webster]

<p>I distinctly remember the first photo I ever took. It was 55 years ago on my tenth birthday. I received a Brownie Six-16 box camera as a birthday present. My birthday celebration was aboard the SS Admiral, a St. Louis based paddle wheel excursion boat on the Mississippi River.<br>

I was excited to take pictures of the far shore (more than a mile away my grandmother said), but didn't like the view in the viewfinder (it was way too small). Needless to say, when the prints arrived by mail a few weeks later, my disappointment increased, because what the camera had captured was what the viewfinder saw, not what I saw with my eyes. Unfortunately, those prints are long lost.<br>

That lesson stuck with me for 55 years as a "photographer" and I often tell people that much of the art of photography lies in training yourself to see as the camera does.<br>

<Chas></p>

[steve_levine]

<p>At age nine in April 1964 I visited Washington DC. My parents bought me a brand new Sawyer 620 (plastic) roll camera for the trip.The film was most likely Verichrome pan. My first picture, which I still have someplace, was of JFK's original burial place. It was adorned with several military hats and an eternal flame. The rest of the roll is of the usual monuments and bldgs in DC.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>I believe the first photo I took was of my feet using a 110 instamatic camera while camping out with the family on a 1000 sq ft. spoil bank island in the Laguna Madre outside Port Mansfield, Texas. First camping trip as well.</p>

<p>When my mom saw the finished prints she said I was waisting film taking pictures like that. When I saw the slightly blurry dull colored results, far from what my eyes saw when I tripped the shutter, I had to agree with her and began to despise cheap Kodak camera's. I wanted the results my grandmother was getting with her Brownie which was this model...</p>

<p>

<p>...that included a side mount flash.</p>

<p>Nice crisp detailed square prints. I couldn't figure out how she did it.</p>

[georg_s1]

<p>I got a used Reflekta II (east-german TLR) a few days after my 10th birthday from a friend of the family. The first photo I took alone was a carefully composed picture of my shiny bicycle - called „Jupiter”. I still have the picture somewhere - I just can't find the glossy 9x9cm-print right now.<br>

Two years ago I picked up the Reflekta, shot a couple of rolls with it and let a local repairman performing a CLA. But it's mirror is almost de-silvered and the viewfinder really dim.<br>

Here's a shot of the beautiful Reflekta II:</p>

<div></div>

[User_276104]

<p>Here is the first photo I remember taking - this is on the Jefferson River in Montana, Summer 1976. I was 9 years old. My Dad (in the photo) showed me what to do with his Nikkormat FT2 + 50mm lens and said I could take<strong><em> one</em></strong> picture that day. The film was Kodachrome.</p>

<p>Not the best scan; I did it when I first got a film scanner in 2003.</p><div></div>

[starvy]

<p>I wish I could remember! It might well have been as a teenager with my Hanimex fixed focus camera. Chances are that it was of the sky or the moon.</p>

[chelsea]

<p>The first picture I remember taking was a self-portrait when I was about 6 years old. A fellow had this camera on a tripod, and had this long wire with a bulb on the end that you squeezed and it tripped the shutter. Poor fellow left it out on the lawn, unattended, around a bunch of us little brats...hehehe...I believe my brother and his friend started it, and 2 or 3 others of us chimed right in. The shot is still around here somewhere, I had on a striped shirt and pair of shorts, and was making what I thought was a funny face, but was a bad grimace. No, I ain't sharing that one! LOL! </p>

[hjoseph7]

<p>Sorry too old to remember ! </p>

[David_Cavan]

<p>I was 16, it was 1966. My father passed along his Walzflex, which I still have on a shelf in the photography room. The photo was of our farm in Saskatchewan - black & white, and it's almost in focus. I still have the print, and the negative. After I ran through a roll of 120 in a couple of days my parents sat me down and explained about the cost of photography, and the need to ration my shots. It was 39 years later that I bought my first digital SLR, and realized the beautfy of not having to think about the cost of pressing that shutter one (or ten) more times.</p>

[charles_stobbs3]

A coin operated (.10) booth in a railroad station.

[Palouse]

<p>Maybe--my dad had a Zeiss-Ikon Nettar and he let me take a few pictures when I was about 5 or 6. I remember a yellow filter and a Weston meter. I think the shots were of him and my brother fishing. My brother, a year older, wouldn't go near the camera, but for me it was, and always has been, a natural and strong connection.</p>

[randallfarhy]

<p>It all started with a 9th grade science experiment. A seagull in flight taken with some cheapo plastic camera (blue and black plastic) using B&W film that the teacher had us process. In reality it was no more than a blurry little spec on a grayish background, but that's all it took to get me hooked. A year later I started shooting for the yearbook. </p>

[pjmeade]

<p>I think my neighbor gave me an old bellows camera in my early teen years and I used it at the open day at my father's aircraft factory.<br>

I went on from that camera to a series of plastic instamatics and then to my first SLR, a Zenith B, in the early 1970s. I still have the negetives from the first roll of film I shot with that.<br>

I had a quick look through my old scans and found on of the first shots of me. I'm the small person in the background in this 1955 shot. My brother is now nearly 60.</p><div></div>

[chris_waller]

<p>I certainly can - and this is it. Well, it is one of my first four but I can't remember exactly which one was the absolute first. It was taken in 1965 on an Ilford Sprite camera which had two aperture settings and a single shutter speed. The film rails were curved to compensate for the curvature of field of the lens!</p><div></div>

[chris_waller]

<p>P.S. - here's a link to a page about the Ilford Sprite 127.<br>

<a href="http://www.photomemorabilia.co.uk/Ilford/Sprite_127.html">http://www.photomemorabilia.co.uk/Ilford/Sprite_127.html</a></p>

<p> </p>

[ian_gordon_bilson]

<p>I can see this thread running for many pages..in as much as Monsieur Root is evoking memories.<br>

Sitting in the "Caroline Bay Soundshell" ,Timaru,South Canterbury,when the Royal New Zealand Air Force staged a flypast with their new-fangled 'Vampire' (proudly British-made) jet fighters. About 1960.<br>

I was allowed 2 exposures with the pre-war Agfa box camera.<br>

The local chemist produced 3 x4 in enlargements,in which the Pride of the Empire featured as perfectly sharp little arrows, about 5mm long.<br>

I knew then,that there was more to photography than 'met the eye'.</p>

 

[anthea50]

<p>I can remember the first camera I had from the late '70's, an Olympus Trip 35. This shot is from the first roll I took, although I don't recall the first actual shot I took, this is the closest I can be. Good thread Josh, I'm enjoying reading all the stories...</p><div></div>

[ken_jeanette1]

<p>I don't think they had photography when I was young.</p>

[m_kevin_johnson]

<p>I could provide my first 35mm shot with a K1000 in 1977 when I was about 12 but not my first image becasue I used a 126 camera several years before that one. I lost nearly ALL those negs in a basement flood so I only have a few I scanned from back then. I do have a likely canidate of my dad playing the mandolin on our picnic table too late in the day for my camera with no flash.<br>

I worked all summer cutting lawns to by that K1000 and I still have it to this day and it still works as well as it did when I bought it.</p>

[m_kevin_johnson]

<p>I could provide my first 35mm shot with a K1000 in 1977 when I was about 12 but not my first image becasue I used a 126 camera several years before that one. I lost nearly ALL those negs in a basement flood so I only have a few I scanned from back then. I do have a likely canidate of my dad playing the mandolin on our picnic table too late in the day for my camera with no flash.<br>

I worked all summer cutting lawns to by that K1000 and I still have it to this day and it still works as well as it did when I bought it.</p>

[mikelgondra]

<p>I´m not sure, but I took my first photo when I was around 14. The camera was one small and thin. You could hardly view what you were taken and the negatives were really small, around 1/3 square inch. I was in a short holiday period in a small village close to the mountains and I shot those happy days with friends and some snow. I keep the images somewhere in my files - also the negatives, like microfilms - but the resolution is horrible enough that I hardly recognize myself. B and W, of course.</p>

[maury_cohen]

<p>I can remember the first ROLL I shot, but not the individual photos. I was 7 years old (in 1963) and our family was on its way to Europe, accompanying my dad on an educational Sabbatical. I had a Brownie Bullet, and took eight photos during a weeks layover in New York visiting family. My parents decided that I was going to have to leave the camera in New York and pick it up on the way home rather than bring it with us to Europe for six months. My dad used his Agfa Optima Reflex to document the trip on Kodachrome and Ektachrome. </p>

[va3uxb]

<p>I do not remember the exact year, but it was the latter half of the 1970's. I was less than 10 years old, but I can remember even then, I was fascinated with cameras. I somehow managed to convince my mother to let me hold / try / play with her new camera, and managed to take a couple snaps with it. As far as I am able to remember, this was my first photograph, my initial first-hand experience with a camera.</p>

<p>The camera itself was a Kodak Instamatic X-15, the film was black & white, and I still have the negatives filed away somewhere safe. Indeed, I actually now own that camera with which I took my very first pictures - recently my mother found it buried in a drawer somewhere and gave it to me.</p>

<p>The first picture I took, was of my mother. Either we didn't have any magic-cubes or she didn't want me to have them, so we went outside to get her in the sun - despite being the middle of winter. The picture is no award-winner of course; just the result of a 7- or 8-year-old snapping a pic of her mum.</p>

<div></div>

[William Kahn]

<p>Well, I remember it but have no idea what I shot or what happened to the photo. It was a Brownie box camera, I was about 5 years old, someplace either in Beedeville, AR or Schulenberg, TX...</p>