Grex Photography Conference

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Grex Photography Item 6: What started your interest in photography?
Entered by mcpoz on Sat Apr 8 12:36:34 UTC 1995:

What started your interest in photography?  Personally, I had a 2nd cousin
who was an important photographer.  When I was quite young, he developed 
some gigantic prints and I remember watching them develop.  I couldn't
believe it!  I made contact prints off of 220 negatives for years after that.

10 responses total.

#1 of 10 by mwarner on Sun Apr 9 03:03:47 1995:

When I was a about 9 I invested in a contact printing set and recorded the
travels of my pet turtle.  I then pursued a career in photojournalism
after being further inspired by the work of Mathew Brady in Junior  High. 
I got out of the newspaper biz while still young, but things have recurved
to my having an interest in finding and reproducing images from the past &
doing related historical research, which all strangely fits me, somehow.

#2 of 10 by rcurl on Sun Apr 9 04:47:50 1995:

My father had a basement darkroom. We moved to an apartment, but set up a
bathroom darkroom. I was developing and printing my B&W photos from about
the age of 8. I took a lot of pictures that I thought were "ART" - I
suppose some were OK. I had a darkroom in my college dorm room, and taught
photography at a community center in Boston. By this time, I got into
color slides, but increasing responsibilities cut out darkroom time, and I
never pursued color processing. Then both occupation and other interests
intruded further, and my B&W work fell by the wayside. Now I have too many
slides to look at, and mostly take record shots, which get filed after one
viewing.

#3 of 10 by mcpoz on Sun Apr 9 21:43:17 1995:

Here's a really neat technique with old color slides:  
Project the color slide onto sheet film using a standard enlarger.  You 
now have a great big negative for contact printing.  I tried this with
4x5" plus-X and the results were good.  I never invested in larger sheet
film, but if you have time and $$ it may be worth a try.  (I believe the
slides were old Kodachrome x)

#4 of 10 by dadroc on Fri Apr 14 15:57:29 1995:

I just had to master the Spy Camera. Tessina, Minox, the classic japanese
16 mm junk, the Minolta 16. I started to take pictures with small cameras
to do pencil sketches from, so I did not care about the camera, just needed
it around to snap something when I saw it, eventually the camera won out and
the exploration was on, I still want the lighter camera in Dr. Strangelove,
the gun camera from the last century, the Cigarette package camera, the Cravet
camera....

#5 of 10 by mcpoz on Fri Apr 14 19:01:14 1995:

I've always wanted a minox, but never went out and laid down the hard earned
cash for one.

#6 of 10 by denise on Sat Jul 12 20:35:33 1997:

Hmm, even though this item is a couple years old, apparently I never responded
to it [tho' neither have a few other members of the conference!]

Anyway, I started taking pictures back in elementary school, around 5th grade.
I'm not really sure who motivated me--its something that I just wanted to do!
My dad's always beein interested in picture-taking so maybe I picked it up
from him [as none of my other 6 siblings got into it--at least not as kids.
They do now to a small extent--at least my brothers who have kids have.] For
the most part, my family relies on me to take pictures and to send them
copies!  Am glad my Dad is still interested in picture taking, too, though.

#7 of 10 by omni on Sat Jul 26 03:54:25 1997:

  It started as a merit badge for min boy scouts, and then my mother picked
up the hobby, although her end of it was developing and printing, something
I only did on the black & white side. 
  She bought an expensive color enlarger, and did ok with it.

  Now I am more focused, you will excuse the pun. I am trying to teach myself
about composition and patience behind the shutter. I am also trying to learn
how to take nature and urban scenery, not necessarily people. As for
developing, I'll leave that to York.

#8 of 10 by ball on Mon Feb 6 05:10:59 2006:

When I was a young boy on a primary school field trip, I
took a picture of Old Harry Rocks in Dorset, England with a
Kodak Pocket Instamatic 110.  More by luck than good
judgement the picture came out quite well.

#9 of 10 by addams on Thu Jul 6 09:25:31 2006:

Forgive my reanimating this topic.
I got started with photography after seeing the website
http://www.abandoned-places.com . This site, like the name says, features
all kinds of abandoned places from everywhere in Europe.  When I found such a
place, unknown to this photographer, by accident I arranged a camera and began
shooting pictures. This was all about three years ago.  I began with an
Praktica Super TL2, and later got an Olympus OM-2. I'm saving money for a
digital SLR.

#10 of 10 by gull on Wed Jul 12 01:08:47 2006:

I recently had to take some abandoned building photos off my website.  
The property owner emailed me and asked me to do so.  Since I had been 
shooting from private property without permission, she was within her 
rights to ask that.  The funny thing was that the pictures had been up 
for ten years at that point.  At the time I originally took them I had 
no idea who owned the property.

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