How did you become interested in Photography?

[opus]

I think I've told this story before. It's long. I can't help it, because my passion for photography goes back a long way.

I've always been an "artist" since I was a toddler putting crayon to paper, but I never really found a medium that I loved, except maybe sculpture (lost-wax casting was my favorite) which was much too expensive for a young girl to truly pursue. I think I always felt my imagination was limited, too, as I could never quite master the concept of "abstract". I was always wanting to draw or paint exactly what I saw, which was frustrating when my skills didn't quite match my standards. I was too impatient to just sit and work, alone, on perfecting my art.

At the same time, when I was growing up my dad was an amateur photographer. He always shot slides of our vacations and then would have a "slide show party" when we got home. Our friends loved it (they said), and pretty soon a lot of them were asking him to take their wedding pictures. My dad would do it for friends who didn't have a lot of money. So I grew up around it, although I never took to it myself until I had a class in high school.

With that class I *immediately* fell in love with photography, although the darkroom intimidated me, but I just loved finding patterns and symmetry in the world around me and seeing how they looked in black and white. It was an art form that actually lived up to my expectations. Then, because I had this photography class, I started carrying my camera around to my other classes, and so my English teacher asked if I wanted to help take pictures for the yearbook, which at that time was limited to Seniors. I was thrilled to be included! So that year some of my pictures got published in the yearbook, and the next year I was a shoo-in for Photo Editor of the newspaper, and Chief Photographer for the yearbook. (My teacher didn't want me to be Photo Editor for the yearbook because she wanted me to be out taking the pictures instead. I figured out later that I took about 90% of the candids in the yearbook.)

I absolutely adored it. I loved peeking out of the corner with my telephoto lens, catching people at "the decisive moment". I loved the photojournalism aspect of it. (I loved having a "press pass" that got me out of class anytime I wanted!) I also took "artistic" shots, and I think I already knew at a subconscious level that I loved capturing light in its many moods. I took one picture at that time of early morning mist rising from a pond, with weeping willow trees in the background, that won first place in the school art show and got "ooohs" and "aaahs" from everyone who looked at it. I was hooked.

My work in that yearbook defined me for the next 10 years, literally. It was my greatest accomplishment, and had there been a fire or tornado, the yearbook would have been the one thing I'd try to save. But when i got out of school, I lost my purpose. I didn't really love landscapes, or birds or wildlife, and I couldn't figure out a reason to take street shots. I had briefly worked with a local photographer in his studio as something of an intern, but when that ended I didn't have the confidence to move into "truly" professional photography, either in the studio or at a newspaper. So over the years I just got away from it. I also had bad equipment and didn't realize it. My dad had given me one of his extra cameras, but never told me that he had had troubles with it. I only found that out last year, in casual conversation. Thanks, dad! No wonder my exposures were always "off"!

So anyway, fast forward to 2002. I'm on my way to London, and I make an impulse purchase of a Canon Ti, because after holding it I couldn't leave the store without it. Two weeks later I "happened" to snap those pictures of Paris that I entered in the contest (see my other posts). When I got them developed, I got sooooooooo excited again, realizing that I STILL AM A PHOTOGRAPHER AND HAVEN'T LOST MY TOUCH!!!

One year later I bought my digital Rebel because digital had finally reached my standards.

And here I am today.

[WeekendShogunPhotog]

But I just recently got into it b/c i wanted to photograph mountain biking. I also just wanted a camera to take snap shots w/ . Now i find my self looking at things diffrently trying to get a shot and get better at photography!

Sho

[Hodgy]

I took a darkroom course to fill my college roster (figured it was a bird course). I was in my fourth yr information systems. After I developed my first picture, I dropped all my course's (except the darkroom). Photography has been in my life ever since.

[tab]

For me I had to come full circle. My father was a photographer in the Navy in WWII aboard the USS Wasp in the pacific. He then continued as a civilian employee of the military as a photographer and motion picture cameraman and then a director. He tried to teach photography to his kids but he didn't have the patience of a teacher nor was he able to express the passion he must have had for photography with us for some unknown reason. Plus because he was always around to take good pictures we never bothered to pick up a camera on our own. So growing up I was always around photographers and cameras and those damn lightmeters that looked so fascinating to a young boy but were never allowed to touch. I couldn't tell you how many of those of his I must have broken, taken them apart losing parts, screwing up the settings. This was in the 60's and 70's, that stuff wasn't all automatic and it was expensive. At one point I developed my own b&w images but I wouldn't do it right and my father would yell and take over and that would be the end of that. On occasion I would buy a P&S take some decent pictures, then lose the camera or break it. It wasn't until I was 30 that I picked up a N50, a Tamaron lens and started shooting. Whether he realizes it or not, everything my father and his friends taught me started to come to the surface. I quickly grew out of that system and have sinced moved on to both simpler but better equipment to more elaborate professional 35mm equipment. And every once in awhile when all the cylinders are firing and the lighting falls just right and I know I just nailed the shot, I then know the passion he must have had when he often did the same.

[coloradoamigo]

it all started in '93. Living in Houston at the time, I came to Colorado for vacation, borrowing a friend's point and shoot. Until that time, I had always loved looking at photographs, but did not have much interest in actually shooting them myself.
Well, I saw all that beautiful scenery through that little tiny viewfinder in a different way than I normally "see" things, and I was hooked.
Unfortunately, personal demons brought me down for quite a few years after that, and alot of my interests faded during that rough time in my life. Once I got back on my feet, photography was once again in my life, then I moved to Colorado and it became a passion.
I bought a Nikon N80 in 2002 and started shooting slide film, and have sinced moved on to the D70 (but still have the N80 as well). I have learned so much in a relatively short period of time (many thanks to this board for alot of that).
I am lucky to live in a state that offers so much to photograph, especially someone such as myself that loves to shoot the landscapes.
Great thread, I've really enjoyed reading the responses.

[CTPhil]

From the first roll of B&W film taken with an old "brownie" type camera, as a kid in the mid 60's, it just resonated somehow.

[Outdoorsman]

I have always been interested in photography. I didn't start actually doing it until 2001. But to me, why I stay interested in photography is more important than how I got into it. Here's a little story to illustrate.

I was on assignment today to get "that one perfect shot" of sandpipers on the beach. I needed to get them lined up with a reflection on the wet sand and some nice afternoon light.
It was another foggy, grey day. I parked at the beach and checked my gear. Clean lens, enough exposures left on the roll, extra film, tripod set to the right kneeling height. I left the car and walked out into the sand. The beach was mostly empty. Four miles of sand stretching off to the south where it meets high cliffs, a ceiling of fog hanging over it. Cold breezes raised the hair on my arms.
I spotted a few dozen sandpipers doing their thing nearby. I slowly walked over and carefully knelt down. The wet sand soaked through my jeans instantly. I set the camera to servo AF, dialed in half a stop of overexposure, and cranked the aperture down to f/8. I picked out one of the little guys and followed him around. Little head like a sewing machine, up and down lightning quick, picking tiny bits of food out of the sand. At one point he stopped, cocked his head. He was looking right at me. I took the shot. He darted away, mottled brown back and white belly blending in with all the others. They were darting about, bumping into each other, playing, jumping, all the while their little feet moving so fast! And the constant pecks, a blur of speed. I lost the one I picked out and just watched them all, how they interacted, how they seemed so tireless. They looked very soft, so close that I almost felt the small feathers, the soft little bellies.
I stopped, looked up. There was no one around. I realized I'd been kneeling there for a good half hour. I had forgotten all about the world. You could have landed a 747 next to me and I wouldn't have noticed. I'd only shot 12 or 15 frames. My batteries were low from the constant AF operation and my knees were sore. I was getting cold in only a t-shirt and wet jeans, and the sun wasn't showing signs of breaking through. So I switched off the camera and walked back to the car. A certain sense of peace had settled over me. I felt serene. I kept looking back over my shoulder to see the sandpipers. They were still there, still darting around, pecking lightning fast at little bits of food.
This is why I do photography.