How long have you been into photography?

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karabo Success Mosibi

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Karabo
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Hi, I’m new here and I just want to know how long have you guys been doing photography? I’m a senior student currently studying photography
 
Welcome to the forum...

There are thousand of members on here, some will have been doing photography for a few days, while others will have been doing it for well over fifty years or so.
Plus all the masses in between.
 
about 10 years.

i seen a photo on a forum and was very impressed by the image quality.

i asked them what camera they had and they said a canon 60d.

so i bought a 550d as my first serious camera.
 
Just under 54 years, but I was processing and printing other people's films and negatives for about a year before I had a camera of my own. So just under 53 years of taking photographs.
 
Hi Karabo, about 50 years. Had my first camera as a small boy, worked semi-professionally in the late 1980s, just a hobby now.
 
Since 1972 when I first bought a camera. However, I did take a few photographs with loaned cameras even before that but just for record only.

Dave
 
My dad gave me my first camera in 1969, but I couldn't afford to put film in it until 1971 when I got my first school holiday job collecting and washing glasses in a pub.
 
First serious SLR camera bought used about 1982 it's an Olympus OM20 and still have it.
Then tended to downsize somewhat with the film equivalent of better quality compact cameras.
Followed by most of ten years more interested in video with camcorders until digital became a thing.
Now about 50-50 photo/video with versions of Sony A7 and RX100 cameras
 
Frighteningly I’ve just thought about it and it’ll be 30 years next year. It started at school like a lot of others and developed in to having a darkroom at home after I inherited a Pentax ME super. It took a bit of a hiatus when I went to uni and eventually started work and as a result didn’t really have time for it. Roll forwards a few years and I started playing a bit more with digital. About 5 years ago the I finally made the leap fully to digital after a series of fairly major back ops made me realise that no I wasn’t going to be able to keep playing with motorbikes hill walking etc and it was a case of accepting that, moving on and concentrating on things I could do. I will say though at that point I never dreamt photography would wind up more expensive than motorcycles :ROFLMAO:
 
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Been taking photo's since I was something like 9 years old - hated being in photo's - seeing myself on the photo, so worked out if I took the picture, I wouldn't be in it. So, nearly all our family holiday snaps were taken by me, of my parents - i'd show up rarely, and looked really miserable in them, because I wanted to be the other side of the camera. All this with various rubbish cameras that my parents bought (usually for a holiday, and it'd either get lost or broken before the next...)

First camera or my own for my 13th birthday present - call it 45 years or so. Had my own darkroom at one point, loved the process of wet printing. Spent a few years shooting weddings back in the film days, even worked the cruise ships for a brief while as ships photographer. Drifted away and sold most of my film kit - kept a few lenses for 35mm and one medium format kit, but didn't use them for ages. Then, Christmas 2008 I decided to treat myself to a digital SLR, joined this place for some hints and tips, got involved with helping out on the POTY competitions, and 3 years later ended up on the staff.
 
Just coming up to 50 years. I got my first camera for my 10th birthday and I still have it. A Kodak Instamatic 36.
 
TheBigYin said:
just read through this thread - holy crap we're old!
Click to expand...

That's what I was thinking. :facepalm:

I shot my first wedding in '77 and mostly did events and portraits through the eighties. I gave up on the dream of owning a studio one day due to the cost of equipment and ended up working as a video editor for a west-end company that did a lot of BBC and CH4 work. I earned a fortune doing that and my new found wealth took me into aviation. It seems like a hundred years ago now.
 
There's a photo of me somewhere in the old albums using a borrowed camera in 1955. My first camera was a plastic one from Woolworths that used 828 film (basically 35mm without sprocket holes and with backing paper, as I recall) which I was given in 1957. I started contact printing and then developing about two years later, and got my first enlarger in 1961.

I went from box cameras to 35mm, then finally (after moving away from colour slides) I got a Mamiya RB67, followed by an RZ67. Eventually, a dealer convinced me that 5x4 was like roll film for quality, but better. So I started on the slippery slope to ever larger film. I now use mainly 5x7, but also 10x8 as well as the "miniature" 5x4.

So in terms of years, let's say around 66.
 
gramps said:
Welcome to the forum - around 60 years on and off ... and still learning. :)
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It's it has been a long time

Am just doing my final year but am really interested in photography and am looking foward to learn more everyday
 
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woof woof said:
Today?

Then Happy Birthday Malc :beer:
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Haha! That's what happens when you think in Norwegian and write directly into English! No, not my burfday until Sept...although the idea of a pint of Guinness does appeal. 'Now' instead of 'today' would be better English...
 
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TheBigYin said:
just read through this thread - holy crap I'm old!
Click to expand...


FTFY, Mark!

I'm a relative youngster and took my first snapshot about 50 years ago. Got "into" photography a few years later, about 45 years ago.
 
saltireblue said:
Haha! That's what happens when you think in Norwegian and write directly into English! No, not my burfday until Sept...although the idea of a pint of Guinness does appeal. 'Now' instead of 'today' would be better English...
Click to expand...

Oh well, every day should be a day to celebrate so... enjoy, birthday or not.
 
saltireblue said:
Started when I was given a Brownie 127 for my 9th birthday, and I am today, 68 and still learning the trade...go figure. :giggle:
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Sounds very similar to my own experience. Brownie 127 when I was about 9, and I'll be 68 in a couple of weeks...:)
 
karabo Success Mosibi said:
Hi, I’m new here and I just want to know how long have you guys been doing photography? I’m a senior student currently studying photography
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Before 1985, I did use Polaroid camera. Since 1985, started doing proper photography with a 35mm SLR. But since about 2000, been too busy as a single parent to do any photography.
 
SERAME said:
It's it has been a long time

Am just doing my final year but am really interested in photography and am looking foward to learn more everyday
Click to expand...

I'm not sure we ever stop learning.
 
When I started taking pictures for fun and profit, girl's skirts were short; boys hair was long and minis were British made and often psychodelic...

Masada Israel Pentacon FM 1968 01-28.jpg
Adrian with LP West London Pentacon FM 67-9012.jpg
Painted Mini Nikon F 1969_Arbitrary_1_06.jpg
 
Brownie Cresta when I was 10, this had an adjustable aperture which comprised of a metal plate with 3 different sized holes in it. You could slide the plate so that the correct hole was in front of the lens. The shutter was a metal plate with a curved rectangular hole which swung across the back of the lens. I only got rid of it 5 years ago when I was 68 and we were redecorating.
Halina 35mm when I was 18, Practika LLC 35mm SLR when I was 20 followed by others, Nikon DSLR when I was 60.
So 63 years ago when I started :)
 
Hi @karabo Success Mosibi

As you can see from the above replies your question covers a wide range......a little like asking "how long is a piece of string".

For me? I think I was 5 or 6 when I took my first picture on my dad's box camera and though I cannot recall seeing that/those first pictures I do recall the wonder of getting the envelope of small B&W prints with deckle edges to them in the time following.

Both my brother & I in due course had cameras, he went on to make his interest into his work but I have always been an amateur. So in answer to your question more than 60 years and I may have done the odd evening class course or two in my teens but otherwise entirely self learned..............and more importantly, for me, even after >60 years the journey continues :)
 
My very first photo I ever took was back in the 60s, I was sat in my fathers lap and he helped me to hold and take a sunset image on Ayers Rock and I still have the very old slide with me. While in Australia I did have a very old camera but can't even remember the name but when it was open it was like a castle door bridge. Then I went off photography for many years and got back into it seriously about 76, so many years off and on for me.


EDIT.. Just spoke to my Mum on the phone to ask her as she has a great long term memory, my old camera my father gave me was a Zeiss Ikon Nettar 120 Roll camera, and Mum still has it too for safe keeping.
 
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