Post your first image image that excited you

the_local_jacko

the_local_jacko

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Martin
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I finally got round to putting a shot that I took myself as my avatar. It's a shot I took about 3 months into shooting (3-4months ago) with my first DSLR and although it's far from perfect it was the first picture that gave me a bubbling feeling. To put it in to context that bear is on top of that pole which towers up about 25-30 feet from the ground. It was a family day out at South Lakes Zoo and we were on our way out of the park after watching the big cats being fed and I spotted it. I was shooting manual and under exposed the image twice as I originally composed the image to have the bear silhouetted against the sky before I changed my position to get this one against the tree line back drop.

I wondered whether others would like to share the first image they shot that really meant something to them (whatever technical level they were at) and give any story to it?
 
Impossible, I'm afraid. It was taken while I was at school about 35 years ago and D&Ped by yours truly. During a house move, a load of negs vanished including that one. It was a horrendously grainy (Tri-X pushed to 1600 ASA (as it was then)) photo of a kayaker behing a stopper wave with just his hands and paddle visible. Camera was a Pentax S1a, with the meter mounted on the prism. Fully manual camera and I loved it. Belonged to my father who flogged all his film stuff to finance a Minolta Dimage 5.
 
This probably the first image I took that really excited me.


Dummy by Pat MacInnes, on Flickr

It was taken circa late 1997 when I'd just changed over from a wildlife illustration course to a HND in photography. I'd no studio experience and I was thrown in at the deep end with medium format and 5x4 cameras. It's a polaroid neg that was actually a test shot to check the lighting before the subject sat in a few minutes later. I don't have the shot I ended up taking, but I have this as a prized photo that I love to this day. I have a 12x16" print on my wall at home that I printed in the darkroom the same day....

One thing that stands out for me is that this is from my 'first phase' of photography, when i was learning at university. There's very little I like of mine from this period. My 'second phase' started about five years ago when I regained the love for photography - I was editing a national fishing magazine at that times and wanted to improve the photography in the mag so effectively went back to basics, relearned and tried to set a standard in the mag. I also started shooting more for myself at this time and this is the shot that kicked it all off, on a personal level, into bringing me where I am now (photographically speaking):


The Snowboarder by Pat MacInnes, on Flickr
 
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Oxwich Bay, Canon 300D and 10-22mm lens.
I have this as a huge canvas on my wall. It wasn't until I'd done this that we noticed the couple kissing down by the sea

95210503.jpg
 
Nod said:
Impossible, I'm afraid. It was taken while I was at school about 35 years ago and D&Ped by yours truly. During a house move, a load of negs vanished including that one. It was a horrendously grainy (Tri-X pushed to 1600 ASA (as it was then)) photo of a kayaker behing a stopper wave with just his hands and paddle visible. Camera was a Pentax S1a, with the meter mounted on the prism. Fully manual camera and I loved it. Belonged to my father who flogged all his film stuff to finance a Minolta Dimage 5.
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After I posted I realised I should have added a comment to say there was no ignorance intended by me to those that have been shooting for years and for one reason or another don't have access to their early images. It's just really a bit of fun for those that can but thanks for posting your story.

Some interesting images/stories so far people. Keep them coming.
 
I'm not at all active on these boards having not long had dslr but this was probably the first photo i took and thought Id quite like to get a dslr and have a go at 'Top side' photography.

Id had a canon ixus in a housing for a couple of months and desided to get a inon fish eye for a fourth coming trip to the red sea .

My mate Andy was messing around with a video camera and i was kneeling on the sea bed . Its the stern of the SS Thistlegorm.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/87458038@N04/8007199033/
 
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One of my few remaining from the 80's. I've shamelessly copied+pasted from the flickr description because a) I'm getting ready for work and b) It pretty much says all it needs to :)

Long story, this one. 27yrs. Pt1: Back in '83 I was shooting my brother's band, Passion Trade (he's on the far right) around Hartlepool, close to where the Historic Quay is now. Bit of a waste land, then. May 1st. It was foul weather and started to rain heavily. We ducked into this tunnel, the shot came to me and we did it.
Pt2: Apart from a poor quality newsprint copy, I thought I'd lost this pic forever and I always liked it. My brother was at mine last week (23rd March 2011) and I was scanning the newsprint version. "I've still got all the original prints, you know" I didn't know whether to hug him or kill him! So here we are. I've used PP (GIMP) to do the print as I originally wanted it and in fact, once printed it pretty much like this in the darkroom.


PassionTrade '83 by Michael B O'Brien, on Flickr

It almost won me a CZ lens in a competition but I had to make do with an honourable mention lol.
The band wanted this as a cover but being young/unsigned/crap, they split soon after :D

Kit: Practika MTL3, standard Pentacon. Film was probably Illford (the band were paying :) :) ). The pic is from a scanned print, the neg is lost :(
 
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got up for work, opened the curtains and saw this... ran around like a half asleep deranged monkey looking for the camera... set the camera and captured three images... ended up with this hdr effort... when i first saw it on the pc it kinda took my breath...




Sunrise over the Sutors of Cromarty by EoghanSmith, on Flickr
 
Probably this one:
CJP20030921-0001_zpsa47cdeab.jpg


It was the 1st image I took that got printed big (8x10 was big back then :D). Was taken on a Sony Cybershot 1.9MP digital camera. Behind where this was taken David Blane was sat in a perspex box, surrounded by police to stop people harassing him!

Exif says it was 21/09/2003.
 
For me, I think it has to be my first real sunset shot where I live.

Looking at it now, I wish I knew now what I did then as there are some errors but I remember being very proud of it (and still am).

This was taken with my second DSLR (Nikon D2X) in January 2011 and was one exposure.

I think this was a landmark shot for me because it was when I realised that I was getting better and actually have the capability to produce good images that people enjoy looking at - that for me was the message behind the end result here.

171665_192198707470838_3928699_o_copy.jpg
 
How strange I was thinking of starting a similar thread - I just need to scan mine in it was taken on one of those old Kodak 110 cameras when I was about 10 or 11 :D
 
Phil Young said:
For me, I think it has to be my first real sunset shot where I live.

Looking at it now, I wish I knew now what I did then as there are some errors but I remember being very proud of it (and still am).

This was taken with my second DSLR (Nikon D2X) in January 2011 and was one exposure.

I think this was a landmark shot for me because it was when I realised that I was getting better and actually have the capability to produce good images that people enjoy looking at - that for me was the message behind the end result here.

171665_192198707470838_3928699_o_copy.jpg
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Wow, superb shot, what were the settings?
 
For me it has to be this one of my car, one of the first shots I took after upgrading to half decent glass!


Kermit by James-306, on Flickr

Would take it very differently now though!
 
the_local_jacko said:
After I posted I realised I should have added a comment to say there was no ignorance intended by me to those that have been shooting for years and for one reason or another don't have access to their early images. It's just really a bit of fun for those that can but thanks for posting your story.

Some interesting images/stories so far people. Keep them coming.
Click to expand...

Absolutely no problem! I should have added a smiley after my first sentence but usually use the quick reply box which doesn't have them as clickable, although a smiley face is created using the emoticon of a colon followed by a close bracket, I think. :)
 
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