What attracted you to photography in the first place?

If I'm personally honest with myself, I'd have to say that my engineer father had the greatest influence in that department. I grew up in a world of all the latest gadgetry from audio recording devices, cameras, TV's, 16mm film etc

My father was a photographer and I was forced to learn the family business which I hated. In rebellion I refused to have anything to do with photography for about 50 years. Digital intrigued me so I got an Oly DSLR and found out this stuff was fun.

I wanted a visual record of places and objects, and photography was the most practical way for me to achieve that. Add to that a love of precision instruments and I'm hooked on photography.

Great topic @Stig - thanks!

@minniev That's fascinating... glad you found your own way of doing photography after all! I'm trying not to influence my kids too much as far as their interests are concerned, but of course try to explain things and offer some help or guidance when they approach me with something they want to know about the things I do (such as photography, music etc.). I'm not sure if that's the right approach, but I've decided I will try to not force them into something I like or do for a living.

@leitz Totally get the love of precision instruments, at least when it comes to lenses!

It's hard to pinpoint what it was exactly that drew me into photography, but it only really started a couple of years ago. I had always been curious about tilt-shift photography and back then I found a great offer for a modern t/s bellows system, so I thought I might try it.

Because I was looking for an additional bellows lens for my system, I looked around and found a Schneider Kreuznach Xenar 105 mm f/3.5 and as strange as it sounds, it affected me deeply. I just loved the simple but beautiful design and construction, as well as the wonderful rendering of that lens... and thus my interest in old lenses was born.

Love-letters by simple.joy, on Flickr

And while using these interesting lenses, I also started appreciating the artistic aspects of photography and its possibilities for personal expression.

So even though I certainly had done a little bit of photography before, my real journey only started a couple of years ago, which is why I feel like I'm still learning and discovering things everyday. Sometimes during research for my articles on old lenses and their mysteries and often times during my (perhaps slightly) childlike approaches to and experiments with macro photography...

Hi,

Our school system didn't sport a middle school. So, two buildings, one k-6 and the other 7-12. When I got to 7th grade, now we had clubs. And one was the Yearbook club. Only the 12th graders got to use school owned cameras. But anyone could work in the darkroom or use their own camera. Which I didn't have one of.

Yet the darkroom was a job no one wanted to do. Our adviser was one of the chemistry teachers and he shot weddings on the weekend. And he talked me into becoming Mr Darkroom. Which I did even when it was my turn to be in the 12th grade.

And he would lend me a Mamiya 645 for when we had school dances and such. So, I began with medium format and added 35mm later.

And, much later yet long ago there was my first digital SLR. A Nikon E2. Then a Kodak 460. Then a Nikon D1. At which point I'll stop because there are a lot more to list. The early days of digital saw changes coming along hot and heavy.

Stan

Hatred and money, but mostly the hatred.

Creating visual memories. That's it. Anything else is just a byproduct.

Sorry to hear that. Hatred for what?

As a little Photobygms I grew up with a father that worked at a newspaper (a classic paper version,digital photography was not available yet), and knew the press photographers they worked with pretty good.
I did spend time at the darkroom at the newspaper and did like the techniques involved in developing film and photos my self.
Growing up photography became a hobby and digital and analog photography stilll is.

Hi,

Heh. :) Once my mom figured out I was working in the school darkroom, she handed my her old Ansco box camera. So my first camera was a lot like yours. Except I was older when I started. Quite the thing, a box camera. One of everything. Shutter Speed, aperture, piece of glass for a lens. Ye Olde Miniscus lens. One piece of glass making up two elements.

Stan

I left home to work in London. My father gave me an Old Yashica rangefinder with a broken light meter and a Weston light meter, to photograph my exciting new city.

Photography has been an important part of my life ever since. John Hehgecoe's, Book of Photography and a Pentax Spotmatic bought a year later, was the next step. But a year with the Weston light meter was solid base to start from.

One of my early London photographs, at Kensal Green

I liked gadgets, and cameras are gadgets.
I like visual records of stuff, and my drawing/art skills are non-existent.

Photography for me - is a stuff that train and develop ability to see and catch beauty everywhere.
I am not good photographer, but I know, that ability to see and catch beauty is very important, because it goes from heart.
Beauty opens human heart and in that moment of life human being become closer to God.

If you check out this link with a link:
dprevived.com/t/iconic-stickman-photograph-found/5190/#post-66379
There is an interesting aspect about it that grabbed my attention. To quote " He said the quality of the photos suggested they were taken by a professional, and so he looked for chemists, as many of them were involved in photography.
Mr Edwards discovered a chemist working in Salisbury, close to where the picture was taken, who had a son called Ernest Farmer, and then found his handwriting online."