So how did you get started photography?

[Stevemartin]

I first got into photography from my cousin who's been doing it for a good decade now. Loved his work and wanted to have a crack at it. Was helping him on weekends doing wedding pictures and stuff like that was fun and so I got hooked! It's a great escape for me soothes my mind :-)

[landyvlad]

When I was about 8 my family (and I) moved to Saudi Arabia.

My first camera was a Kodak with 126 cartridge type film and those plug in disposable cube flash bulbs (I may be wrong but perhaps there were 4 faces each of which could be used once?).

The family also had a polaroid camera.

I took these on a number of holidays, but later upgraded (I must have been about 11 years old or so?) to a Minolta SLR with a couple of lenses. I have to say though that I didn't spend enough time learning and using the various manual controls that I should have, and it spent far too much of its time in 'auto mode'. Nevertheless I got some decent shots over the years. Unfortunately most of those are on slide film and I don't have any economical way of digitising it all...

Fast forward 25 years or so and I sold (almost gave away) the Minolta as it was falling apart and the lenses were dusty etc. And film was out of vogue. I bought a little Sony P&S camera for taking snapshots when on 4wd trips and hunting forays, etc. This was adequate for years, but then I decided that a better camera could get me some better pictures.

I still wanted something that was reasonably portable though as it would have to be on my belt for many hours at a time whilst carrying a rifle etc. Which is how I ended up with the Olympus I have now.

[landyvlad]

Umm typo I mean the Panasonic I have now !

[Hunter50]

My first camera was a Pentax K1000, with a 50mm lens, that my parents bought for me when my family had a holiday in Hong Kong. I did some photography at school (which was part of Physics), where we had a dark room and developed our own black and white photos. I liked playing with the camera and I worked out how shutter speed, ISO and exposure worked together to create an image.

What got me started in photography.......not sure really, but I did like the idea of taking a photo and showing it to other people. It was more to do with making a record of something or somewhere, rather than being creative or arty.

I used the Pentax camera for many years and developed an interest in landscape and travel photography, as well as plants and flowers. It was a solid, reliable and easy to use camera, and I still have it. I did a lot of bushwalking and went to some great places with spectacular scenery, around Canberra, which was a fantastic photographic inspiration. I used to send my films away for processing to a lab in Sydney and wait (in)patiently for the package of photos to come back in the mail, sometimes two weeks after sending it off. I used to get two for one prints, so I could give copies of the good photos to friends and family.

My interest in photography was to record the places I have been to, so I could show other friends and family. I used to put the good photos in a photo album, that weighed a ton. I wrote captions on pieces of paper, with the date of the photos and place the captions next to the photo on the pages on the album. Then I would smooth over the clear plastic film to hold the photos and captions in place - remember these albums. Today, it is nice to look at the photos taken in the 1980s, as a reminder of how things were then.

I didn't take many photos for about 10 years, until recently, when I bought an Olympus OMD-EM10 and started in the world of digital photography.

[taztek]

I was always the one volunteering to take the family group shots with my mum's box Brownie.
Cant really remember if that was 'cause I had a repulsion of being in front of the camera or a compulsion for being behind it.
The first camera I owned was a Kodak Instamatic and I can remember sitting on the front fence taking (way too many) shots of every Valiant Charger that drove by and then doing the 'V' (peace) sign and yelling out 'Hey Charger' !! (remember that ad)
I was about 15 at the time...

[Shav Bird Photography]

I've always surrounded myself with people who were into it. But it wasnt until I wanted to do more with my phone camera that the bug hit me. Not being satisfied with the phone camera I went out and purchased a body and lens pack online. Since then, I have been picking my friends brains and getting out and practicing like crazy trying to get better and better. Looking for new locations, trying different things, experimenting with settings. I've splashed out and bought new lenses in the mean time. Taken photos for actual jobs and getting paid for it too. It's been a real buzz and privilege to do work like that.

[spootz01]

I have always been fascinated by photography and I always saw images in the world around me. It wasn't until my auntie entered the DLSR realm that I really got into it though. I remember taking her Canon 450D around her back garden trying to take photos of the birds flying around in her aviary. That has lead to my passion for sports photography and the challenge of trying to capture the motion and speed of the players.

[Liney]

Not too sure when it happened but I suppose one day I saw something that made me go "I like the look of that, I want to record it somehow" Having no patience for drawing or painting photography seemed to be the next best thing. Mum and dad had an old kodak that used to get used on holidays (then got put in the wardrobe until next year, usually with the unfinished film still in it), but one year for Christmas I got an instamatic which used flashcubes and had 12 images to a film cartridge!

Once I got a job I suddenly had the cash to buy bigger and better, and it all took off from there

[R1Joel]

I was always interested in photography when I was younger. I played with my parents point and shoots for a while and decided to take it a little bit more seriously when I was about 12-13 (05-06). I saved for a very long time mowing lawns on weekends to buy a used Pentax K10D. I used it for years from about 2006-2007 until about 2012 when the camera became outdated so I lost interest. Until the start of this year when the interest was re-ignited, I decided to go out and buy a Nikon D7200 and I am having alot of fun.

[Joolstacho]

We did some photography at art school, I think with a Lubitel TLR, but it wasn't until I was Art Directing in Melbourne that I got into it deeply. I was working with some of our best commercial photographers, (no names to protect the guilty!) and I learned more than I can remember. Of course when you're working like this (with Ad Agency deadlines and generous budgets) there's no time to be self-indulgent. Every shot had to be right. One of the guys, (a very naughty German feller who drove around the city in a Messerschmitt bubble car) never used any sort of assistance with light readings, yet every 'Blad tranny was absolutely perfect (and yes I did see all the exposures).- We did a lot of location fashion stuff and I was pretty mean, pushing him around to all sorts of different and difficult locations. - So different now with digital, we shot tranny BITD. Around this time we did a lot of food photography at the Kraft studio. I would spend a day or two a week there, and I was VERY well fed!
Attached to the factory, it was part of the 'Test Kitchen' where there were about half a dozen young very talented cooks always very willing to please. We always shot 10x8 tranny. I didn't ACTUALLY polish pease, but I did actually paint them with oil to add a bit of gloss!
Later when I was freelancing I shot what I needed myself (I nearly said 'shot myself'! ) I really never had the right gear though, I never felt I could spend the money... I had to work too hard at it. Nevertheless I look back with some satisfaction at the results.
Later I had the run of a very well equipped studio, - around the time Digital was just getting useful. And the Phase One 5x4 scan back was the go. Exposure times were around 3-5 minutes! Lucky we had a very solid floor. It made beautiful photographs.
Of course like most I've been shooting digital for years. But I DO hear the call of my ol' Mamiya and Kowa 6 now, and I'm going to be heading to Vanbar soon to pick up some film and maybe a battery or two, -definitely one for my Lunasix, (but sorry I'm not a complete masochist, -I will cheat and check exposures with my Nikon D70 meter!)

[Joolstacho]

Whoops! - actually my 'daily user' is my good ol' D90 (not D70 as I said previously, not that it matters).

[ameerat42]

With this model Agfa 120 box camera

Just don't ask whn!