The Image(s) that started it all. (post yours)

[Tzetsin]

So I recently celebrated my first year with a DSLR. I've come a LONG way from my point and shoot days. I've been reflecting on my progress lately and am mostly happy with how I'm coming along.

I've been thinking about how much my DSLR has changed my life in the last year and I can tell you that it is a SUBSTANTIAL change. Normally I'm a total computer nerd. Thick glasses, pastey white, lives in the basement surrounded by coke cans. The "definition" of geek.

Now this isn't to say I never get out. My jobs have always been out in the world somewhere, so I do/did always travel a lot. Because I traveled so much I've always had a "camera" of some kind, and always just winged it. Point. Shoot. Sometimes I got lucky and had a few decent shots.

Two years ago I took a trip to Japan and China. My sister was with me and I'd taken craploads of typical tourist pictures and they sit in a file on my ext hdd and I didnt do much with them.

Then came christmas last year and I'd decided to print a photo of my sister for each place we had gone. The idea was that she would be "in" the photo, but not a photo of "her" but where she was. I spent a long time sifting through all the photos I'd taken in our travels, found 3, one to represent each country we went to, and did them up in black and white.

They were a huge hit, and everyone was impressed with what I'd done. I got the typical "wow you should do this more often" comments which obviously I took to heart. Shortly after all that I bought the 60D with the 18-200mm lens. Totally ignorant of how to use it, just that I really enjoyed taking pictures, and am often in locations where great images can be made so finally i had a real camera to take real pictures with a real purpose. One year and $15000 later, I am where I am. I dont really take any better pictures than I did before, but now at least I know why lol. Time and practice will improve my imagery and there is no substitute for that, so in the next year, I will be ditching the "gear faggotry" (after the 1dx comes out anyway) and be focusing on images images images.

So here are the images that started it all for me. If it wasn't for these 3 images, I don't know that I'd ever have picked up a real camera, I wouldnt get out as much as I do now, and I wouldn't have met any of the great people I've met because of my photography. (Including you folks) So enjoy these Images, remember they were taken with a point and shoot by a person who didnt know a damn thing about "photography" so good or bad, I still really like them.










I invite you guys to use this thread to share your story and the image(s) that started it all for you. I look forward to reading some really interesting stuff!

[praline3001]

Egads this will be a long thread but what a great topic!!!

For me, I have always enjoyed taking pictures. I was even on the yearbook staff in high school. It is the one thing that has followed me all of these years. I have 100s of hobbies, some I continue with off and on and others I have quit. I have more projects around the house that are half done then I care to think about. I have been known to be a little flighty and scatterbrained so says my family. One thing that has always stuck with me is my love of taking pictures. I have a natural talent for capturing that *one moment* that defining moment for the day. My family has always commented on me creating the best scrapbooks as I never miss that moment that makes everyone laugh. I am not a huge fan of drama/emo/stand still for 10 hours to get a photo of a bird. I love making people smile and laugh. I love laughter and I try to keep that in my photos.

Raising 3 kids and me being the proud mama, I always had a camera on hand to show off my kids' talents/achievements. As you said, they were your typical family snapshots, nothing special.

In 2007 I became a very proud aunt for the first time. I have 1 brother and my hubby is an only child. My brother and his wife were told there was NO way they could have children of their own so they adopted. They gifted me with an adorable nephew and soon after an angel of a niece. They lived a good distance away as my brother is in the military. Our family created adorable photo album ABC books for both of the kids. I was in charge of most of the photos and my sister in law's mom put the book together. It had familiar family things in the book, photos of the family, pets, houses... you get the idea. It was done all to the ABC's and was adorable. Of course my dad called them the "Forest Gump books" hehe This was my moment to make something important for my family to cherish. Around this time we started researching our family tree (another one of my hobbies.... egads I need to catch up with that stuff still!) I had some old photo tins and when we had them developed there were my great great grandparents long dead. It was like a wonderful hidden treasure for us. It hit me then that photos are usually all that is left of a family as we grow old and die. I want my great great great grandkids to know what life was like when I was alive. Its important to keep that available for future family members.

I then started saving for my first DSLR. Being a family of 5, I didn't want to be selfish and make huge purchases that were just for me. Most moms are like that lol
Over the holidays my hubby surprised me with my camera and I don't think I have been more then a few feet from it since I got it.

There is no real defining photo for me. I guess the closest would be my niece and nephew joining our family? Those photos became very important so they would know who we are even though they lived so far away.

So with blown out skies, unfocused shots and terrible compositions, these are some of my favorite shots of my niece and nephew:


pouty by praline3001, on Flickr


Alex all smiles by praline3001, on Flickr

And then TWO years ago miracles happened and my sister in law got knocked up and we were all overjoyed ~ except them lol They went 15 years with wanting 1 child and ended up with 3 kids under the age of 5 lololol

This would be my youngest (and last) nephew:

Ben rocking the house! by praline3001, on Flickr

[Biomech]

Not mine, but a girl I used to go to school with. I saw her pics and she claimed they were point and shoot snaps and I was so impressed I bought a bridge camera and started reading. Then it kind from went from there. My dad was big into photography too so he taught me some bits :P

[andrewdt]

What a great excersize you have come up with. As you said, please excuse the quality of the pics but this was my entry into photography, and also I took very few in the first years. But there are these four that have stood out for me as being the ones that got the juices flowing enough to continue and learn.

1) (2004) capturing my work that nobody in the real world ever got to see, and having something that is able to really depict it afterward!



2) (2005) setting up my cat to think these were real fish - he fell for it totally! (He had a history of killing our neighbors fish) - so being able to setup something and get the desired result



3) (2005) Wildlife photography - I have seen many animals but this was the first time I had any zoom camera and took a memory home with me



4) (2007) My wife and first child, say no more. Plenty more where that came from (photos and kids!)

[TNH]

Well, DPS was what got me interested in photography in the first place. And this is the first photo that I ever posted here:





Yeah, neat angle, but I knew nothing about the rule of thirds then. And I didn't know much of anything about photo editing, so this is SOOC. (Except for adding my name at the bottom...)
I entered it in the 'geometric shapes' assignment.

It's kind of embarrassing to show this, since it's so bad. But I think I've learned a lot since then... and I think I've improved a lot!

[lowrider]

Great thread!!!
Well, like most on dps Ive had an interest in photography and art for many years. Never had the time or money to "invest" in my interest until now)) I know zilch, nano, nowt, nothing about photography but aint that the way hobbies/interests start out. Its all about learning, just like life! So, the first picture that set the flame to the fire for me was.....



This was taken by a old work mate whilst I was getting ready for my ride home from work one afternoon. What blew me away was I never even realised he had taken it until a few days later when he brought a copy into work for me!!!
Total inspiration from then on in. So cheers Rob firstly for the picture and the flame

[NgaiHill]

I've been interested in photography for years. In my early teens I saved up my babysitting money and bought my first camera, a Instamatic something. Being an old film P&S it didn't really only took snapshots, and then there was the cost of getting the film developed etc. So I just too snapshots for years, mainly on cheap P&S film cameras. Until one time, on a tramping trip with hubby & kids the latest cheap camera only exposed half the film. I thought it was a total waste and decided to spend some money on a better camera. Still in the days before digital was really affordable so ended up with a second hand Pentax SLR.

What a revelation, my photos were no longer flat 2 dimensional snapshots. I could now get depth of field etc and the clarity was a big improvement. I joined the local camera club and started learning and thinking about the composition of my shots. Over the years, as I have been able to afford it my cameras have gotten bigger and better. My first digital was a 2.1 MP HP with a tiny screen, it went through batteries like it wasn't funny. So I moved up to a Kodak Easyshare, great wee camera that didn't survive a dunking in a river. By this time I also had a Sony Cybershot which gave me some control over the settings. Bought my DSLR almost 3 years ago and have made some improvements in my photography since. I'd like to upgrade the camera but finances prevent that at the moment.

Most of my early photography shots are on film although I also started getting them scanned onto CD at the time of developing so some are digital as well. Here is one of my early shots of my son, on a visit to a Butterfly House, shot with the Pentax Z10. Not great quality because of the scan but I like that I could make my son pop from the background due to the DOF - something I couldn't do on all those P&S cameras!

[Michelleltn]

I have been snapping photos and scrapbooking for 13 years now. It all began years ago when my husband and I went to one of his friends' house. His wife was "into" scrapbooking. They had a new baby and she had 3-4 albums already of this soon to be year old baby.

So for my next bday my husband gave me $300.00 and I went out and bought some stuff to begin scrapbooking. (Little did I know, I should have began with the camera.) LOL but that was back in the days before DSLR.

Anyway, I began with 35MM, then went up to a wide format (Advantix type.) Then to a casio digital back in the early 2000. Then in 2006 dh got me my first Canon Powershot. (I wanted it b.c it had a great zoom.) And I wanted to start getting wildlife pics to add to my scrapbooks.

This was taken with that camera. (And I still have it and still use it often.)



After capturing shots like this I was hooked. I wanted something better. And last year dh got me a T2i for Christmas. (This year he added in a zoom lens, backpack and some other accessories.)

I am so excited now, to have pictures I can take myself and put on the wall. Here was one of my favorites from this year.



So in the future I really want my scrapbooks to showcase the photos I take. (In the past it was the page that was the focus.) So sub par photos weren't so bad, b.c I told a story with the pages anyway. But now I want to improve that.

[graciousness]

Well, my dad had been into photography for as far as I can remember. I didn't get his passion for it though and never thought of doing photography as a creative expression until one day, he sent me his Canon 20D and kit lens. Used for only 3 months. He upgraded to 30D so he passed on his "old" camera to me.

I remember when I got the camera I was so scared because of all the buttons and technical stuff I thought I had to learn. So when I got the camera, I looked at the settings, put it on P mode and went out for coffee with husband.

This was my first shot.



Been a P-moder since 2007 but it was only earlier this year when I really decided to learn the basics of photography. DPS has been a good community for this

[KurtM]

Fun thread! Here's mine:



My sister started oil painting, and knowing how much I travel the backroads of Texas, asked me to take some picturesque snaps of rustic ranch scenes for her to use as inspiration. So I sent her this pic (ironically taken less than twenty minutes from her home). She loved it, and asked me to take and send more. I replied to the effect that if she wanted to buy me a DSLR, I'd be happy to, that I just got lucky with this P&S result.

Long story short, I ended up buying my own rig last September. I'd had film SLR's for thirty odd years, but refused to replace all my stuff with DSLR till then. Glad I finally did it, I'm having an absolute BLAST with it, can't begin to say how great it is to have a real camera in my hands once again. This picture was the tipping point.

Incidentally, I scouted out a few forums early on, quickly settled on this one, and can't thank everyone involved enough for all I've learned. Viva la DPS!!

Particular personal thanks go to Tzetsin and Inkista -- their explanations of various things come across especially clearly in my head, so they're my favorite posters. Gold stars to you two.