Weekly Poll: How long have you been photographing for?

[JazzaGirl]

I chose for a while, cause i have always loved taking pictures but hadn't gotten into it seriously since about last year...so i'm still new to it, but i love experimenting with everything!

[kirbinster]

A chose forever, but there are some qualifiers. I started with an old 35mm camera that my dad gave me when I was about 10 years old. Not an slr, just a rangefinder. I had to guess at the speed and aperature as I did not have a light meter. I took it to summer camp and enjoyed playing in the darkroom. Unlike today with supervision, my bunk councelor was incharge of the darkroom and let me use it unsupervised at night - this was back in the late 1960's About 3 years later my parents bought me my own darkroom equipment and a slightly better camera and got me a lightmeter. All my work was black and white.

I bought a nice 35mm slr in 1982, a Canon A1. I used that for many years having the standard 50mm lens and a 70-210 macro zoom lens. Then kids came and I mostly gave up the still camera for a big VHS camcorder.

When digital cameras first came out I bought an Olympus 1.3mp camera - thought it was great to not have to buy film. Out grew that and got a 3mp Kodak P&S, and then a couple of years ago gave it to my daughter and got a 5mp Kodak P&S. Always wanted a good dslr but the prices were crazy and they were not that great in terms of quality.

In June I went to see a friend who had just gotten a D40 and thought it was great. Two days later I bought one. Since then I have taken over 13,000 pictures - don't leave the house without the camera anymore. A week or two ago I picked up a D80 to go with it.

So, I guess we could say I have been semi-serious for 30+ years.

I guess I got busy in high school and stopped taking pictures for quite a while.

[Kindred Spearmint]

I've always loved photography, but since I've never considered myself artistic by any means, I've viewed it as something I could only appreciate and not participate in... I took pictures to capture significant events like birthdays, Christmas, etc. but never put any thought into composition, lighting and the likes... just pointing and shooting. And I always hated how my pictures looked anyway. I shouldn't have been surprised. Being a perfectionist didn't help either.

Things changed when I was expecting my first child, when my husband and I decided to invest in a digital camera. Being able to preview pictures right away and not waste tons of money on film was like, totally awesome! Anyway, after finding our computer crammed with thousands () of pictures, and getting the itch to do something more than just print them and stick 'em in an album, I discovered digital scrapbooking. I fell in love and became obsessed almost immediately. It seems totally backwards now that I think about it, but scrapping helped translate photography to me in terms of composition, mood, telling a story and so on. So I dug out our camera's manual was delighted by all these different settings that I had never thought to use before (I will NEVER shoot in Auto again!). Needless to say, since I've put more thought into the photos I take now, the quality of my scrap layouts has increased dramatically.

So to answer the question I've been serious about photography for less than 6 months. Sorry for the novel...

[Shewolfe]

I have always like various forms of art and I always enjoyed taking pictures.
For most of my life I have drawn and painted in various forms as well as crafted, then later I took up digital art forms.
I only began to think more seriously about photography over the last few years, even though my father was an enthusiast.
I've been trying to improve and learn as much as I can, more seriously, for about 4 months though some of my shots go back a few years.

[shazzt]

I have taken photos for years - but only in the "recording what was going on in my life at the time" manner. Never really thought much about the technicalities. It has only been in the last few months have I started to learn more about my camera and think more about the photos I am taking. So still a newbie but enjoying the learning experience

[JAHphoto]

Bout 4 1/2 years now