How did your passion for photography start?

[eNZee]

So someone made an interested comment to me and it got me thinking about what triggered my passion for photography: i have to say my interest peaked while looking for a photographer to shoot my wedding.

How did your passion for photography start?

[dcclark]

I actually started very young -- my grandfather was something of a photographer, and I always remember looking at his aerial photos and thinking how awesome they were. I started doing photography for 4H (and showing my photos at our county fair). It was a ton of fun, but I was less interested through High School and College, when I didn't have a camera accessible readily. After buying my own digital camera in grad school, things picked up again, and with more interest in becoming more skilled, I've improved quite a lot. I'm glad I got back into it.

[deudbus]

Intersting question. I dunno how mine started, really. I started playing with my parents' camera, and after a while of me loading their memory card with pictures, they bought me one, which, of course, sent me on a photography rampage. Then it died down for a while, and I started taking fewer pictures. I finally started getting really interested again about middle of last school year, and BAM! The photography bug is here to stay.

[eNZee]

thats so cool. i love reading these stories.

hopefully more people post theirs.
keep 'em coming

[fantasmic2tek]

Mine developed(pun intended) when I was young. My dad developed his own film when we were young. Out of the four of us we were the only ones that had an interest in developing. However we all had a passion for photography. My sister went on to become a pro and has her own business with her husband outside of Atlanta. I photographed things through out the years but didn't really get interested again until I met my new wife encouraged me to pursue my passion once again. My parents bought me my camera last Christmas and I have been hooked again ever since.

[kencaleno]

My passion for photography started in the 1950's, after seeing some of Bill Brandt's black and white high contrast images in "Picture-Post", a UK kind of "Life" magazine. I wanted to make photos like that. My father gave me an old Kodak "vest pocket" folding bellows camera that used 127 size roll film, and bought me a Johnson's "print-a-snap" pack, so I could make my own contact prints,from 127 negatives-It was with this outfit that I learned basic photography at the age of 10-I still had a problem trying to get the "soot and whitewash" effect that Bill Brant managed to achieve, Until I discovered his secret-He used a 4B lead pencil to go over the blacks on his negatives-then I was in my element-then other interests kind of took over,model aeroplanes, for one, and I didn't get stirred by photography again until 1962, where, with a Yashica Minister D and a Soviet made Zorki-4, both 35mm rangefinder cameras,I entered the world of wedding photography,and I have never regretted it!.

regards, Ken

[Joey the girl]

Mine actually started because of Photoshop. I had to start using it for making graphics for the church I work at. After a couple years of taking bad pictures (other people's and my own) and trying to make them good (or at least better) in Photoshop, I finally realized that the better quality picture I had to work with, the more I could do with it. So I set out to learn how to take "better" pictures, and it didn't take much for me to take a full leap into photography.

[CanonRebelz]

Very very interesting question.
I'm not fully sure when and how it all started for me. I had always been interested in Graphic Design, and with my cousin's husband being a Graphic Design artist(as his job) and on the side him doing photography it really inspired me. In the past months I have taken a lot of pictures with my mother's camera, a simple Canon Point-And-Shoot. It really amazed me how amazing and interesting photography is, and how a wonderful photograph can tell a quite interesting story. So, just this week, I ordered a Canon Digital Rebel XS (with a simple kit lens). Haven't gotten shooting yet, because they didn't pack a lens with it. >_< (which they claimed it came with one)

[RexK_Cozumel]

I can not draw worth a damn so in order to express my creative side I needed to do something. I can push a button with the best of them

[Jim Bryant]

I used to watch my step father make 4 x 5 proofs on a hand made contract printer in our kitchen. In 1967 he got stationed in Japan (hummmmmmmmm, the land of cameras) and one Christmas gave me his 1950's Aires rangefinder 35mm camera and 20 rolls of Tri-x film.
I used to go to the base hobby shop to learn how to develop and print my film. During the summer months I worked at the Pacific Stars & Stripes newspaper in downtown Tokyo making prints for the military photojournalist. After graduating from high school I worked there fulltime and pretty soon they let me wander around Tokyo taking feature shots and then they started to send me out on assignments, mostly covering high school sporting events.

In 1970 I purchased a Canon F-1, with a 35mm, 135mm and 300mm lenses. Seems like other month I'd purchase another piece of camera gear and by the time we departed Japan in 1972, I gained enough experience and had so much gear that I decided to become a photojournalist. The rest is history.