Photography

My memory is terrible and i need help

I got a free camera helping someone move. It was cool and old and shot film so I figured it'd be fun to pick up a roll and shoot. Started shooting my road trips and just never really gave it up. Now I do product photography and lots of personal projects on the side.

I'm a graphic designer and worked with a lot of stock photos in one of my roles. There were several other members on my team with photo backgrounds so I wanted to learn myself to understand the terminology and how higher-quality images are made. Also thought this would fill a hole in my skill set.

Went on a trip to England from Spain at 17yo with older, internet friends that shared aviation as a hobby. One of them brought a high end camera and when we came back home, he sent to each of us a DVD with all the photos and I fell in love.

Other friends from aviation were into photography too, and one sold me his old camera, and I started covering jazz concerts, theater and such in my dormitory. Even got one photo published in the newspaper!

16 years since then, and I mainly use it to capture moments traveling, moments with friends, moments in the street... I just love capturing the emotion of the moment!

And nowadays I'm starting to make contact with a jazz festival organizer, I'm doing photos on their concerts (just came from one, 2 more today!) as hobby, but it's helluva fun and I enjoy being able to mix two hobbies in one (music and photography!)

Thinking of aiming to make this profitable somehow, we'll see!

I used to be depressed; I still am, but I used to be, too.

Anyway, I was tired of seeing everything negatively, and figured I’d try to take photos to force me capture things in a different light. I also assumed it would help me get out and about and get me interacting with people more.

It’s probably thanks to my grandfather and his shelves full of National Geographic magazines. He also had a dark room in the basement. My dad also had some nice camera gear, along with a very early HP digital camera. I got all of my early gear from them. I was lucky enough to take some trips abroad in high school and college and I loved capturing them on film. It’s also a shared hobby of me and my wife (a wedding/portrait photographer) so it’s a nice thing to bond over.

I used to play in bands that took up most of my time, I needed something to do after I stopped playing. I'm not one for sitting still and watching tv, photography filled the gap pretty well.

Like musical equipment, photography is expensive, so it was a smooth transition.

Mostly due to my horrible job. It's soul crushing, but it put foods on the table and support my family. However, what brings me joy is see photos (ie. vacations, family/friends gatherings, or just a random hike, etc).

So I decide to buy a old DSLR (Canon T2i) and was hooked.

i was in high school and wanted to be a food blogger so wanted to take nice photos of food - a decade later i’m still taking photos, but of everything now

I've had a camera on and off, took a class in college, etc., but I think what pushed me deeper was getting a job with a company that had just depressing in-house photography. Like, we're one of the leaders - if not the leader - in our industry, and the only time it didn't look like we were a small-town HS paper was when we were recycling pictures from a professional shoot over and over.

I decided to take a crack at it... and now it probably makes up half my workload. As a result, I'm constantly trying to learn new things and improve. Next year, my big push is to dig in on landscape photography, since I just can't seem to capture it whenever I come across a nice shot!

I was casually taking photos since I was a kid, but it all started to catch others' eye and they recognized me as a "bro got a unique taste" type of photographer, was when I was depressed. I don't know why, but that was the time I got into photography and somehow it started to thrive.

Helping my grandpa in his darkroom when I was a kid, then some amazing classes in high school, my dad letting me borrow his Nikon, natural inclination to document and create art. Lifelong passion for sure.

The pandemic had just hit, I had just moved to a new and very picturesque city, I couldn't meet any new people and there was nothing to do ... so I bought a camera to have something to do while walking around alone.

When they began lifting restrictions and cultural events began popping up again, I started exploring them with my camera. I got lucky, and now I'm a working pro.

ADHD, I think.

National geographic was probably what started my interested in photography. We had a subscription for years while I was growing up. So many amazing photos, fascinating people, places, and the emotions a good photo could invoke.

I also wanted a hobby that would push me outside of my comfort zone and give me reasons to try new things as well as to document some of my travels (though I am still rarely in any of my own photos).

My grandfather was an accomplished and decorated photojournalist who has shot multiple Olympics, politicians and world events. He has an honorary doctorate and has been inducted into the Order of Canada for his contributions. The National gallery houses a quarter million of his images, the most from any single photographer.

On top of this, he was a hell of a guy and a huge inspiration of mine (and many others).

I used to take photos of food for fun. Now I take photos of food for clients. I try to keep it fun.

My father worked with Ansel Adams after years of teaching art and studying industrial design. He also developed satellite footage for NASA during his time in the Air Force.

So I got into it from a very early age and had access to a multi-station black and white darkroom my entire childhood.

I have this whole philosophy about how photography is time travel and blah blah blah. Truth is, I just wanted to be like my mom. Now I've surpassed her and she comes to me for advice

Got into cars growing up is what got me into photography. We worked on cars and wanted to take nice photos lol.

I was in my first job and I was depressed (long hours of travelling, I was a trainee forced on my colleagues and they didn’t like me, my supervisor never had a single nice thing to say about my work.) My family have a ‘just walk it off’ approach to mental health, so they bought me a camera and told me to go outside and take some photos.

When I was in high school, I wanted to be an architect. The summer before I started college, I met up with a family friend that worked as one. Come to find out, the job I was imagining didn't bear much resemblance to reality. When college started up, I flailed a bit, and decided to go with Graphic Design. I wasn't really passionate about it, but it seemed like something I was reasonably prepared for. In my first or second quarter in, I took an introductory photography class as part of that major's requirements. That was where I learned that photography came much more naturally.

I wanted to be around cars and capture their details, their shine, and their energy. And later it was also a good stepping stone for getting me to be comfortable being around people.

I was an art major watercolorist in college and used photography to capture landscapes I could then paint from in the studio. Eventually I liked the photography process more than painting and phased out painting.

My parents don’t have many pictures of me growing up. They’re just not photo takers, even to today I don’t think either of them have took a selfie. So for the rest of my life now, I want pictures of anything that is important to me.

When I was much younger, there was a really silly social media called Piczo, and you could link all your friends on the side.

It would just be a giant photo album, and you’d post all your photos and friends on there.

Some kids linked me on theirs, but I wouldn’t have called myself their friend, and I was quite jealous they had all these photos, and I didn’t really have any.

I took up photography in Uni, and it just kept going.

I don't remember. Perhaps I was born with the interest.

When I was around 10 or so I would read books on photography. Books with pictures, books on how to take pictures, books on how cameras and darkrooms worked. I was 15 or so when I picked up my first camera, an Instamatic.

Always had an interest, even applied for the photography course at school but it wasn't run as short of applicants so ended up doing my second choice of business studies.

Never really had the funds to get in to it, but when I was a roadie for a few local bands you'd start to get a tad bored between set-up and strip down once you got to know the songs (in some cases better than the lead, shame I can't sing..) and you can't really have a drink as you need to drive home.

One night a guy from a band I'd got really good friends with gave me his canon dslr and asked me to get some shots for his socials (facebook was just about becoming a thing, don't believe we had instagram at that point) so I figured what the hell, I've always fancied it and had a go.

Really enjoyed it, saved up my roadie earnings and treat myself to a Nikon d5100 (as better low light than the canon I'd gotten used to) and it's been a wild ride since then in the intervening decades.

20 years ago I went on a year-long backpacking trip. I knew nothing about photography but I brought a Panasonic point and shoot. I took thousands of photos and when I got home to review them, they were all terrible. I mean really bad.

So, the most logical thing to me at the time was to buy a better camera. So I did some research and bought a canon dslr .. T3i I believe. I went travelling again and took hundreds of photos and came back to review and… they all sucked. How the fak do you make a good picture?

Then I actually started learning … obsessively for a number of years, and have been a student ever since.

Playboy

Really, though, for me, it was a great blend of science and chemistry and creativity. I got through art school on math and science scholarships. I had been a philosophy major for years and got interested in photo-surrealism, then Edward Weston.

My parents bought me a plastic box camera that took 120 film when I was eight. I got an Instamatic a teen, beat climbing into a dark closet to change film. I lived with a boyfriend after I got divorced, and we bought a 110 camera by Pentax with interchangeable lenses. I finally bought my first SLR, a Pentax Super Program, and took a beginning photography course at the local community college because I really wanted to learn how to use it properly. The teacher owned a camera store, and he helped me a lot. I then took photo lab to have access to the darkroom to print my photos.

I did work at the old Best Products in the camera and electronics department as a camera specialist. The manager and I were the only photo specialists. The rest knew computers, TVs and VCRs, etc.

My first digital was a Nikon Coolpix 990, then a Canon EOS XS. I have finally moved up to a Canon R6 Mark II this year.

It has always been a hobby, but I love it. I love to experiment and see what happens. I have one a couple of local photo contests. One of my photos was on my home city's Visitor and Convention Bureau's yearly guide.

The first digital camera they sold at Walmart for cheap. I think I was 11. Less than 1 megapixel. Man I wish I had those shots still. They were lost in time

skateboarding

My parents bought me a Sears KSX1000 35MM film camera after finishing USAF basic training in 1986. I had no idea what I was doing and maybe caught one good image for every roll of film I used. Digital cameras, the iPhone and the ability to see my work immediately changed my game tremendously.

I needed a creative outlet. I don’t have the hand coordination to be a musician or painter or sculptor. Nor the voice to sing. But I have a good eye, I think. And I am a bit analytical. So I like the math and the gadgetry, but especially thinking through what a composition will look like to the camera. And I can press buttons and turn dials like a mf’r to get what’s in my mind out. That got me.

As a teen, I was always visually intrigued by some photos. I actually still have a photo of teen me in my room and on my wall there's newspaper and magazine cutouts of sports photos: Shaquille O Neal landing on his head in a game. A shot of the back of Don Kings head, hair taking up most of the image. A picture of Cal Ripken Jr. in the On-Deck circle at Candem Yards the day he broke the Most Games Played In A row streak, with the new record number in the distance. A disheveled and sad Mitch Williams walking off the pitchers mound after giving up a World Series clinching home run to Joe Carter, a blurry Carter seen in the background celebrating.

Something about visual storytelling captivated me as a kid. It's a regret I have that I never even considered photography as a profession when I was younger. Just seemed like something so out of reach!!

BUT today I wander the streets and metal shows, capturing moments that catch my eye.

I like to travel a lot to different city. So I like to capture what I’m seeing there, started with just my iPhone and would say I hit the Ceeling what’s possible with a smartphone + basic editing in you iCloud picture app. So i switched this year to the old 1300D from my sister and trying to develop this street and travel photography even further

Years before I even got a camera, I told an old roommate I wanted to make paintings of real life. Now I do that. It's rewarding but it's the surprise of it all. I never know what shots I'm gonna walk away with walking into it. I stumble upon it, if you will. Shooting from the hip. It's sporadic and fun and exilerating. I've built a brand upon it now. I got so much more work to do, I got about 10 years of work in front of me right now, I'm trying to chip away at, and trying to figure out how to pay for all the things to make those future projects I got stored in my head.

For me, it was a Polaroid, and the fact I absolutely hated to be in the photo.

I couldn’t understand what my brain was doing when I went on walks. I hated those walks.

9 years ago I took my son on a trip to Scotland and started taking snaps. I was surprised to find I didn’t mind trailing him around with a camera.

Turns out that on those walks my mind had been computing angles and compositions.

In very late diagnosed with ADHD and possibly undiagnosed autism.

Since starting I was a finalist in photographer of the year, have been published, have images in my country’s national photographic archive but in the last year or so I gave up walking/photographing.

This post makes me think it’s time to get the camera out again. Photography occupies and calms my busy mind. Landscape photography bores me now - too much layering and manipulation. I like abstraction and high contrast, still life and street photography of unusual moments in cities. Shame I live very remote overlooking the Atlantic.