The impact of childhood experiences on your photography

[John Kasaian]

Is there any?

Anyone here seeking to recollect or preserve your childhood memories or interests with photography? Are your subjects stuff that has interested you since you were a wee child?

I know I became intrigued with big bellows cameras as a result of seeing them in several LooneyToons cartoons (I'd love to get my hands on some flash powder too!) One of my first photographic interests (back in my 35mm days) was my old nieghorhood, which was rapidly dissappearing. What about you?

[Jim Rice]

My dad had a Kodak 35 (I'm not sure which variation, flip-up finder, 3.5 as i recall) that he loved. When I was 13 or so I got a darkroom for Christmas. It changed my life.

[Rory_5244]

Photography is probably a manifestation of my obsessive-compulsive tendencies derived from failure to successfully progress through the anal stage of my childhood development.

[Walter Calahan]

My dad had a Zeiss Ikon he bought in Japan when he shipped out to the Korean War. I could spot looking at his pictures.

Also I've been very aware of what I see since I was young because I lost the eye sight in my left eye at 2 1/2 years old. Guess I simply don't take for granted the gift of seeing.

Finally, my parents gave me a Boy Scout roll film camera when I was a Cub Scout. Was hooked.

http://www.walterpcalahan.com

[BrianShaw]

After my childhood experience with cameras - Dad and his Argus C3 - it's a wonder that I'll have anything to do with photography.

"Stand there"

"Stop squinting"

"Get in between your brothers"

"Smile boys"

"no, wait, I need to focus"

"Stop squirming"

"Knock it off you kids"

"Oh, a cloud; where's that lightmeter"

"Hey you kids, don't walk away yet"

"Stop squirming"

"smile"

"Hold on, just one more"

"Hey... where'd your Mother go?"

[reellis67]

It's not large format (anything but!) but my first photographic interest started when I got a View-Master as a kid. I loved the color slides and always wanted to take pictures when we got a chance (rarely) to go somewhere.

It's not a stereo camera, but I still have my first camera, a Brownie Starflash, although I've not shot with it in many years. Once I got a taste of photography I never let it go, and I've traveled for path to large format with many stops in between (127 to 35mm to medium format to 2.25x3.25 to 4x5 to 8x10.) I got into stereo photography because of the View-Master influence too - I wanted to make my own stereoscopic views, something that I still do to this day. I've always got a stereo camera on me when I go anywhere interesting.

- Randy

[darr]

I was in the third grade paging through an encyclopedia of sorts when I came upon Dorothea Lange's photo, "Migrant Mother". I knew then I wanted to be a photographer when I grew up.

[Alex Hawley]

I owe it all to my parents and childhood. They were avid amateur photographers all the time I was growing up. Dad did some commercial work as a second job. One photo he took of our church in 1962 is still being used for the church's logo on its publications. We always had a darkroom until I was in high school. They exhibited in regional fairs and such quite frequently. Some of Dad's work was published. This all started on the farm in western Kansas from the time they married in 1946.

Both my parents are deceased now. I found most of their negatives and have begun re-printing some of them. Most are medium format 6x6 or 6x9. Some of the later ones are 4x5. Its quite a legacy of importance to the family that they left behind.

As far as subject matter is concerned, the childhood on the 1950s farm had a deep influence.

[Rory_5244]

That's lovely, Alex. I wonder if digi-shooters will be able to have their children dig up the pictures of today, fifty years into the future? It's too bad we'll lose the nostalgia of rummaging through old prints and negatives hiding up in the attic. A cold and sterile future lies ahead.

Um, Darr, I dunno, but a 3rd grader paging through an encyclopaedia just doesn't sound, um, normal.

[Alex Hawley]

That's lovely, Alex. I wonder if digi-shooters will be able to have their children dig up the pictures of today, fifty years into the future? It's too bad we'll lose the nostalgia of rummaging through old prints and negatives hiding up in the attic. A cold and sterile future lies ahead.

That was all going through my mind about the time I came upon the negatives Rory. The limited life of digital, plus my own grand daughter coming into the world, sparked me to shoot all the family stuff with film. Here's an example; one of my aunts taking a break on the combine during the wheat harvest of 1958. This is a recent print of a negative that's been stored in the proverbial shoebox for nearly 50 years.

The second one is my own, an 8x10 contact print, taken two years ago in a town near to where the farm was.