How did YOU get started in photography?

[Ernest Purdum]

In about 1938 my parents decided, I think, that their cameras were in hazard. Santa brought me the latest and best box camera Eastmen then made.

[John Kasaian]

My Dad's TLR Kodak Brownie. I remember it falling off the hood of our 1954 Buick as we were loading up for our annual camping trip to Yosemite and a chunk of bakelite coming off. Dad taped it back together. On our way home, my Dad pointed out Ansel Adams, who must have been conducting a workshop at the tunnel view turn out. I was scared to death of his beard, but was facinated by two field cameras I saw (one wood the other metal) that had bellows, just like the cameras portrayed in the "Merrie Melodie" cartoons. Once, not long after that, at the Cliff House in SF, my dad explained the huge prints that were exhibited were taken by something called a Cirkut camera. Back at home, he also showed me a lage contact print of him and the Armenian American Citizen's Club Band he played sax with, taken with something called a "Banquet" that required the photographer to climb up on a high ladder just to take the picture. A few years later, I took my first big trip to the East Coast with my family to visit relatives and I had a brand spankin' new Instamatic of my very own along. In college, I saved and bought a Canon Tlb and for a graduation present my Mom and Dad gave me an unlimited Greyhound Bus pass. The Tlb served me well until it finally disassembled itself twenty years ago on the the way to Peru, when I set it on the table for the customs people to examine. A parade of short lived 35mm cameras followed until I lucked onto a Nikon F2, which I am so far unable to break or wear out---great SLR! During a short period of service at Ft. Huachuca, AZ I had an assignment to assist with the turning over of the Industrial Operations Directorate to an outside contractor, which entailed working with the base photographer who was charged with photographing the facilities that were being assigned to the contractor. When I asked him (I wish I could remember is name) about the big bellows cameras, his advice was simply "Get one an play with it---its fun," and so I did, trading my Hasselblad for my first LF and I've never looked back though I still have my F2, a Rolleiflex TLR, a Minox 35 and it's replacement for intimate, around the dinner table and shoot on the fly family gatherings---an Olympus Stylus. Great memories!

[Christopher Nisperos]

In a nuclear fallout shelter which was buried in my best friend's backyard.

During the early 1960's, fallout shelter's were all the rage. I was 8 years old. My friend and I were unaware of the implications of such a structure. I don't remember, but I imagine there was probably mild paranoia in my town due to a Nike missile base on the one of the surrounding hilltops.

The shelter was really neat. It was, in fact, a huge, salvaged beer tank turned on its side. The entrance —a hole in the backyard—was covered by a large, upside-down box-like galvanized metal cover. To enter, you go had to slide the box to the side and go down a steep metal staircase leading to a metal door. The staircase, stairwell and door, welded-on to the tank, had come from a ship salvage yard. Inside, there was a ventilateur powered by an extention cord from the house. In case of electrical outage (such as during a nuclear attack!), it had a hand crank. In use, I guess family members would take turns cranking, 24 hours a day. (whew.. nuclear attacks can be tiring!)

The shelter was equipped with bunkbeds, clean, folded blankets, canned food, water in bleach bottles... stuff like that. While waiting for the bomb, my friend's dad had meanwhile equipped the shelter with an enlarger, too. I still remember the brand and model: Federal StowAway.

At first, we had no intention of making pictures. To us, the shelter was our "submarine". There was even a red light, just as we imagined there'd be in a real sub! The enlarger had a split-image focussing device built into the negative carrier. This feature, plus the spring-mounted arms which controlled the raising and lowering of the head, made the enlarger a perfect, make-believe "periscope".

One day while playing sub, we decided that we wanted print some "reconnaissance pictures" using family negatives and the guidance of my friend's father. As the face of our enemy (a cat) began to magically appear on the blank photo paper, the photo virus infected me. Soon, I was taking my own reconnaissance pictures of cats (and my sister). Ten years later I was working for the U.S. Nikon distributor.

Funny. A darkroom still imparts a peaceful, secure feeling to me. Did you know that Chernobyl means "black white". Hmmm.

[David Richhart]

My story in 2 words...

Life Magazine

[Leonard Metcalf]

I don't really remember using my first camera, though I do remember taking it apart to see how it worked, and destroying it in the process (and anything else I could get my hands on at the time - I have some of the watches that I did get back together - they still work!). The pictures are still floating around I think. It was a box camera but not the ever popular brownie, a German brand I think.

Dad used to come home from a week or two's bushwalking, with this Olympus Pen half frame... and I always wanted to go with him...

But what really got me hooked was watching the print come up in the trays. My father and I would wait till there was no moon, and print in the laundry. I do remember when I started taking control of the photographic process, mainly due to the Olympus OM-1 (my fourth camera, I think) that I was using at the time and hand printing. Trying to get good macro shots of bees, inside caves and the documentry of my crazy friends of my teenage years.

It was art school that got me into the finer details of taking and printing photographs. It is amazing what an encouraging teacher / tutor can do for my motivation. From Black and white through to colour and then finally into large format. It was with large format that I suddenly discovered the photographic process that I still love today. Learnt on a Toyo, first owned a crown graphic (again given to me by my father) then a Technikardan & a technica III, and now an Ebony 45SU. Colour dominated my large format photography for the next twenty years, and it is only recently I havc gone back into the darkroom, and remembered the magic of hand printing, and what elequoence a black and white print can talk with. Some days I come out of the darkroom spinning (not from the chemicals, I recon) from the joy of printing all day.

thanks for the interesting question...

[Jackie]

So I just started with the photo thing and I got what I thought was a great deal. A Pentax Spotmatic with four different lens to go with it. Now when the store owner showed it to me the light meter worked fine. Now I can't get it to move and I have done everything. If anyone can explain to me, in laymans terms please, what I might be doing wrong I would be so happy!!!