Brownie for Ansel...a Vice President for me.

[Pat Kearns]

I don't think I can be as eloquent with a story as John Kasian but I'll give it a try. We all seem to know that as a child Ansel Adams was given a Brownie and on a vacation to Yosemite and that little camera lit the flame of passion for photography. Recently, I was rooting through boxes looking for a negative I shot many, many years ago. While looking through one box I ran across a roll of film and prints I shot of Vice President Spiro Agnew on a visit he made to Mobile around 1970. When I read about Agnew's upcoming visit I thought, wow, a vice president coming to my hometown. I thought that that would be as close to an executive politcian I would ever encounter. I wanted to see a vice president. My brother had returned from Viet Nam with a 35mm Minolta camera and I thought how cool it would be to photograph Agnew. I bought a roll of Tri-x and in a 10 minute class from my brother, I learned how to set the shutter speed, aperture, change lenses and I was off to photograph a vice president. I got to the auditorium about an hour before the event to stake out a good seat close to the stage. I put on a 135mm telephoto to get closer shots. A very small audience trickled in for the speech. A district congressman, county commissioner and other politicans spoke and then Agnew took the stage. Even with the 135 telephoto lens, I was still to far a way. I got up the nerve, left my seat and slowly walked up the aisle to the roped off position in front of the stage. I was quite aware of all the secret service and police on and at the stage watching me. I then raised the camera and start taking my photos. I shot pictures of all the other politicians that were bored and asleep while Agnew spoke. I moved around in front of the stage and shot until I ran out of film. Agnew finished his speech, walked off the stage in my direction. Agnew then walk over and shook my hand. I was stunned. The next day I dropped the film off at the lab and three days later the prints were ready. When I opened that envelope and saw those prints I thought they were the greatest photos I had ever seen. It was at that instant the flame of passion of photography for me was lit. I knew that I had to have a camera and over the last 35 years I still have that excitement with my photography. I laugh now at how bad those photos really were but marvel at the fulfillment photography has given me. So, John and everyone else, what lit your flames of passion for photography?

[PaulRicciardi]

Saw Hiroshi Sugimoto's exhibition at the Hirshorn in March of 2006. By August of '06 I was shooting every day and had developed a voracious appetite for anything photographic-in 2007 I shot over 60,000 frames on everything from digital to 4x5. Thousands of rolls of film, hours upon hours in the darkroom/library/internet and two years later I quit my regular job for a job as a photographer and currently have a motor drive attached to my 4x5.

Still have a lot to learn, but I'm getting there slowly.

[John Kasaian]

Getting my first real camera, a Canon Tlb helped. For the first time I was able get some results that compared in quality with the photographs I've admired. I found it to be impossible for me to do this with Instamatics. This gave me the confidence to take on self assignments and attempt to solve problems encountered with exposure, logistics, and in the dark room. The landscape became less distant and more intimate, like a beautiful woman after you've worked up the courage to buy her a drink at a bar. A fine print is her legacy.
In a word: FUN! :)

[MenacingTourist]

Wonderful story Pat, just wonderful.

Alan.

[Jim Galli]

I came in the back door. Being a life time cheapskate I convinced my bride (she still puts up with me after 33 years) that with a Canon 35mm I could do just as well as the photographers she was paying the big bucks to photograph our growing family. So we went to the cheap guy photo store to get an AE-1 and the salesman, bless his heart, said that the Nikon FG was more bang for the buck and the Canon was kind of riding a wave of popularity it didn't really deserve. I've been a Nikon guy ever since. But of course my pictures sucked and the wife kept spending $$ with pro photogs on the kids. 10 years went by and I got the FG out to make slides of my Lionel Postwar train layout. I finally had to learn about my camera in order to get the pictures I wanted. I traded a minty 1942 Lionel set for 35 and 85mm Nikkor's and I was on my way.

[Richard M. Coda]

My dad was a printer. In addition to all the "printing stuff" I saw on Saturdays at dad's shop, he also printed a sports newspaper (this is back in the late 1960s). One Saturday, I remember he had to go to a golf tournament at the Montclair CC (in NJ). When he came back he had to develop the 35mm film he had taken. I went with him to watch him develop it. Although it was in a SS tank, I remember him pulling the film out and it had magically been developed. Later he printed the images and I remember seeing the print come up in the developer. Wow! And there was Arnold Palmer, to boot!

Later in college, I took a history of photography course. We learned about view cameras and the great photographers, past and present (at the time). I told my dad that I wanted to really get into photography as a serious hobby. He told me he had an old Speed Graphic from his Air Force days. He gave it to me. I still remember (and have) that first 4x5 negative I ever made! The rest, as they say, is history!

[aduncanson]

In 7th grade, a friend of mine had access a bulky but decent Yashica 35mm rangefinder from his older brother. I found an Argus C3 among my Dad's stuff. I had no manual, but figured out how I could wind the entire roll out of the cassette and then wind it back in one frame at a time between exposures. My friend told me that there must be another way to advance the film.

A few years later (17 October 1972 for history's sake) Richard Nixon was running for re-election and Ronald Reagan was speaking on his behalf in Peoria. My parents, minor functionaries for CREEP, drove me and my friends into the city to photograph at the event. (That year we would also photograph Barry Goldwater.) I had borrowed a Pentax Spotmatic and was shooting High Speed Ektachrome - pushed, I think. We stood down front at the side of the stage along with a photographer for a student newspaper at Reagan's alma mater, nearby Eureka College. He told us that in Reagan's football career at Eureka, he had done little but warm the bench. Somehow, we were allowed on stage when Reagan was finished speaking, and ever obnoxious me confronted the future president with this allegation. He answered something like "Yes, I believe that I hold some kind of record in that regard."

Later, during the Reagan Presidency, my co-workers would not believe this story.

[Bill_1856]

Great story, Pat. Thanks for writing it. (PS, who's John Kasian?)

[Pat Kearns]

Great story, Pat. Thanks for writing it. (PS, who's John Kasian?)

It should have been, John Kasaian, and I do apologize to John. Sometimes my fingers have a mind of their own. I glad to see other stories beginning to appear. For a while I thought people my might have believed this was a political thread. ;)

Everyone else, what's your story?

[John Kasaian]

Not a problem Pat, I was 34 before I could spell my own last name correctly ;)