How did YOU get started in photography?

[Kevin M Bourque]

So, how did the photo bug bite you?

I have three obsessions, music, astronomy, and photography. None of the three were around the house when I was a kid. My parents had a Brownie 620 camera (which I now have). Someone gave them an Olympus Trip 35 somewhere in the late 60’s, but no one used it much. Exposing a frame of film was reserved for special occasions (Christmas morning, that sort of thing). I got my first “real” camera, an OM-1n, in college.

The idea that you could expose film to light and make a picture fascinated me. I always wanted to do it. Once I had the means, I began to acquire an education, but it was the self-taught variety. But that, as they say, is another story.

To answer my own question, then, I’ve always wanted to take pictures, ever since I knew what it was. There was never really any decision to be made.

[Edward (Halifax,NS)]

When I was 19 I went to Cancun with my sister at March Break. I bought a cheap 35mm from Radio Shack for $25 with a roll of film included. Of the rolls and rolls of pictures that I took there was a really good seascape taken at Tulum. I had an 11X14 made for a friend and I was hooked. I saved my pennies and bought a Pentax P3 and a couple of lenses and a couple of hundred rolls of film later I was buying a Yashicamat. I still use that as my point and shoot and now I have a CC400. I am still hooked on seascapes which I can take any time I want. I have 3 waiting to be printed for my rec room once it is renovated. All that is left is the flooring which goes down this weekend. :)

[Calamity Jane]

Snicker . . . good question! The answer call for a story, so fill your coffee cup and put yer feet up.....

The first camera I owned was a Polaroid, back about 1963. The family had a little box camera, Kodak I think, that had a lens the size of a dime and sure didn’t do justice to the format. But we were poor and pictures were only for “special occasions”. When I started working part time (where I actually got PAID!, as opposed to working around the farm) I bought the Polaroid. “Instant” pictures waz kind’a neat and quite a novelty.

In 1969, I packed off to college in the wilderness of northeastern Ontario, a little city in the middle of the boreal forest that had been a gold rush town in the 1930s. As a suitable hobby for a cash-starved student, I started doing wilderness trips on the weekends to photograph some of the old gold mines. Some of these were easy to access; others were MANY miles back in the trackless bush (where there was not another road between you and the North Pole if you went in the wrong direction!)

I visited one remote mine site that was a goodly number of miles into the bush - a VERY hard trek, one that was actually scary at times! - and pulled out my Polaroid and a new film pack to photograph the mine site. The first frame came out BLACK! So did the next frame, so did all the rest. So did the next pack! I couldn't find anything wrong with the camera, nothing to indicate why all my pictures were black. (Any smart remarks about “lens cap” and I’ll smack ya! It didn’t have one of those.) So here I was, 5 miles from the nearest road thru dense bush, a good 10 miles from habitation, with a camera that didn’t work! GURRRRRRRRRRRRR

I walked back into town, to the photography store, tossed the Polaroid on the counter, and said, “Show me what you’ve got in 35 mm!” I walked out with a Zeiss Icarex (sp?), an electronic flash, and my pockets bulging with 35mm film. I joined the college’s camera club to have access to the darkroom, got conscripted to shoot for the college newspaper, and have been shooting ever since. I enjoyed darkroom work and every house I have lived in since 1969 has had a darkroom. About 20 years ago, I moved up to medium format with the first Pentax 645 to come into Canada and I also started doing at-home E-6 then.

Recently I began to move to large format. I have purchased a couple of lenses (from E-Bay), a few 4x5 film holders, and have the plans to build a camera. The Cherry wood has arrived so I will soon be making sawdust and learning how to fold a bellows ;-)

Photography is a hobby I have drifted into and out of for 40 years now, but it never goes away. In the early days I seemed to do good as a “press photographer”, getting those candid shots for the school paper that didn’t do much for my friendships ;-) but with medium format, I got really hooked on the beauty of bright, clear, sharp, and intensely colorful images; the way a good camera and film can snatch a moment in time, make it even more vivid than you remember, and freeze it in time for all to see.

P.S. I still have the poor old Zeiss! It has seen many thousands of miles, but it still works :-)

[Pat Kearns]

This is a two part answer. At about 13 my best friend got a Sears b+w film developing kit for Christmas. We mixed up the chemicals went into the the bathroom hung blankets over the window and door to darken it. We then took a roll of film from his parents shot on vacation in San Juan out of the brownie. We unroll it and proceeded to "try" to load the film on the reel. We fought and fought that roll for a least an hour in the dark. We knew when we unrolled the film spool there were two things, film and a paper backing. We decided to put what fell to the floor in the clothes hamper covered with towels and turn on the light. We had to find out what we had been fighting with, film or paper backing. The worse that could happen was that we would burn up the film when the light came on. I turned on the light switch and low and behold we had been trying to load the paper backing. Off went the lights and that roll of film went on that reel in no time flat. We then closed the tank and developed the film. After drying we made a contact print of one of the negatives. When the image poped up on that little piece of paper we both said "WOW". That was the greatest thing I had ever seen. I still get that feeling everytime a print. The second part came about 7 years later and Vice President Spiro Agnew came to town. I had never seen anyone that high in office and want to take some pictures. My brother had just returned from the Navy and had 35mm minolta and he gave me a 30 minute lesson on how to operate the camera. I took off the take my pictures and had the secret servicemen following me all aroung the auditorium where the vice president was speaking. When the speech was over the vice president made his way into the crowd and stopped and shook my hand. I returned the camera to my brother, had the film developed and then bought my own 35mm. I've progressed quite a bit over the last 35 years when I think over my first photos, a Vice President. I laugh about them now because at that time I though they were really something.

[MIke Sherck]

When I was a kid I had a Kodak Instamatic -- 126 format film cartridges and flashcubes! I used to take my models of astronauts and their lunar lander out to the blacktop driveway and set them up next to the oil stains. On 126 film they looked a lot like photos from the moon's surface (taken from a *long* way away!) That was it for many years; anything more complex than the Instamatic or a disc camera was too intimidating. No one ever managed to explain "f-stop" or other, similar, photographic terminology in a way I understood, so I just figured it was some mysterious rocket science I was too dumb to comprehend.

When I was in my mid-30s my older daughter expressed an interest in photography and we bought a used Minolta XG-1 with 50mm lens and instruction booklet from a local camera store. I read the instructions and even now clearly remember the eureka moment, when everything fell into place all at once. I ended up using the Minolta almost as much as my daughter did, shooting color snapshots and taking them to the corner drugstore for processing.

A few years later I was laid off of work and on a whim one day went to an estate auction. I ended up buying an unused Minolta SRT-101 35mm camera with the excellent Minolta 58mm f/1.2 lens for almost nothing. At almost the same time a new camera store, a mom and pop place, opened up within walking distance of the house where we were living. Ron and Helen encouraged a latent interest in black and white and it seemed they always had time to sit and talk to me even though their business kept them very busy: I don't know whether they sold much equipment or not but they were widely known as doing the best processing and printing around. When they retired all of the local pros began mailing their film to distant labs: you still can't get that level of processing locally.

Later I found a complete beginner's darkroom at a garage sale: $25 and I had a wooden crate with enlarger, trays, timer, graduates: the whole kit. I converted a corner of the garage into a makeshift darkroom (it's amazing what you can do with aluminum foil!) and haven't been without one since. I've gone through medium format into 4x5 now and, although my darkroom isn't much bigger than the corner of that old garage, it has running water and I don't ruin film or prints whenever someone pulls into the driveway!

I believe that although I've had an interest in photographs (particlarly black and white) since I was a kid, I never would have done anything about making my own if I hadn't known Ron and Helen and had the advantage of their advice and encouragement. They had a knack for making complexities clear and were extraordinarily generous with their time (and occasionally with manufacturer's samples.) My only real regret is that I didn't encounter them or people like them many years earlier.

Mike

[Frank Petronio]

Canon AE-1

[Mark_3899]

I started as a 13 year old working for my photographer uncle in the summers. I sat in the dark loading holders and developing 8x10 sheetfilm. By the time I went off to college I knew that I was going to be a photographer. When I graduated I worked as an assistant, a color printer in a color lab and a catalog photographer. I decided at that time (about 20 years ago) I didn't want to do this any longer. I changed careers and shoot for myself. I've had a darkroom since 1976. I love all formats except disc and APS :)

[David Karp]

My Dad has always been a photographer. He used to use a Nikon S rangefinder (he still has it), and he taught me how to take photographs with it. I started out with Tri-X and Plus-X, and I used to expose it using the charts that Kodak had in their film boxes (you know, the ones with the line drawing of a sunny, partly cloudy, cloudy day, etc.). My sisters and I always asked our Dad to show us his slides, especially the ones that he took when he was a Marine in Japan and Korea: Great landscapes, portraits of elderly farmers with deeply lined faces, other Marines, little kids, we loved watching them. He always had a camera with him, and I guess it rubbed off on me, even if it did not on my two sisters.

My uncle bought me a Konica Auto S2 fixed lens rangefinder when I was in junior high school - a great camera with a nice 45mm lens (I still have it) - and I was really hooked. My Dad taught me to develop film using Diafine, and the first time I saw my hand developed negatives I went crazy. (I still love it!) We built a darkroom in our basement, saved our money, and bought a Meopta Opemus III enlarger from Altman's in Chicago. (Anyone remember that place?) That enlarger served me well for many, many years, until I obtained my current Saunders. A few years after I got the Konica, I bought a Canon FTb, which I still use, along with my Dad's old mechanical Canon F1. (It seems that by the time I get around to buying an autofocus SLR, they will all be digital!)

Photography has always been a great family thing for me. My Dad and I share a passion for it. I met my wife through photography (she is an awesome photographer), and her Dad is also a passionate (and outstanding)photographer.

I must admit, however, that none of my family understands my fascination with this large format thing. I just tell them it is their loss. (And I think that they are secretly jealous of my big negatives!)

[ronald lamarsh]

My obsession started with my fathers Argus C3 when I was about 8 and made the progression from 35mm to med format to large format.

[Capocheny]

Kevin,

Great question... but where does one start? In my case, I think my first camera was a Polaroid (the white one). I used this one for snapping pictures of my sibblings.

Next came the Kodak Instamatic 126...carried it around more than I shot with it. This was the "artistic phase" and I shot "close-ups" of a variety of objects and peole.

My first real camera was the Pentax Spotmatic F... I used this to shoot for the school newspaper. This was when I started learning about pushing film to 6400 ASA to shoot hockey in a relatively dark arena. I also developed my own films by this time and developing Tri-X to 6400 ASA took a lot of time.

I then bought a Nikon F2 and shot with it for a few years until the F3 was released. By this time, I was in university and started shooting with a friend who was a photojournalist at a newspaper. We use to shoot every weekend and as much as possible during the week. Over the years, as our friendship grew, we both bought Leica R3s, M6s, and a 500CM Hasselblad. Of course, this was followed by a full complement of lenses and other miscellaneous gear.

We took our first trip out to Vancouver, BC to shoot a "self-assigned" project... the Granville Island Market. It was wonderful and we ended up with some great pictures. The R3s were outstanding! After spending time doing this...we thought we'd drive down to Seattle. So, there we were... two visitors to Seattle's Pike Street Market (and the surrounding area, which was pretty seedy back then) packing around all this gear...boy, did we ever get some strange looks from the residents of skid-row. Finally, someone came up and told us we weren't suppose to be ambling round in that neighbourhood with all our funky looking camera equipment. Needless to say... we left in a big hurry!

Since that time...I've also worked for a newspaper and was published in The National Enquirer! They ran 4 of my images and one of them was also sold to a calendar. If only I can get more assignments like that one.... :>)

Since then...I've gone back to the Nikon (F100 and D100) system but have recently sold them off and am in the process of buying a Hasselblad H1. The digital back will have to wait for a bit of time... the prices are just too high at the moment. In the past year, I've also started shooting with a Sinar X... it's a fabulous piece of equipment with a bit of a steep learning curve. My subject matter is mostly floral in nature (in my make-shift studio.) With the blad...it'll be much more portable than the X and this is the camera I use out in the field. Sure, it's not as versatile as a 35mm but it forces me to "look at my shots" with a contemplative eye.

Nowadays, my friend has an Olympus E1 system (that most people would dearly love to get their mitts on!) and he's just purchased a Leica Digilux D2. He's a great shooter and loves photography... as do I. But, his eye is a lot better developed than mine. I have an immense amount of respect for his talent.

We can be found shooting on weekends regardless of whether the weather is good or bad. There's always something interesting if you choose to see it.

And, that's my story!

Cheers

[George Stewart]

I've shot photo's since I can remember, startining with 127, 110 then 35mm.

When I started working I got interested in improving the quality of my photographs and was going to look at Hasselblad equipment, when a friend tagged along wanting to look at Nikon's F4. When he handed the camera to me to checkout, I was immediatetly seduced by its Autofocus and speed (big mistake) but I still have the camera.

Later on it was a used Pentax 67 for astrophotography (still haven't purchased a Hasselblad). When I saw the dramatic improvement in image quality, I started using it for landscapes.

Soon I got bit by the thought of doing panoramic photography and found out that I could have a 4x10 camera with 90mm XL lens and holders for about half the cost of a Fuji or Linhof 617. The quality of images shot up again!

Then I thought about movements. Was it 4x5 or 8x10? I thought eventually I'd be printing my own 4x10 negatives, and that I'd need an 8x10 enlarger anyway so I got an 8x10. Way cool!!! But, I still liked to backpack, and the thought of going without movements and carrying a smaller rollfilm camera was no longer acceptable. so I added a 4x5 and some small lenses, which brings me to today.

I shot B&W seriously for about 20 years without a means of printing any of them (no room or funds). Several years ago I finally got that enlarger and went wild. Today, its the slow migration toward digital since I moved and had to close the darkroom. Its been over a year without the ability to print my LF stuff. However, by the end of this year I should be scanning and printing my LF stuff with some high end equipment. I guess I'd rather go without and save for the high end stuff and do it right in the end. Eventually, my darkroom will be open again.

As far as cameras for the future: I'd really like to have a Hasselblad SWC and perhaps a Toyo VX125 and maybe a 12x20...??? I'm sure I'll have to get a digital some time, but I plan to hold out as long as possible. I must resist the seduction of fast and easy in favor slow/hard work and the best quality.

Goerge

[Graeme Hird]

The long story made short:

- As a teenager in highschool, I used my father's Canon rangefinder in what I thought was an artistic way (wrong!). 1 roll a year was really burning the film for me.

- In 1987 (when I was 21) I was given the choice between a Minolta SRT 101 and a telescope, I chose the camera. A roll a week was good going.

- In 1993, my wife gave me a Nikon F801s for Christmas and I took up wedding photography to pay for the hobby. 15 rolls in a day? No problem ....

- In 1998, I bought a Tachihara 5x4. This was my first quantum leap in photography - I learnt more in 6 months than I had in the previous 11 years, and my photos showed it. Back down to about a roll a week.

- In 2001, I discovered Photoshop and digital printing (Lightjet) of my 5x4 trannies. Second quantum leap! I was finally in control of my prints rather than at the mercy of poor "professional" printers.

- Late in 2003, I discovered digital printing on metalic paper. That was my most recent quantum leap. I sat in awe of my first prints done on this paper and felt I'd finally achieved my goals in photography. Now, I can seek the perfect image and know that if I fail to achieve it, it's due to my own short-comings rather than technical issues outside my control. I now shoot about 1 roll of 35 mm a month and 8 sheets of Velvia a week.

- Next step is to quit the day job and open my second gallery.

Graeme

[tribby]

started with a kodak instamatic when i was seven. folks said i had an eye so i was conscripted as family vaction photog. got a really pretty photo of a tall ship on one vaction(sx-70) and was hooked. got a hi-matic minolta at 13, friends in japan got me a deal. then moved to a used srt 201, then mowed lawns and cleaned banks at 14 for a x700.

was shooting lf by 18...

[David R Munson]

I think I always had an interest in photography as long as I can remember. When I was about 12 I got an old Mamiya 35mm point and shoot at the church rummage sale and started shooting with that until I was 14, when we moved from western Massachusetts to the east side of Cleveland. I found my father's cameras in the move (Minolta X-370 and SR-T 100) and started really getting interested in it. I had no friends at the time and spend my time at the library reading photo books, at Second Hand Books starting what is now a thoroughly out of hand library of photo books, and shooting. It started as a fun habit, and with the help of the whole lack of friends thing (later remedied) I spent so much time doing photo-related stuff that it just grew into an obsession.

When I was 15 I bought a Mamiya C220f and started shooting MF. That winter I built a Bender 4x5 and started shooting LF when I was 16, at the end of that summer (1998?) bought a Linhof monorail with the money I had made while doing an internship at CWRU. When I was a senior in high school I saved up and bought my Deardorff 8x10 and had Mr Grimes mount a 240 f/10 Process Nikkor into a shutter for me.

At this point I've gone from the Minolta 35mm to Nikon to Leica and back to Nikon. I've gone through no fewer than 4 MF systems and 3 LF cameras. I've been doing digital in some capacity for about 4 years now and have gotten thoroughly excited about its possibilities.

I've been doing photography for about the last decade now and I love it more now than I ever have. I wonder if my father ever had any idea what he was starting when he let me use his cameras back in the day...

[e]

Boy that brings back memories. First camera was a Kodak instamatic w/flash cubes (liked to watch them sizzle), soon after, a Poloroid too as a young kid in the sixties. Then someone loaned me a Beseler Topcon in the late 60's. Even though I lost those photos I still remember them. My Dad was a photographer in NYC with a Leica, Rollieflex and Speed Graphic. He gave me the Speed Graphic when he stopped using it in 1969 or so. Then he left me a Yashica tlr. I had to have a Nikon FM and then a Leica m6 (later in life) before I got around to using the TLR and the Speed Graphic. I'm pretty much self taught. Seems there were always pro photogs around or living in the building we were at in the 60's in midtown Manhatten. My mom was in the art/music community in NYC as a working musician, she was friends with Gene Smith and other Life photogs. I think I really got serious about photography at 33 when I started working with the Leica M3, just something about it. The idea that Ralph Gibson could have such a well developed vision and philosophy in regards to the camera I really took to. Minor White was also an attraction in this regard. Many cameras and clicks later I'm now into ULF selling Wisner cameras as a sideline and working with the big cams and negs myself. I feel like a beginner again.

[Tadge Dryja]

I always thought photography was dumb through high school. "Cmon, you just press the button! Whatever."

Then during the summer after senior year, 4 years ago, I was biking around, and saw a fence in an empty parking lot. There must have been trees that had grown there and then been cut down, because meshed in with the rusty fencing were cut up cross sections of weathered wood. I crouched down to inspect it, and decided, "OK, I need to take artsy black and white photos of this."

That I had no idea what I was doing seemed of little importance. I went home, rummaged through the basement, and found my dad's Canon A-1. I then went to CVS and bough some "Black and White" film (some c-41 stuff). I couldn't figure out how to open the back of the camera so I tried going at it with pliers and a screwdirver. Then I finally figured it out and felt stupid.

Needless to say, those first two rolls didn't come out very well. Neither did the next, oh, 20 or so. I finally got some tri-x and went to the colleges photo club darkroom. Unfortunately they neglected to say that the D-76 in the bottles there was ALREADY diluted 1:1, so I never got a neg that printed on anything less than a grade 5.

Considering what a mess the first year was, it's kindof amazing I stuck with it. Then I got all this other junk, started printing bigger, then used the schools 4x5 camera... big mistake! There goes everything. Now every spare dollar goes to film or printing or lenses or whatnot. Now if I don't shoot film for a couple days I get jittery and start to go into withdrawl. I've been doing a lot of digital stuff for color (imacon, inkjets), but I think I'll stick to chemical for black & white. Also, I can shoot black & white for about 1/10th the price, so I try to stick to that even though I love color.

[Andrew O'Neill]

I am a visual artist with a background in drawing and printmaking (lithography, intaglio, silkscreening). I used to be anti-photography. I used to scoff at all the photo students when I went to university. I really thought they were wasting their time. How could one make art with a mechanical contraption? Of course I was just showing my ignorance. I knew nothing about photography. I loved lithography because I could incorporate drawing and painting into it. I loved it's reproducibility. I could also incorporate photography. This forced me to learn more about photography. Eventually I was doing all photo-litho. Then eventually all photo, bye bye litho. I first used 35mm (Pentax K1000) I bought for $100 (Canadian) at a pawn shop, then quickly switched to medium format (Mamiya RB67, by this time I was living in Japan and making tons of $$) and even quicker to 4x5 (beat up old Cambo) for quite a while and finally and for a few years now, 8x10 (a really nice Canham). Black and white. I love black and white. I've been drawing with pencils since I was a kid so it felt natural. I think that really helped me to see the world in gray tones. I had very strict printmaking masters who instilled in me attention to fine detail and print quality. I have no formal training in photography. If I could think of one thing that really attracted me to photography it was the rich blacks that one could obtain. I was never able to get that beautiful rich black or smooth gray tones in litho or even intaglio....or even my drawings. I've got to go now...yes, that's right the darkroom awaits! Cheers!

[Salty]

I got started in LF because I had a stack of 4x5 negatives that I had been buying from the National Archives. The lab that I had been getting the prints done at went digital, so I got some books, bought an enlarger and started doing the work myself. From there it was a view camera, lens, field camera, lens, better enlarger.........

[Bob Fowler]

I first got interested in photography in 1966 when I was 8. My Dad let me use his old Practiflex (under his supervision). Looking back, that Practiflex was a nightmare! It had a horrible, dark, waist level finder, and was as uncomfortable as chewing on broken glass - YUCK!

Things really took off for me at about 14 or so when I was given a Kowa SET-R2 leaf shuttered 35mm SLR. If the price of Kodak stock went up steeply in 1972, it was partially because I was going through 100' rolls of Tri-X like a madman. A Yashica Mat 124G was my introduction to medium format, and by the time I was a senior in High School, I was shooting 4X5 with a used Pacemaker Speed Graphic I bought with money earned from selling B&W portraits.

I was very lucky that I learned about shooting and darkroom work at the same time. My Dad taught me B&W processing and printing and his older brother taught us both about color processing and printing (this was back in the C-22 and E-4 days).

[jnantz]

i guess i can say i got started when my mom gave me her kodak flashfun camera - it was one of those 127 roll film cameras that took funky bulbs. i was in first or second grade and took snapshots of everything - the dog, friends & family, the shrubs around the house, you name it. it wasn't until i was in high school that i began my formal photographic education. and my camera was upgraded to a pentax k1000. still have it, although it is kind of held together with duct tape :)

i was bitten by the LF bug when i took photo courses in college, and later when i was working for a large format portraitist. she worked in 5x7 and lent me her pre-aniversary speed graphic to have a little fun on my lunch breaks. when i saw her 5x7 speed graphic it made me drool, and after that it was all downhill.

[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!!!