Did I ever tell you how I got started doing photography? (You are you, in this case, and I ask all of you this because I know the collective answer is no.)

The story goes, in high school I shot video (poorly) in band all the time. In 1996 or 97 my Aunt Nancy gave me an older SLR for some reason. I think she had let me borrow her new digital camera (we’re talking one of the first compact digicams) I really enjoyed taking tons of crappy 640×480 photos with it. So I think she figured I would have an interest in the film camera. I did not.

I went to college for music, and after a year I realized I couldn’t do it for a living. Burnout. So I switched to graphic design because I had been working with web sites since 1996. Turns out I was kind of a lousy designer… at least by good designer standards. But I remember always scouring the web for images for use in projects and never being able to find anything free that was any good. I didn’t know where else to look.

My mom had Sony Mavica that recorded straight to floppy disk at the time. Huge display, but the photos were 1.3 megapixels. I started shooting all the time. These photos were really lame and boring, but it was a start. I probably shot more in those days than I ever have.

One of the things that intrigued me was when I used the macro setting to shoot things up close, I would get this really shallow depth of field. That looked “professional” to my untrained eye. I had no idea how it worked.

Then, probably Fall of 2001 or so, I took a beginning photography class as part of the graphic design major. Black and White Darkroom, SLR camera required. I pulled out Aunt Nancy’s camera and shot with it until it fell apart a year later. Changed majors, and I haven’t looked back since.

This entry was posted Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 4:16 am and is filed under 35mm, Text. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.