CCC Forum

To be correct, it is the first photo which I can remember taking, but I thought that it would be an appropriate anecdote for my first entry on this forum.

My interest in photography began when I was about 5 or 6 and used to "help" my dad print photos in his darkroom. I was fascinated by seeing the magic of a picture slowly appearing in the developing tray. Somehow, a picture gradually emerging from an inkjet printer is not quite the same thing, even if the sense of anticipation still remains.

When I realised that I could take pictures myself, I asked for a camera for my eighth birthday and received a Baby Brownie, which took eight pictures on a roll of 127 film. I exposed my first film that day and whilst I cannot recall what the first seven shots were, the last is still a vivid memory.

I decided that I would save my last exposure for when my dad arrived home from work in his car that evening and would take a picture of it side on, with him sitting looking out of the driver's window. When "we" developed and printed the film, it turned out exactly as I had imagined it. Not the world's most exciting picture, maybe, but it meant something to me at the time and still does.

In more recent years as I have become more proficient in my photography, I realised that I had discovered for myself something which Ansel Adams had long been advocating. It would be many years before I relearnt it, or find out about Ansel Adams for that matter. Previsualisation of an image before pressing the shutter release.

How I can empathise with that feeling of excitment when the first picture starts to show itself through the developer.

My first such experience was of contact printing from 2.25in x 3.25in negatives (8 negs to a roll on 620 film) with the negs placed in a wooden frame and exposed for X seconds to an ordinary tungsten lightbulb in the bathroom ceiling, when I was about 14 years old.

My serious interest in photography had started about two years prevously. But that first venture into darkroom work had to wait until I could afford to get started (5 bob a week pocket money didn't go far even in those long-distant days, and the first priority for me was film - otherwise no pictures, of course).

I remember having read somewhere (AP probably) that it was important to have a set distance between the printng paper and the light source (otherwise inconsistent results) and then to determine just what that X value should be by experimantation and stick with it afterwards. The set distance was achieved by resting the printing frame on the platfom
at the top of my father's stepladder which was positioned below the lightbulb.

Because I was using panchromatic film by then (having started my photographic journey with ortho) I had to set all that up total darkness. luckily the light switch was outside the bathroom so I also had top persuade dad (or mum) to hang around on the landing and switch the light on and off for the required length of time to my instructions.

Oh what joy when it worked that first time.

But I don't regret trhe coming of digital one little bit. After full-time education and National Sevice my work and home circumstances prevented me from doing any traditional darkroom work ever again. Without the computer I can see no way by which I wouldl have achieved either the results or satisfaction from photography and the new friendships that I have enjoyed since becoming a member of Croydon Camera Club. Long may it continue.

In some ways I'm a bit jealous of these stories - having almost completely avoided film photography as a child (I'm sure I must have snapped something off, sometime) I don't have classic memories like these. My first "photo" is almost certainly my wife when I got my dSLR 18 months ago! Not exciting!

I guess what I do have though is the first picture where I took when I was seriously interested in photography - my knowledge was drastically incomplete then, ISO was only something I vaguely understood! - and set out with a goal. A rather specialised shot, and not your normal camera club fare, but still it was a driver that got me into photography, something I'd always wanted to see and wanted to photograph too. So it ties with the idea of previsualising something before pressing the shutter I guess.

So when I got home from holiday and it had actually worked... well, I've not looked back

I'll keep the picture small but here it is - I'd never SEEN the milky way, let alone photographed it, and three months after picking up a proper camera I got it

Milky Way (partial) from Mauna Kea, Hawaii by cedarsphoto, on Flickr

My first "photo" is almost certainly my wife when I got my dSLR 18 months ago! Not exciting!

Dave, things might get a bit more exciting for you if your wife ever gets to see this forum.