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aragarna asked about Photography, and I think this topic will have to be split in few answers :PHer questions/topic exactly was: Photography. What do you like? When did you started? Your favorite?
So I will start with not with the first one but with the second When did you started?
Simple answer is neons ego, ages to be precise. Photography was always in my life as my mom loved photography and was doing it already for quite some time when I showed up in the world. And I do know I was playing with her camera before I got my own. She tried to interest both my brother and me in photography and it wasn't only in just taking photographs either.
My first memories related to photography is actually what happens after you take a photograph. The whole development process.
Development of the film was mode by my uncle, I know that my mom did it sometimes too or gave the films for professional development, but it's stuck in my head that my uncle did that. In our bathroom. Yup it does sound weird, but then it was the late '80 and early '90ties of XX century in Poland where the black and white film was still in daily use and color came few years after that. So you could develop not only film by yourself but also develop your pictures too. So the bathroom was the best place to develop film as it had no windows and it was easy to cut all sources of light for the movement of the film to development capsule. After the film was ready we sat with my mom in the kitchen that was magically converted into a photo development studio. We had automatic exposure clock, the enlarger, and of course chemical components necessary for the process, and a special dryer to finish the ready photos faster.
We spent and evening - night in the kitchen learning the process, from how to frame and edit the crop of the photo in the enlarger, to the exposure on photo paper, to the steps of when the photo should be removed from developer bath and so on. I count that as to when I started with photography. The process unfortunately ended when we moved to color films, as it's just much more complicated but it was a lot of fun anyway.
When I started to make first photos? That must have been when I was around four, five years old maybe? I know that my brother got on a camera first, and that I did made photos with it too, and that must have been somewhere around his first communion so I was seven. And I do know I was playing with mom's camera before. I got my own first camera on my communion, when I was nine. There are no proofs of that :) It was a small, kid camera actually a LOMO SMENA type. The B&W film was expensive, development not so much, but the first photos that survived the experiments are from time I was around thirteen. So you can see I wasn't one of those kids that got camera in their hands and suddenly were a start in photography...
It took years. After something happened to my camera, and don't ask me what cos I really don't know, I probably lost interest somewhere around end of primary school, when I discovered computers. That was huge part of my life before I went back to photography. I got my hands on my mom's camera again, and some specific pieces like macro rings that allow to get a better enlargement of image on normal lenses. And I was hooked again! So I got for my eighteenth birthday a SLR camera - which mean a camera with a mirror - which at the time were the best of the best (yes it the digital cameras showed soon, but still the SLR type of cameras is best of the best.) It was big, clunky Minolta that I have till today (I also have my mom's Practica, and I use lenses from it). Still with a good camera in hand, the cost of film and development where high enough that I was very careful doing photos and learning the process - imagine you have only 36 frames (in good film) to use. So you have to choose your subject carefully, and think how to make a photograph, how to set yourself and camera, what should be found in the frame or not, and set time/aperture settings. That was the school of photography that now gives percentage because there was no possibility to change frame later (well it was after you made the paper version of the photograph and cut it with scissors...).
But the real turn came with my first digital camera - cos I could test everything I wanted and make million of photos and delete them if they were bad. In 2005 I bought my first digital foto idioto, you know one of those you just point and shot :) And from that moment I knew I want to have more to do with photography and that I want a dSRL type of camera to make even better photos (or rather better quality) because even then I was making good photos (proofs in some of the next section of answer ramble where you will see my favorites).
So it was just a long road to this point when I just love photography.
End of part 1
Simple answer is neons ego, ages to be precise. Photography was always in my life as my mom loved photography and was doing it already for quite some time when I showed up in the world. And I do know I was playing with her camera before I got my own. She tried to interest both my brother and me in photography and it wasn't only in just taking photographs either.
My first memories related to photography is actually what happens after you take a photograph. The whole development process.
Development of the film was mode by my uncle, I know that my mom did it sometimes too or gave the films for professional development, but it's stuck in my head that my uncle did that. In our bathroom. Yup it does sound weird, but then it was the late '80 and early '90ties of XX century in Poland where the black and white film was still in daily use and color came few years after that. So you could develop not only film by yourself but also develop your pictures too. So the bathroom was the best place to develop film as it had no windows and it was easy to cut all sources of light for the movement of the film to development capsule. After the film was ready we sat with my mom in the kitchen that was magically converted into a photo development studio. We had automatic exposure clock, the enlarger, and of course chemical components necessary for the process, and a special dryer to finish the ready photos faster.
We spent and evening - night in the kitchen learning the process, from how to frame and edit the crop of the photo in the enlarger, to the exposure on photo paper, to the steps of when the photo should be removed from developer bath and so on. I count that as to when I started with photography. The process unfortunately ended when we moved to color films, as it's just much more complicated but it was a lot of fun anyway.
When I started to make first photos? That must have been when I was around four, five years old maybe? I know that my brother got on a camera first, and that I did made photos with it too, and that must have been somewhere around his first communion so I was seven. And I do know I was playing with mom's camera before. I got my own first camera on my communion, when I was nine. There are no proofs of that :) It was a small, kid camera actually a LOMO SMENA type. The B&W film was expensive, development not so much, but the first photos that survived the experiments are from time I was around thirteen. So you can see I wasn't one of those kids that got camera in their hands and suddenly were a start in photography...
It took years. After something happened to my camera, and don't ask me what cos I really don't know, I probably lost interest somewhere around end of primary school, when I discovered computers. That was huge part of my life before I went back to photography. I got my hands on my mom's camera again, and some specific pieces like macro rings that allow to get a better enlargement of image on normal lenses. And I was hooked again! So I got for my eighteenth birthday a SLR camera - which mean a camera with a mirror - which at the time were the best of the best (yes it the digital cameras showed soon, but still the SLR type of cameras is best of the best.) It was big, clunky Minolta that I have till today (I also have my mom's Practica, and I use lenses from it). Still with a good camera in hand, the cost of film and development where high enough that I was very careful doing photos and learning the process - imagine you have only 36 frames (in good film) to use. So you have to choose your subject carefully, and think how to make a photograph, how to set yourself and camera, what should be found in the frame or not, and set time/aperture settings. That was the school of photography that now gives percentage because there was no possibility to change frame later (well it was after you made the paper version of the photograph and cut it with scissors...).
But the real turn came with my first digital camera - cos I could test everything I wanted and make million of photos and delete them if they were bad. In 2005 I bought my first digital foto idioto, you know one of those you just point and shot :) And from that moment I knew I want to have more to do with photography and that I want a dSRL type of camera to make even better photos (or rather better quality) because even then I was making good photos (proofs in some of the next section of answer ramble where you will see my favorites).
So it was just a long road to this point when I just love photography.
End of part 1
And the post for asking is still open, don't be shy ask me anything to ramble about. ;)
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(no subject)
Date: 2013-12-05 03:26 pm (UTC)Photography is one of those things I really would like to get better at.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-12-05 03:43 pm (UTC)Additionally if I still had access to all the equipment I would gladly show you the process, maybe in the future ;)
Well you can get pretty good at photography quite fast - and come one the pictures you made in Szczecin were good! It's just always a matter what you mean "better" at :)
(no subject)
Date: 2013-12-05 03:54 pm (UTC)ETA to answer your edit: Oh that would be fun! A photo trip to Szczecin ! :-) (Or maybe elsewhere in Poland, some place easier to write LOL)
(no subject)
Date: 2013-12-05 04:38 pm (UTC)Hee if I will find the equipment for the photo development it will rather be in Szczecin anyway :P But a photo trip to make photos can be done everywhere and not necessarily to place that is easier to write like Białowieża :P or Świnoujście.... put evil laughter here
(no subject)
Date: 2013-12-05 04:49 pm (UTC)