How I Got Started in Photography

Well, this is my third post for the day and it's not even Thursday! (Mondays and Thursdays are my normal "posting" days.) I guess I just feel like typing today!

Not too long ago, I had a couple of people ask me how I got started taking photos. Well, it goes back to when I was a kid... perhaps around 1964 or so when my dad bought me a Kodak Brownie Bullet camera (see my past postings on Kodak Brownie Cameras.) Ever since then, I was interested in cameras even though I knew nothing about photography. I'd run around taking "pretend" photos with that camera.

Then I graduated to playing with my dad's old Argus 35mm camera and Polaroid cameras. The Polaroid was really nice because we could see pictures in about one minute! That's kind of like what we have today with digital cameras! Instant gratification... well within one minute we had gratification... lol

Then I found my dad's old Speedgraphic camera! Wow... it was like being "Jimmy Olson" from the old Superman TV series. You'd see all the old news camera guys with these huge "press" cameras. It reminded me of the old "gangster days" where all the news guys had these old monster 4x5 sheet film cameras!

My dad also had a bunch of B&W darkroom equipment and I remember him setting up a mini lab in our bathroom! I can still "smell" those chemicals whenever I think about it. Oh... and my Uncle Harry was always taking pictures too! (See my old post on Uncle Harry.)

Later, in the late 1960's my brother got one of the old Kodak Instamatic cameras. I can't recall the model number, but I remember it was really a nice camera at the time.

Around the late 70's or early 80's, I remember my cousin Albert had purchased a Canon AE-1 35mm camera and I thought that was really nice. Then several of the guys at my church purchased cameras from Minolta and Canon... I really wanted to get a "good" camera back then after seeing theirs. So in the early 1980's when I had the opportunity to travel to Hawaii on a free trip sponsored by one of the stereo manufacturers (our family owned a stereo store years ago), I purchased a Canon AE-1 Program 35mm camera to take with me. This is when I really started to learn the basics of photography. I read every photography book I could find in the library and taught myself how to take good pictures before going on the trip. I still have those photos I shot in Hawaii...

Years later, while we were still dating, my wife and I (she was my girlfriend then...) took an evening photography course that was offered at Oakton Community College. I really enjoyed that class because it gave us something to do together and I got to play with my camera! Later (after we were married), I found out that the only reason my wife agreed to take the class was because I wanted to do it. She had really no interest in it at all but did it just because I wanted to do it! Shocking! The things you do for love, I guess....

So, since she had no real interest in photography, I took over her Nikon FE camera and kept it for myself after we got married!

I used that Nikon camera for many of the weddings I shot when I first got started in wedding photography. I still have that camera today.

After we moved to San Diego, I went back to school to study Evidence Technology and had many college classes in crime scene photography along with learning how to process film in B&W and Color.

I had the opportunity to do a lot of photography work while working for three law enforcement agencies in San Diego. It was here that I really honed my documentary photography skills.

Years later, I was recommended by my old college professor to take over his position and teach Crime Scene photography at my old school, but he ultimately decided to stay on teaching an extra year or so and by that time, we ended up moving back to the Chicago area, so I never did it. That would have been fun though...

So that's the story of how I got into photography. It's really been a lifetime of interest in photography, now that I think about it.

Never thought I'd end up as a professional wedding photographer though. I always thought I'd end up as a professional musician. I never thought I'd end up doing law enforcement work either, but that's another story for another day. But I don't regret being a wedding photographer. I really love what I do today!