February is the month of ‘love’ and for many that’s all about romance yet ‘love can take many forms and one of the loves of my life is photography (unsurprisingly). I thought I’d talk about how I got into photography and how my love for it grew.
My introduction to photography
As a young child, I saw my dad taking photographs with his camera and thought that I’d like to do that too. We lived in Germany at the time, and one Christmas, when I was around the age of 15, my parents presented me with my first camera as my gift; a Pentax KM. I was very lucky to have such generous parents.
It was a second-hand camera, (bought from one of the other officers), but it was better than Dad’s camera!
I took photos of trains – another passion in my life. Germany used steam trains for longer than we did here in the UK and I thought they were glorious and fascinating.
During those days (in the mid to late 70s), it was very fashionable to take reversal film (compared to negative films of the present), which were produced on slides, and you had to use a projector to view them. I’m sure those of you who are of a certain age remember sitting through long film shows of holiday or family slides trying to stay awake!
What was brilliant about the developing of reversal film – it was spot on, exactly as you took the photo. I found over time that when you take negative film, depending on where you got it developed, you had very mixed results in the finished article. That meant you were never sure if it was the developer, or your photographic abilities! I didn’t develop my own film at that time.
Later on, a friend of mine introduced me to photo enlargers and some of the dark room techniques, but that wasn’t the part of photography that appealed to me. The main enjoyment for me was framing the picture – the composition. I think I’m probably a failed artist in terms of using my hands – but I am able to use my eyes to create art through the camera lens.
Next week, I’ll share part two around how photography became the ‘focus’ of my business….
