Compared with other hobbies, one of the aspects I like about photography is I can trace a direct, clear path from my beginnings to where I am right now.
In the pre-beginnings, I’m sure my parents had a film camera or two, but I don’t remember ever getting to use those; film was far too expensive, after all. Then, there was a compact digital point-and-shoot camera, the kind which are now very rare indeed. I borrowed a family one, then I bought my own sometime before college. It served me well, but it wasn’t the real camera, only a taste.
With a senior-year schedule light on requirements, I did what any good college student would, and took a variety of classes. That’s how I found myself in an Intro to Photojournalism class, suddenly needing to go acquire a real DSLR.
That class was throwing myself into the deep end—from day one, we were expected to shoot fully manually, learning as we went. It took some time to understand the “composition triangle” and grasp how to make this machine work properly, but starting off fully manually made for an enjoyable ride up the learning curve. Add in some photo-editing basics, and a crash course in file management—rules I still follow to this day when managing my photos!—and the roots for photography had set firmly for me.
Soon enough, my camera became a regular partner, heading out on my shoulder, coming in my suitcase on the trip to Asia in grad school, going out to events or matches or any other time that it seemed like a great idea.
With my move to Japan in 2011, I found even more reasons to carry my camera around: all of the events and travel I found myself doing, all of the school events, and all of the interesting places I suddenly made it to matched perfectly with the desire to take photos. Things have grown since then, but while it remains mostly a hobby, I can definitely say: my first DSLR was the best textbook I ever purchased.
All of the above photos were from my original camera, which is to say: my Flickr account has a very, very long memory!
Doug Bonham Dot Blog 