Childhood: 110
When I was a kid in the 70's, whenever we
went on
holiday or even for a day out my Dad carried has
chrome and glass viewfinder camera like a badge of
adulthood responsibility. Like most boys I wanted
to be a grownup and like my Dad so I asked for a
camera for mt 10th birthday. The camera I received
was a product of its day; a 110 cartridge camera.
The camera was perfect for a child, with fixed focus
and no exposure controls to worry about I carried
that camera on my belt in its denim case (it was
the 70's after all) for several years.
My parents reminded me how expensive film
was to
buy and process so I was as careful and frugal with
my exposures as I could be. I still remember taking
my first ever shot with film in my own camera. It
was at my 10th birthday party of my friends around
my cake. As it was a 'special occasion' I even spent
one of my precious flash cubes. I was nervous as
I composed and took the shot, almost expecting some
kind of recoil from the camera at the weight of the
occasion' For a moment, as I instructed my friends
to pose and "say cheese" I felt like a
grown-up.
Months later, after finally finishing the
cartridge,
after my Mum had sent the film off to be processed
through a bargain, mail-order processor, I finally
got the little print back. It wasn't too anti-climactic
an experience. You could recognize everyone and I
hadn't cut off anyone's head or any other photo faux
pas. But even at that young age I wanted to do better
and I headed off to the local library to read about
photography. By the time I hit 13 I was enamored
with the wildlife programs coming from the BBC especially "Life
on Earth". I wanted to be a wildlife photographer
and by hitting the books I had learnt that I needed
an SLR and a telephoto lens to get started. To placate
me I was handed my Mum's old 35mm viewfinder camera
(a Halina Pet) - at least it was 35mm and had some
form of focusing and exposure mechanisms even if
they did rely on guess work. The prints came back
showing an obvious light leek and so my parents finally
relented ...
Teenage: Mechanical SLR
... sort of. If I saved up my pocket money
for half
the cost they would get me the Zenit SLR from the
local department store which was my object of lust.
It took a lot of saving for a 13 year old but I finally
got my first real camera in time for the summer.
I pored over the manual and other books and immediately
started saving for a telephoto lens. The camera was
heavy and complicated and I loved it. I felt and
smelled like a real camera. I made do with the 58mm
standard lens for a while, first supplementing it
with some cheap extension tubes and a home made flash
bracket so I could try some close up flower and insect
photography. Getting back the prints, and later the
slides, was sometimes exhilaratingly and sometimes
immensely disappointing. I continued to try to learn
to minimize the disappointments.
I'd read that the press photographers
carried a
135mm telephoto and a 35mm wide angle as their main
kit but that wasn't enough range as far as I could
see. If 135mm and 35mm were good wouldn't 200mm and
28mm be even better? I found a secondhand screw mount
200m no-brand telephoto in a camera store near to
my high school and using some birthday money and
holiday money it was mine. For the first time I felt
like a serious photog (although I still had a load
to learn). A fire broke out in a shed behind where
we lived and I caught a few half-decent shots of
the firemen dealing with the flames using my new
lens. I submitted the pictures to the local rag who,
although they didn't use them, sent me a nice letter
of encouragement and a few rolls of film.
Then I started to become obsessed with the
fact
that my light meter on my Zenit did not take the
reading through the lens but over the top of it.
It was old fashioned and worked but I was convinced
it wasn't good enough. At that time a friend at school
was finding his Practica MTL-5 too slow to use and
was upgrading to something with automatic exposure
so I got his cast off for half what he had paid for
it a year earlier. I know had a decent M42 kit with
a couple of bodies and a few lenses and other accessories
which kept me going for the next few years of exploration.
Young Adult: Japanese SLR
By the time I got to college I thought I
knew a
lot about photography. I thought I'd earned the right
to carry a decent camera. This was the mid-80's when
decent cameras came from Japan with newfangled computer
controlled exposure systems and manual focusing zoom
lenses. I worked long hours through the summer and
the harvest on a local farm to raise the funds to
buy my dream Olympus OM-2spot/program system with
a couple of zooms. During the following winter, as
an avid climber and hiker exploring the Yorkshire
Dales, I learnt a lesson in the dependability of
these new electronic miracles. My new camera ate
expensive little coin batteries for breakfast. If
the camera was used in the cold the batteries would
just die and the camera would quit working. When
you're half way up a climb when this happens your
expensive camera becomes little more than dead weight.
I'd never had that problem with my old East German
relics.
The following summer I was back working on
the farm
to pay for a secondhand OM-1 and a couple of prime
lenses. The OM-1 became my old dependable whenever
I was going out into the elements with my precious
OM-2s reserved for less physically demanding situations.
A friend discovered an old, half-abandoned
darkroom
in our college and we quickly set up a little camera
club. The college AV guy taught us the basics of
developing our own B&W film and prints and then
left us to it. We started to get hard core, reloading
our own film cassettes and buying paper and chemicals
in bulk. And then, just as I was starting to start
to really learn something, college was over.
Death of enthusiasm
(P&S):
The darkroom was no longer available to me
and I
had to find a real job. As the pressures of earning
a living took over the my Olympus cameras started
to gather dust in the closet only to be extracted
and cleaned off when I was going away on vacation.
The death knell for my enthusiasm came when I was
given a P&S, autofocus, zoom compact. It was
clever and it made sense to carry instead of my bulky
SLR rig but it inspired no enthusiasm. I started
to take less and less pictures and when I did pickup
a camera it was just to grab a snapshot. Occasionally
I'd still get out the SLR's but film was becoming
a pain without a darkroom to use and time to use
it.
Re-established Enthusiasm
(digital):
In the meantime I was working in the tech
sector.
I moved from the UK to California. I fell in love
and got married. And then I started to see a couple
of my early adopter friends with the first mega-pixel
cameras. Interesting. A year and a half later the
cameras were up to 2.3 mega-pixel and good enough
to abandon my film P&S. I stuck with what I knew,
Olympus, and bought the well reviewed 2000z. It was
expensive but it gave me back my enthusiasm. Suddenly
I was taking a camera everywhere again. I was experimenting
with things I'd never waste film on; hand holding
1/15th or slower shots under incandescent lights,
etc. I took hundreds of shots a day and I started
to go out with the express purpose of taking shots
again - something I hadn't really done since college.
Next I started to play with post processing
on my
computer and leaning Photoshop 5. Next was the quest
to get a decent print from an inkjet. By the time
I was half-happy with the results cameras where up
to 5 megapixels and my wife surprised me with one
of the new 'prosumer' cameras as a gift. My enthusiasm
just kept building. I started to seek out others
as obsessive as myself. I would pickup my old film
cameras with new found respect. I started to collect
photography books. I wanted to talk about photography,
not cameras.
Getting Serious (prosumer
digicam & photoblog):
Then, while a photo buddy and I were
exploring the
web for information about photography self-assignments I
came across PAW (picture
a week) sites which
led me to the first photo(b)log I'd
ever seen. Here was a self-paced, flexible, creative
way for anyone to get their work seen. I wanted in.
I dabbled with free services but always wanted the
flexibility my own domain and 'real' photoblog allowed.
In October of 2003 I registered TheOtherMartinTaylor.com,
found a host, installed movabletype and set up my
own photoblog. Since then posting to my photoblog
has gone through peaks and troughs but has always
continued. It inspires me to keep trying and learning
and allows me to use my long dormant creative side
and to connect and share with others who are as obsessive
about photography as I am.
Want
to know more?
