This is a quick post. I’m sitting in the sunshine, and thinking – if it weren’t for my Aunty Susan giving me my very first camera when I was around 8 years old, I might not be here right now, doing what I do. I’m sitting in my flat in London with my legs dangling out the window (did I mention it’s really sunny today?), planning some upcoming shoots, and feeling pretty damn lucky.
Those of us who take/make/create photographs (and lets face it, wonderfully, these days it’s a lot of people) can all remember what their first camera was. Mine was this dinky little red number. A long, rectangular shape, it took 220 cartridge film and I shot such intriguing subjects as dead fish and goat skulls on Muriwai beach back home in New Zealand.
They might not have been amazing images, but they were all mine. The camera was mine. I could shoot what I wanted when I wanted and didn’t have to give the camera back to my parents once I had taken one hesitant shot. As the youngest of the family, I’d always pined after the family Polaroid, and begged to be allowed to use it. A few blurry (and expensive) photos later, those privileges were revoked and I was left staring longingly as my big brother wielded the camera – much to his delight.
But here we are. That little red camera eventually led to bigger and bigger cameras, and a love affair with photography that I know will never go away… All thanks to this little red box, gifted to me by my Aunt who to this day champions me and cheers me on from the sidelines with my photography.
So I’m interested – what was your first camera? What were the first photographs you took? I’d love to know how you all got started loving photography – leave a comment below and let me know! 🙂
THE WANDERING KIND 
love your clear glasses, and camera 😀
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I shared my first camera with my brother. Or more accurately, it was his first camera and I shared it with him as he was the older one. And therefore more responsible. Apparently.
Strangely, my love affair with taking photos and photography didn’t carry through until I picked up my very own, paid with my own money, camera when I was in my late teens. It was a Panasonic point a shoot with a mega zoom. Like you, since then, cameras have got bigger and better 🙂
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I hope you got good use of it too! 😉
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Oh Adrienne, this is a wonderful story. And I can’t believe I also had a long red hanimex camera, slightly different to yours. My parents gave me a red one and my brother a yellow one. I remember I was about 7 or 8 years old and we were about to move up to Darwin and Dad was taking us to Ayers Rock on the way. My photos were so bad! Mainly half shots of Ayers Rock, which were never straight, let alone in focus! And my poor family would often be unsuspecting objects, normally taken very close up!
Thankfully they were sturdy back then too and it survived me dropping it many times or hitting things when I had it dangling around my wrist – oh the horror if I did that now with my camera!
I think I still have it back in storage in Australia, possibly with a rubber band around one end of it to keep the battery in! I’ll never forget that noise of flicking the switch across for the flash and waiting for the light to come on when it was ready – ahhh sorry to ramble, so many fond memories. 🙂
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Yes! That battery-powering-up sound always made me so happy! Please don’t apologise I loved reading your tale, so nice to know how people got started and how similar so many of our stories are 🙂
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