Your first photograph

[studiocygnet]

I thought it would be interesting to see everyone's first photo. Not professional photo, just the first photograph that you can come up with, and the story to go with it. Here is mine.

My folks gave me a camera for Christmas when I was 11 years old. Or maybe it was Santa Claus, I don't remember at what age I stopped being a believer. This was December 1962. My new cat was on my bed, so I ran back to the back of the house and took this photo. I remember it was a Kodak camera with a waist level viewfinder that reversed everything. By the looks of this photo it must have had a flash with it, but I don't remember much about the flash. I just scanned this yesterday from the negative which is almost 45 years old. The negative is about 1 5/8" square (42mm). Anyone remember what size film that was?

So it's a square black and white photo. Looking at my signature, I haven't progressed much.

[JohnT]

I don't think I could find the negative if I had to. LOL

[RandySmith]

I use one of my first photo's as my avatar ....

It was taken with my instamatic 110 .. I was in the kitchen with my brother and cousins and saw the shadows that were coming from the window panes (now that shows my age, and the age of the house) ... anyway, I told my cousins to "pretend" they were behind jail bars ... and put their hands up in a way that made it look like they were prisoners. Anyway, I think I was around eight at the time (1963).

Randy

[brad]

Mine came from a Kodak Instamatic.. wanna say 125? I used the heck out of that little camera... this is one of the first shots I remember taking.... (hint, that 65 Mustang in the background wasn't all that old...)

[kenw]

My first pic was probably of my dog, Buddy, who has been gone since i was 14. That was almost 40 years ago......finding that pic might be a bit difficult. It was likely a Polaroid and if one of the early color pics has probably vaporized into nothingness.....

Dad always had a newer Polaroid to use in his work, so he often brought it home to learn with. Since film and flash for them were quite costly, my experiments were few and far between.

The earliest one that I still have is an attempt at shooting my train models with dad's b+w polaroid, probably about 1978. The wide open aperture and virtually non-existant DoF taught me that a side view with most subject elements being co-planar worked better than a head-on shot.

[studiocygnet]

Originally Posted by JohnT

I don't think I could find the negative if I had to. LOL

Turns out my negatives are a lot more organized than my digital files, probably because I've had 40+ years to figure out a system. Don't ask me to find a scan from last year.

[Daniel Bates]

My first picture was probably at my cousin's graduation from the USAF Academy. That set of prints has been long since lost, of course...

[Terrancelee]

Anything I had related to my early photography was lost in a house fire that took my house in 92. I got my first 35mm for Christmas in 80 @ 14 years of age, so I had a fair share of shots. Some were even good. :) Wish I could have them all back.