What about me, well I was first given a camera by my grandfather when I was eight years old; it was a copy of a Box Brownie and not even a genuine Kodak. He had acquired years before when his ship had docked in New York. Now fifty-nine years later on I am still as fascinated by photography as I was when I was handed that camera. Several days after being given the Box Brownie I saw the first attempts handed back to me as prints at Boots Chemists in Salford and I was well and truly hooked. Almost Six decades later I an still as hooked as I ever was, I just know a little more about it.
It is disputed as to when “photography” started, I say started maybe I should use the word evolved as the dates are as in a lot of things also in dispute. The Camera Obscura which projected images, all be it upside down, onto a wall in a darkened room had been around for years and the name first used in 1604. Johann Heinrich Schulze cut out letters on a bottle of light sensitive slurry in 1717 but wasn’t able to stabilise the images. In 1800 Thomas Wedgwood and his partner Sir Humphry Davy tried and failed to produce stable images, however, they did give us the name “photograms”. The first surviving image was produced in 1826/27 taken by Nicephore Niepce and was called “View from the window at Le Gras” and was fixed onto a 6×4 plate of pewter coated in Bitumen of Judea.
Niepce’s colleague Louis Daguerre went on to give us the daguerreotype in 1839 which allowed limited commercial work to be undertaken. At the same time William Fox Talbot was working on the calotype negative and salt print which allowed a wider use of photography which is more recognisable today. So taking any point between 1826 to 1839 it appears that I have been taking photographs for a over a quarter of the time photography has been about.
Box Brownie to Kodak Instamatic, Voigtländer Vito B, Yachica SLR, Minolta Autocord, Fuji S7000 DSLR and onto various Canon DSLR’s and from darkrooms to a digital A2 printer which demonstrates that I have seen lots of changes. There is always somebody to tell you where you have gone wrong or what you should have done, why you need to buy a better camera or that you have used the wrong lens. The question you need to ask is, why? There may be a very good reason for that piece of advice and we all have to learn I know I did, I still am which for me is half the fun.
I listened to the advice of “more experienced” photography soaking it in like sponge some of it good even great advice even. Other peoples advice I wished I hadn’t as it was just plain bad advice and some just plain stupid. Later on I tended to listen and ask questions and even at my age I am quite open to new ideas even if they are old ones I had long forgotten.
My attitude is now if you enjoy what you are doing then why not keep doing it. Photography is a subjective artform as in what pleases one person can displease or even disgust others. It is also a technical artform or even a craft and whether you are an Artist, Technician or as I so a craftsman we have one thing in common, a passion for taking photographs. I don’t let other peoples ideas stop me from doing what I enjoy doing, life is to short and photography is fun.