Long before I started my career as a Professional Photographer I was a imaginative yet hopeless amateur photographer. Recently while helping my Dad clean out his shed I stumbled across some very interesting memories. One of these stored away with cobwebs and who knows what on it was my first and original SLR camera. yes this was the beast that started it all for me. Well kind of anyway. I'm not sure how old I was when I took my first photo or had my first camera, I could have been as little as 3 or 4, and I remember taking photos with a polaroid owned by my brother and with my point and shoot disposable 24 exposure camera on school camp. But this camera I guess was my beginning. I bought this Ricoh manual SLR camera for a modest $35 from a friend, thinking that it would turn my little passion into brilliance. I was 16 at the time and had no experience with SLR photography (This had a great deal to do with me mucking around in photography at school and being kicked out of the class – I will save that story for another day).
The first thing I did with my new camera was to get up before the sun one day. I rode my bike to a paddock in the swan valley which had an open view of the distant hills and where the sun would be rising from. As the sun came up I fired off a whole 18 shots of my 24 exposures. The final prints would be quiet mussing to look at compared to now as I had no idea of how to manually change the settings on the camera – That would come in time.
I persisted with Film for some years and when I began my plight as a professional photographer, and photographed my first wedding it was with a Canon film body. I think from memory I used 6 rolls of film for about 120 odd photographs. Wow how things have changed.
I was an early mover into the digital era. My first digital love was a Nikon with a HUGE 1.3 megapixel sensor. I later got myself a canon with a 4 megapixel sensor and thought it was the absolute stuff. My 6 year old son owns a 8.2 Megapixel Digital SLR and is proving himself to be a handy little photographer. he will have no idea of the massive shift we have seen since I first became involved in the industry. It will become folklore and legend.
Anyway I have posted a couple of images of what is remaining of my first SLR camera. If you still have yours post some images up so we can see where it all began for you.

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