January is an interesting month really. It was 30 years ago this month that I got my first SLR camera, a Pentax K1000. We have been on an amazing trip ever since.
I can’t believe it is 30 years, seems almost yesterday. Everything was film back then and what a learning curve it is to use that, not to mention how expensive it was. Still, I learned so much, however, in the end, I really started to hate film. Why, probably because I didn’t have the control over my photos that I do with digital.
I got my first digital SLR in 2009, I think. It was a Nikon D300s. That was another learning curve, but one I soon figured out that I loved. I took so quickly to digital photography and have never hated it.
Today’s photos were taken 10 years ago on a trip down to Cape Schanck. It was one of my first trips down there, but not the last. I haven’t been there for a few years and maybe it is a trip I should take soon.
I have been enjoying going back over my old images. Sometimes I’m shocked and other times I’m really happy. These images I am happy with.
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I love the sea. I love how those photos can stop the dynamism of waves. That’s the most marvellous to me. There’s really magic in there, it’s like a miracle to stop the sea that is in fact an endless movement… I can almost hear these photos… 💫
Photographing the sea and waves is a lot of fun, and there are quite a few ways of doing it, which is always fun. Thank you Allysa.
Nice
Thank you.
Nice
Thank you Ayi.
Mesmerizing.
Thank you Peter.
I used to have a film camera in my youth but it did not capture my interest in photography – too much you had to think about. When I went digital and my first Nikon gave up, I also bought a (used) D300; just love it, and I actually bought a second used one just in case the first one gives up at some point 🙂
I know what you mean, film was a lot of work and there was nothing worse than taking photos and getting them back to find out none of them worked. It was really disheartening. I love being able to look at the back of the camera and see problems as they happen. Haha, that’s great, my D300s is now an infrared camera which I have lots of fun with from time to time. Thank you Kiki.
Wonderful images. So glad you saved the files. 😊
Thank you Pepper. I have saved most of my digital images.
These are so fascinating from years ago.
Anita
Thank you Anita.
These images caught..so amazing. Thanks Anita
Thank you Anita.
30 years!!!!!!!!!
Yeah, hard to believe sometimes.
You’ve had an amazing photographic journey, Leanne. ❤️
It has been long, thank you John.
My first SLR camera was also a Pentax and then a Nikon. I never progressed to the level of your photography, but I still enjoy it. It’s fun to look back at our older efforts, though.
That is how I went, from Pentax, then to Nikon and now Fujifilm. I think it is all about enjoying it, and doing what you like. I enjoy looking back, some are better than others, lol. Thank you Lois.
Good photos. I have just returned from the shops where I bought a film for my Pentax 1000 that I bought thirty years ago. A great camera, simple and bullet proof and,as you will know, works even if the light-meter battery is flat.
Thank you Mike. How much does a film cost these days? It is a great camera. Sadly I sold mine, but then one of my daughters showed up with one and said she didn’t like it and here, I could have it. Not sure I will though.
I bought an Ilford FP4, 36 exposures, that cost me, in Australian dollars, 14 dollars.
I have a feeling the light seals may be gone or nearly gone, I will see when the film is processed. They can be replaced.
I actually bought the film to use in an Olympus XA but the light seals in that have defiantly gone and will cost me 50 dollars to replace but less if I do them myself. Accept it from your daughter and use it, even if you don’t get on with it, it looks nice on a shelf as a bit of photographic history.
Fourteen dollars isn’t too bad, I think it is used to be about 7 when I last bought it, but that was over 20 years ago. I hadn’t thought of the light seal, that would make a difference. I have to admit I don’t really want to go back to film, I like digital too much. Thanks Mike and good look.
Hi Leanne! Love the photos from 30 years ago. Most of mine are slides, and the photographer was my husband Bob. I never did get the hang of F-stops and those details, so it was guess and by golly what turned out on the shots I took. Then the $$$ factor alone was sobering, having that film sent away and developed. 🙂
Thank you Pat, Though these photos were taken 10 years ago. I can remember a lot of guess work as well when I was first learning. Having film developed and printed cost so much. Thank good ness for digital I say.
oh I agree! The last time I did any major travel (to Mexico, eetc.) I didn’t even have a digital camera. (I don’t think anyone else did either.) That was at the turn of the century (20th) I am no longer able to travel, it takes care walking to the mailbox with my cane. now 🙂
I remember those days, I remember when it didn’t seem so important to take photos. I’m sorry you can’t travel anymore, I guess it comes to all of us in the end. Take Care Pat.
My grandmother had a camera back in the 1930s when I was a little kid. It was probably a Kodak, a maroon colored box camera. She did produce some nice shots of me, among others 🙂 My Dad was also a photographer, so I have lots of pics of fish and other critters. All black/white, although there a handful of colored photos, when the hand coloring came in.
It is funny to think back on the old cameras. How many different shapes and styles there were! I wonder if your grandmother had a box brownie camera. I have an old one here somewhere. Funny about the fish, my mother used to always complain that when she got any film back from being printed there were always so much pictures of animals, from us kids. We lived on a farm. My mother has a photo of me as a baby that was hand coloured. A skill we don’t see anymore.
Yes, it was a Brownie box camera; I remembe
I thought it might be.
I last saw the camera when I was a young teenager. As I said before, the camera was one of my grandmother’s prized possessions. I’ll bet Dad bought it for her.
Yeah, I’m sure it was. I wonder what happened to it. Surely someone in the family got it. Who knows.
I wonder. I was in on the distribution of Grandma’s things. I had a two year old and the army was about to send us out west. In retrospect I would have saved a lot of things. My elderly cousin was relentless as executor, and anything I didn’t specifically designate for one of us four kids was tossed. It makes me sick just thinking about it. My sisters were young, 14 and about 9, so they ended up inheriting things that I tabbed for them. My brother was off on a US Navy aircraft carrier somewhere…his things went into a storage unit.
That might have been it. When grief happens you aren’t always thinking properly. It sounds like you did a great job anyway.
My Dad was into photo developing and tinting and the like. He also dabbled in radio. He and his neighbor pals set up a “radio station” where at a specific point in time my little voice pipped in with “hi Grandma!!” actually over the air-wave. That was in approximately 1936 or 7.
I did some darkroom stuff, but I didn’t like it. Sounds like your dad was an enterprising man. How exciting.
Dad grew up with a passle (5 or more) of boys who lived next door. They were into all of the delights of the 1920s-1930s. He dabbled in not only photography, but also taxidermy. Unfortunately, it was also the time of Prohibition, and people made whisky, etc. in their homes. It was rot gut, but they drank it anyway. My Dad died in a car wreck when he was 39. I was 15…terrible trauma. We never knew for sure if he was drinking that night, but chances are high that he was. Pretty much all I remember about him shows up in photos. I have a decent photo album from those times, one of these days I’ll dig out some of Dad’s photos and do a post for my blog.
YOur father certainly lived in a different time. Sorry to hear about his early death. My father was a drunk and he drove so many times under the influence but never had an accident. So amazing. It can be hard to remember people who were only with you for a very short time.
Yes. That wasn’t a happy time for me.
That’s good to hear.
I remember one trip we did together to Cape Schack. I was quite taken by the lighthouse but more than anything Pulpit Rock. Since then I have never gone back to the cape by road, but have sailed passed many times, looking at it from the ocean.
I remember that trip, we missed the amazing sunrise. When you can back down this way we should take another trip there. How does it compare from the sea?
Thanks Chris.
From the ocean the Pulpit blends in to the backdrop of the cliffs. So not as good!
We shall just have to try and do it again.