PERSONAL STORY

Camera Antics

Gadgets have intrigued me for as long as I can remember

I come from the time where we still used a roll of film in a camera and had to take them to the store to be developed. My interest in photography started because my parents had cameras — a normal analog and an old Polaroid camera.

If I remember correctly, I got my first camera in my mid teens. I have a long history of creating things, and I think it was bound to happen that I got interested in photography too.

My analog cameras

My first camera was a flat rectangular box — a purple Kodak Instamatic, and the more I think about it, the more I believe it was a gift from my parents, either for my birthday or for Christmas.

I loved taking photos, but it was a hassle to go to the store to have the photos printed and then discover some of them were out of focus, or there was a sun flare on it. Still, I enjoyed taking those photos, and it made me look differently at surrounding things.

When my daughter was born, I had made so many photos of her, and I didn’t mind paying to have those photos developed. I still have all those photos of her.

I owned one other analog camera, and it was more a gadget than really a camera, but I loved it. It was also a Kodak, and actually just a bright yellow frame and a black button, fitting around one of those traditional photo rolls. The quality of the photos wasn’t good, but it was fun to pull it out and ‘impress’ others with how tiny it was.

I might even still have this camera packed away deep in a box in the attic.

My digital cameras

I believe I bought my first digital camera when I moved to the Netherlands. It was a Sony, and it was BIG. Remember the square floppy disks we had for computers, before you had CD-ROMs? This camera was high tech back then, because you could put one of those square floppy disks in it and then directly see the images on your computer.

I loved it!

My next digital camera was the follow up of the first, when Sony replaced the floppy disks with mini CD-ROMs.

I eventually wanted something smaller, and since I was a Sony fan, I bought a Cybershot. I used it for YEARS, and I still have it, but it’s rarely used anymore. We — my husband and I — bought a Nikon D90 and after a couple of tries, I told him it was too big for my hands. I just couldn’t hold it properly.

We started looking for a camera for me, but I didn’t want interchangeable lenses, so I made the choice to buy a bridge camera. This was after I saw it in a shop in Bristol, UK, the first year we went there. I was happy with my Nikon Coolpix P600 and used it for several years. Macro photography really grew on me, but the Coolpix just couldn’t do what I wanted.

I started looking around again…

After much study of what I would want, I finally decided on the Nikon D5600, a macro lens (40mm) and a 70–200mm lens. In the meantime I have bought two more lenses: 18–300mm and a super macro 20mm. I also have macro rings (see a theme there?) and I want a 50–105mm macro lens too. But the latter is quite expensive, so that’s still on the wish list at our favorite camera store.

Photography lessons

When I got the D5600, I told my husband I wanted to learn how to use it in manual mode. He could’ve taught me, but I went for photography lessons at a photography school. I guess I take better directions from a stranger than my husband (said tongue in cheek).

In 6 lessons, I learned how to use the M-button on my camera, but also the A, S and P buttons. I rarely ever use the ‘auto’ button anymore.

My photos look so different when I experiment with aperture and shutter speed. I love to do things like bokeh. There’s a lot more I want to try, but with everything life is throwing at us at this moment, photography has moved to the back burner. I haven’t been to my studio in months!

Photo trips

Almost every other month since August 2017, until the beginning of 2020, when the world changed so much because of Covid, my daughter and I had frequently gone out with our cameras. She loves photography too. We would drive somewhere and spend the entire afternoon photographing and having quality time together. We went to so many places — the woods, plane spotting, a butterfly hothouse, city walks and much more.

I loved those afternoons for so many reasons, most of all being with my daughter and being creative together. She’s just so talented!

I didn’t go out for photography only with my daughter, but also with my husband. Photography, from the very beginning of our relationship, had been a shared interest and hobby of ours. He knows a lot more about photography than I do, but I experiment more than he does. He’s not into macro photography, but he loves making black and white photos in industrial areas.

Erotic photography

Another shared interest of us, from the moment we started chatting to each other, was and is erotic photography.

I was about 18 when I had a house with a pool all to myself, and that weekend I asked a cousin of mine to take nude pictures of me while I was in the pool. I had them developed, hid them in my closet until one day the ‘lady of the house’ discovered and destroyed them, and told me never to do it again as she would then inform my mom and my uncle (a church minister).

It was years before I got into nude photography again, and for a long time I engaged in solo photography, and shared my photos on Redclouds (a now discontinued website).

Then, when my husband and I started talking to each other online, I told him about my love for erotic photography. He was into photography too and, for many years, he was the one doing all the photography, but since his health problems, I started experimenting with self-photography, and had taken it to a higher level once I had my studio.

I haven’t been busy with self-photography this year — or actually any photography — but will eventually get back to it when things settle down a bit.

I just love my camera, love photography, love being creative, and I love learning more every time I ‘play’ around with my camera.

I’m planning to share some of my photography; not the erotic kind, though!

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Also read this by a beautiful friend, May More: