My photographic journey pt.1

All the pictures you are going to see are taken by me in different periods in my life

I've been thinking a lot about this lately. Next month i will have my 20 years anniversary since I first picked up a camera. I'ts also my 26th birthday. Basically I had a camera in my hands my entire life.

How i got started

When i was a kid i wanted to be a painter. I really enjoyed painting nature, but being a city boy i didn't get to see much of it. The only time I traveled was in the summer for a week or two visiting my grandparents in the country. I did as much as i could with the little time I had and i was always sad that my next chance will be basically in an year.

So here comes my 6th birthday and one of my presents was a camera. I't was a camera my grandfather used to have.. at that point in time a really old but still good and reliable peace of Russian technology called "Smena 8" - i still have it, it still works and from time to time i still shoot with it (i think at this point it's about 40 years old). So he told me that he will teach me how to use it and in the summer when i come to visit i can take a lot of pictures of the things i want to draw and use them during the year.

But from the first moment i touched the camera.. I was so fascinated by it and it was such an alien technology for me.. I instantly fell in love with it. I started to shoot my toys in different scenarios. That's something I haven't let go off, but now i use whatever i find around my house and feel like shooting.

By the summer i have all but forgotten my dreams and desires to be a painter and now all i wanted was to be a photographer. Sadly that was something my parents did not support so it was hard for me every step of the way.
At one point it became a bit expensive for me to buy and develop films on my allowance money so i had to drop photography entirely. A couple of years went by and then technology hit us and out came the first phones with cameras.. It took a while for me to have one - i was at high school at this point and almost got expelled for consonantly taking pictures while in school. The camera was absolute shit.. but nothing to be expected from a 2004~ camera on a phone, but i absolutely did not give a f*ck. And that is something else that stayed with me - i am not dependent on the latest technology and truly believe it's not important for a great shot. Evidence of that is a camera that i made myself using a cardboard box, duct tape and foil from a chocolate wrapping..

This thing took me back over 100 years in photography development.. The exposure time was about 45 seconds and the pictures were kinda shitty, but i was so proud of my self and it was so interesting to me.. This is how a picture made with this abomination looked like

I will end this post here, because i think this is enough onslaught of a text at this point. Feel free to share your stories and/or ask any questions! Will post part 2 soon!