Did Getting Your First Camera Spark Your Passion For Photography? Do You Still Have it?

My very first camera.  Kodak Brownie Flashmite 20 introduced in 1960. (click to enlarge)
This was not the camera, however, that caused me to fall in love with photography.

I received my first camera when I was about 9-10 years old.  It was a birthday gift from my parents.  I still have the camera.  You can see it above.

I received one roll of film and a pack of flash bulbs with this camera.  I remember taking some snapshots in the days after my birthday party.  Just stuff around the house.  Family members, our dog, the outside of the house, stuff like that.  I distinctly remember, after making an indoor flash picture, removing the small flashbulb from the reflector and immediately finding out how hot it was!  Almost finger burning hot!  It was hot enough that the next time I didn't touch it so soon after snapping the shutter.  

Today we may think why only one roll of film.  It was common in the 1950s and 1960s that a single roll of film would last a family a full year.  No one took many pictures back then.  It was expensive.

Kodak Instamatic 104. (click to enlarge)
The Instamatic series used 'cartridge' film.  It made loading film very easy.

My second camera was a Kodak Instamatic 104.  That, too, was a birthday present a couple of years later—about 1964-65.  It also came with a 126 size film 'cartridge' and 'flashcubes.'  This series of cameras was designed to be really easy to use.  Just drop in the cartridge, no loading or threading film into a take-up spool, plug in a 4-bulb rotating Flashcube and start taking photos.  I still have this one as well.  Here is an image of that camera.  Cartridge film was Kodak's attempt at making photography really easy so more photos would be taken and more film would be purchased.  The same with the Flashcube.  After each use, the Flashcube rotated 90 degrees on top of the camera, making the next bulb ready to fire.  No more grabbing hot just-fired flashbulbs to replace it with another.  After the four flash bulbs had been used, a new Flashcube replaced the expended one.  Very simple.

Each time, after using up the included film, the camera was largely put down and not used again.  Oh, I may have made a few photos along the way if my father or mother bought some film, but I had little interest in photography and any money I may have had wasn't spent on film.

This was the camera that caused me to fall totally in love with photography.  A love that has not
diminished to this day.  (click to enlarge)

In the spring of 1971*, my cousin (he and I are more like brothers than cousins as we mostly grew up together) returned from his military service in Vietnam.  He gifted me the camera he used while over there fighting with the U.S. Marines.  The camera was a Minolta Hi-Matic 7.  It was a 35mm fixed lens rangefinder style camera.  That camera had a 45mm f/1.8 lens.  The lens was sharp and I learned how to use the camera on the fly.  Yes, I still have that camera.

That camera was the one that sparked my passion for photography.  I remember taking a series of photographs standing at the end of the runway of Cleveland-Hopkins International Airport (back then you could stand about anywhere you wanted without much restriction) as a commerical jet airplane came in for a landing directly over me.  Several days later when I received the 3.5" x 5" prints, I was (and this is a 1970s saying so bear with me) 'blown away' by what I saw.  I had no idea that photography could be more than just mundane record snapshots of family events, your car, a pet, etc.  Those photographs had real impact.

It was that moment that I fell in love with photography and I am still as passionate about the craft as I was then.  It wasn't long after that I sold my prized stereo outfit and drove to a camera store on the west side of Cleveland, Ohio and bought my first interchangeable lens camera—a Minolta SR-T101 with a 55mm f/1.7 Rokkor lens.  Yes, I still have it and it still works wonderfully just as it did the day I bought it.

From there my life changed as photography consumed much of my leisure time.  Same as it still does to this day.  I started reading every photography magazine I could get my hands on, went to the library to check out photography books, looked at thousands of published photographs to better understand composition, color, gesture, tone, depth of field, etc.  I experimented with different types of subjects and did everything I could to learn how to be a photographer.  Not a better photographer.  But just how to be a photographer.

I am so fortunate to have had that spark ignited within.  Photography has been good to me.  It has been a source of income, the impetus to travel, create, record, document, write and photograph for others.  I have made so many friends through the common interest of photography.  I don’t think I can come up with words to express just how much pleasure and satisfaction photographer has brought o my love over these past 50 years.

Now, if my wife only knew how many cameras and lenses I’ve bought and sold over the years...well...never mind.  Lol.

*I had previously written that I thought the year I received the Hi-Matic 7 was 1970 in several previous posts but recently I asked my cousin for clarification and he told me he returned from Vietnam in 1971.  

Join me over at my website, https://www.dennismook.com.  

Thanks for looking. Enjoy!  

Dennis A. Mook  

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