Oooh, this test!
Young people have sometimes asked me “How can I get started in professional photography?”
I'm afraid I couldn't be very helpful, because my way into the profession was different from most. I 've written a few posts recently about how I began in photography, but here's a more detailed answer.
In the summer of 1968 my second son
was born. We were living in Miami at the time, and the only camera I had
was an old Kodak Brownie with a sticky shutter. Obviously, something
better was needed to make pictures of the new baby. I found a magazine
ad from a company offering to give me a brand new Kodak Instamatic
camera and five film cartridges for free if I would send the film to
their lab for processing.
Not long after that I bought a photo
magazine — the August,1968 issue of Popular Photography. Then more
magazines followed, and better cameras. I was hooked. (As for the
influence of the magazines, I think it would be fair to say that I would
not be a photographer today if it had not been for photo magazines.)
Also in August, 1968, I began a new
job: teaching in a private school. The following year, I was asked to be
the faculty advisor to the yearbook staff. By that time, I had acquired
a Nikon F and two lenses -- a 35mm f2.8, and a 135mm f2.8, both
Tamrons. The school also had a Yashica 24 twin-lens reflex donated by
the yearbook company. As it
happened, I wound up making all the candid photos for the yearbook and
doing the layout as well. I also photographed school activities and
sports and sold prints to the students and their parents -- a practice
that would probably be frowned upon these days, but it was a private,
not a public, school, times were different then, and it was all
perfectly acceptable. In the process, I realized that I liked
photography better than teaching.
After that year, I moved my family
back to the Chattanooga area, which I consider my home town
even though I was not born there, and began looking for ways to get into
photography full-time. I picked up a few small commercial jobs, but
nowhere near enough to make a living, tried my hand at selling life
insurance (a disaster), and worked a year at a newspaper doing page
layout.
In the summer of 1972, I followed up
a classified ad I found in my paper and applied for a job at
Continental Film Productions, a small film and audio-visual production company. I was interviewed, but nothing happened until that fall, when I
was called in for a second interview and hired as a trainee/general
dogsbody. Over the next four or five years I worked my way up to
producer/director/writer before leaving for a year as director of
advertising for another company.
On January 1, 1978 I began my own
business in my basement, with a
$3000 deposit to create a catalog for an electronics company. From there, it has been a long, sometimes adventurous, often difficult, always interesting, ride. Truly a life in photography.
(About the photo: Carol was taking a test in my history class. My Yashica TLR was sitting on the corner of my desk. I reached over and quietly squeezed the shutter.)
Signed copies of the second edition of Backroads and Byways of Georgia
are now available. The price is $22.95 plus $3.95 shipping. My PayPal
address is djphoto@vol.com. Or, you can mail a check to me at 8943
Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how
you would like your book inscribed.
Check out the pictures at my online gallery: https://davejenkins.pixels.com/ Looking is free, and you might find something you like.
Photography and text copyright 2023 David B.Jenkins.
I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.
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