Sunday, September 20, 2009

Old photographs...

When I posted about my early work in photography, I received lots of emails and comments asking to see some of those old photos. So, here are a few. I'm afraid most of my earliest images no longer exist.

In the beginning, I was mostly interested in portraiture. My youngest brother was my usual subject - mostly because he was incredibly cute and loved the attention. I took these two shots of him when I was about 14 - with a Pentax K1000 I borrowed from my dad. I don't know my shutter speed or aperture, but the images were processed in the darkroom at the Junior High. :) I was still struggling with exposure - as you can see.


In college, I tried to go a little more artsy at times. My boyfriend bought me roses - and they became the subject of a few images. Once again, my exposure is off - and the cropping leaves something to be desired. :)

My old clunker of a station wagon had enough character to be considered photo-worthy. It was absolutely gigantic, the handle fell off when you tried to roll up the windows, the heater quit working regularly (and started up again if you kicked the fender hard enough), and big rusty patches fell off when you slammed the doors - but it was a GREAT car. Especially since I could see the road speeding by through the holes in the floor. :) It looks almost stately here, though.

And here is one of my very first landscape shots. Over-exposed trees in the background, a lack of contrast overall, and a generally uninteresting composition... but I loved every minute of creating the photo. And that's what it's all about, right?

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2 Comments:

Anonymous Samantha said...

Varina, thanks for posting some early work! Lots of photographers don't show their current images, let alone be brave and post stuff from when they were just starting out.

I can see the early development of your professional eye...

September 20, 2009 at 2:08 PM  
Blogger Varina Patel said...

Thanks Samantha.

I guess we all started somewhere. My oldest son is just starting to learn the basics of photography, and it's fun to remember being at that stage. He's working with shutter speed and aperture now - and beginning to think about composition and light.

I wonder if any of my children will find photography as fascinating as I always have. We'll see! :)

September 20, 2009 at 3:53 PM  

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