How many still have their first print?

gr82bart · Jul 13, 2007

Wolfeye said:
Anyone else still have the first print you ever created on their own?

Oh GAWD yes.

Sorta funny story to tell here ...

So when I was up in Toronto, I met with Bob Carnie and dropped off a set of slides that I wanted him to give his advice - I'm trying to edit my stuff for another portfolio. What I didn't tell him was I mixed in stuff I did recently with stuff I did when I was like 12 or 13 years old. Well, he thought he was stoned or I was or both of us were!

None of my 'early' work was acceptable. Good to know at least one person thinks I'm improving.

Regards, Art.

wiggy · Jul 13, 2007

Yep, still got mine though the negative it came from is long gone (buried up in my parents' loft no doubt). Taken in June 1975 (lust before my 15th birthday) using FP4 and a Russian Zorki 4 rangefinder camera which I'd borrowed off my father. I printed it as a 10 x 8 on Ilford gloss paper (can't remember which but would have been whichever was the most common at the time) using one of those Russian enlargers that folded up into a suitcase. Was also my first attempt at spotting.

It was at summer fair in the village where I lived at the time and the photographer from the local paper had failed to show so the editor, who happened to be there, asked me if I'd like to cover it for them (he must have been desparate ). I ended up freelancing for them right up until I went to university - paid for all my photography whilst I was at school which was really handy.

Poco · Jul 13, 2007

I don't have my first print but have the first 4x5 neg I ever exposed tacked to my darkroom wall. The thumbtack goes right though the middle of it too, it was that special :rolleyes: .

DWThomas · Jul 13, 2007

Dunno about prints, but I have pretty much all my negatives back to about 1957. I know I did some not very good dip & dunk film processing a little earlier than that, along with some contact printing. I'm pretty sure I still have a few prints from the 1960s squirreled away (somewhere in this monumental collection of "stuff"). I have slides going back to 57 or 58 too which I'm almost afraid to dig out and look at -- maybe this winter I should get up my courage -- gems(?) on Kodachrome at ASA 10 and Ektachrome at 32(?).

DaveT

Stew · Jul 13, 2007

I have my first print. I developed it in 1995.It was a photo of our cat with a nice big fixer contaminated fingerprint right in the middle of it!! Igot it on the paper before I developed it. It was still a blast to print that first one!!

Shmoo · Jul 13, 2007

I don't know if it's the first print I ever did but it's close. I keep it around as an example of what NOT to do!

PatTrent · Jul 14, 2007

Not sure I have the very first, but I have some that I printed in my first six months--back when dinosaurs walked the earth and we had to haul the water in buckets to the darkroom, LOL! Those prints are still holding up pretty well, too, even though I knew very little, if anything, about archival processing in those days.

Alex Bishop-Thorpe · Jul 14, 2007

My first print was a badly done 6x9 contact print, taken with a box brownie and printed in my bathroom on fogged paper. It was "interesting"

Matus Kalisky · Jul 15, 2007

In my case - not that I do have my first print (4x5 contact) - I sitll have ALL of my prints. The reason might be that I did my first print 2 months ago..

Tony Egan · Jul 15, 2007

I couldn't edit and add to my first post but here is the print. It's in surprisingly good condition after 24 years. A little bit of yellowing towards the edges on the back of the print but otherwise perfect.

Jim Chinn · Jul 15, 2007

110! That brings back some other memories. I still have all the store prints from what I consider my first serious effort at photography which was photographing at a car race when I was about 13. IIRC it was an Argus 110 camera and I am sure I would have used Kodak film.

What an amzing thing these photographs. I got out the first prints I made and could close my eyes and remember everything about the darkroom at the university. With the old 3x4 prints from 110 I can smell the hot racing engines and feel the cold on that late March day.

Rolleijoe · Jul 16, 2007

Yep, and it's still in the original frame! The lighthouse in Galveston, shot on 35mm TXP 320, and printed on Kodak paper. It's an 11x14, and I may get it out and reprint it just for fun to 16x20 on Fotokemika Varycon fiber (fantastic paper).

That was almost 40 years ago, and the water which was there giving off a nice reflection is long gone. Sold a 16x20 on MCP paper to the owner of the lighthouse, framed for $150 back in '94.

It had been in her family for decades, and they never had a shot showing the reflections before, and was happy to have it.

Willie Jan · Jul 16, 2007

When i visit a friend where a b/w picture of me from the beginning (10-15) years ago is located on the wall, i take it off and tell him i will reprint it....

raucousimages · Jul 16, 2007

Still got it! Shot in 7th grade (1976) with a Kodak 104 instamatic on Plus-X. printed in my bathroom with a Cherry-Vale enlarger. Rember the Kodak Tri-Chem Packs?

spb854 · Aug 4, 2007

My first...

I still have mine somewhere.

It was a contact print from an Ansco kit that I got one Christmas back when I was in the 5th grade. My Dad gave it to me. I had absolutely no knowledge of photography other than looking at pictures. My dad was a photographer in WWll and I still have some of those pictures he took and processed.

Little did he or I know what affect it would have on me. I was "infected" and even to this day, there is still no "cure". I must endure. LOL

It was a contact off of a 127 negative.

Steve

m_liddell · Aug 4, 2007

I'm pretty sure I still have it somewhere. It was of two lobster pots on the beach, fp4+ in ilfosol printed on multigrade RC. It is actually a good print, more by luck than anything.

I remember going mad trying to get a sharp print with the awful enlarger in the university dark room as I was convinced my neg was fine. Bored, I started digging around through the piles of stuff stored in there and found an solid old b&w philips enlarger which had a schneider lens attached. I managed to set it up on the floor - by fluke the filter tray and a grade 3 filter left in it which proved to be the one I needed.

weststarflyers · Aug 4, 2007

I still have my first print ever. It is my older sister Estrella and my dog Aza back in 1968 in Lima, Perú.
I've used a half frame Olympus Pen "guesstimating" my distance and light conditions. All manual. Don't remember the film... rats, I have lost the negative... It was enlarged on ORWO paper (?), Kodak Dektol developer and a Hansa enlarger in my closet. I proudly signed it.

cmo · Jul 14, 2008

Strange things happen... when I was 14 years old, by a fluke, I made a great street photo, on one of my first rolls of film. Four years later, I made another good one. That is 30 years ago. Now I showed about 20 of my street shots from all those years in an exhibition - and sold those two old prints. I am glad I washed that Record Rapid paper well...

JBrunner · Jul 14, 2008

I have my first attempt at a print. Not sure which of the ones that came after qualified as more than that

ajuk · Jul 14, 2008

My first 5 were no good but I kept the first one that worked, does that count?

Gay Larson · Jul 14, 2008

I was in my first photography class at the local community college and I made a print that I set up in my living room with the help of all my kids. Eventually I entered it in the State Fair and won first place. My Daughter made fun of the prize. I got my $3 entry fee back and a blue ribbon. But I was hooked on photography. I have been trying since then to shoot better and print better ever since. All my kids still talk about how they helped me make that print.

Jim Noel · Jul 14, 2008

Are you kidding? My first print would be over 70 years old by now. With the many moves I made before and after marriage, it is long gone.

thefizz · Jul 15, 2008

My wife (girl friend at the time) liked my first ever print so it was framed and hung in her home. It's still there now. Not a bad print either, in fact I haven't made anything like it since but would love to.

snallan · Jul 15, 2008

No, but I still have my first Kodachromes from 1967, when I was a tender nine year old. I didn't start printing for three or four years after that.

Simon R Galley · Jul 15, 2008

I certainly do.... 8.5 x 6.5 on ILFORD Paper, from a 35mm taken on a KODAK Retinette ( that I still have, given to me by my grandfather ) I do not know where the neg went....The first print from my own neg ( I printed with Grandpa before that ) was Summer 1970 , of an enterprise dinghy at Low Wray campsite on Lake Windermere with some of my mates at school camp....its not a bad print, bit boring, but means alot to me...

Seems like a long time ago....and yet like yesterday !

Simon ILFORD Photo HARMAN technology Limited :

How many still have their first print?

gr82bart

wiggy

Poco

DWThomas

Stew

Shmoo

PatTrent

Alex Bishop-Thorpe

Matus Kalisky

Tony Egan

Attachments

Jim Chinn

Rolleijoe

Willie Jan

raucousimages

spb854

m_liddell

weststarflyers

cmo

JBrunner

Moderator

ajuk

Gay Larson

Jim Noel

thefizz

snallan

Simon R Galley

How many still have their first print?

Attachments

Moderator

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency