Preface: This question "popped" into my head after reading the thread re "first serious camera."
Although the first camera given to me (a Christmas gift from the parental units when I was eight or nine, perhaps a little older?), was a Kodak (model unknown, but I believe it shot 127 format film?), photography was not something I took with any degree of seriousness until I was in junior high school (middle school, to our friends on the south side of the 49th), and enrolled in what was then called "industrial arts" (one of a limited number of electives that one could study outside the usual - mandatory - academic stream). The course was a year in duration, during which one learned pneumatics, electrical, typesetting/design and photography (i.e. about 10 weeks per area). With the exception of the unit on photography, the balance of the studies have been long consigned to the furthest reaches of my memory.
The photography unit had both breadth and depth: one learned everything from shooting (camera operation and the relationship between shutter speed and aperture, depth of field, the effects of different shutter speeds), to the uses and looks of different lenses, to the different types of film available and their purposes, to film processing, to the rudiments of printing. How much did I retain? Well...the camera was a Nikkormat (sorry, can't remember the model), the lens was a 50mm Nikkor, the film supplied for the course was Tri-X (exclusively, but, as I noted above, we were made aware of the manifold options available), we used D76 for processing the film, the paper was from Kodak (again, sorry, can't recall the name) developed in Dektol, and the enlarger was an Omega (model unknown) .
So...let me throw open some questions (testing the memory, folks): What was the first film that you shot (when photography was something more than a passing fancy)? What did you use for developer? What camera did you use? What paper did you print your masterpieces on?
Although the first camera given to me (a Christmas gift from the parental units when I was eight or nine, perhaps a little older?), was a Kodak (model unknown, but I believe it shot 127 format film?), photography was not something I took with any degree of seriousness until I was in junior high school (middle school, to our friends on the south side of the 49th), and enrolled in what was then called "industrial arts" (one of a limited number of electives that one could study outside the usual - mandatory - academic stream). The course was a year in duration, during which one learned pneumatics, electrical, typesetting/design and photography (i.e. about 10 weeks per area). With the exception of the unit on photography, the balance of the studies have been long consigned to the furthest reaches of my memory.
The photography unit had both breadth and depth: one learned everything from shooting (camera operation and the relationship between shutter speed and aperture, depth of field, the effects of different shutter speeds), to the uses and looks of different lenses, to the different types of film available and their purposes, to film processing, to the rudiments of printing. How much did I retain? Well...the camera was a Nikkormat (sorry, can't remember the model), the lens was a 50mm Nikkor, the film supplied for the course was Tri-X (exclusively, but, as I noted above, we were made aware of the manifold options available), we used D76 for processing the film, the paper was from Kodak (again, sorry, can't recall the name) developed in Dektol, and the enlarger was an Omega (model unknown) .
So...let me throw open some questions (testing the memory, folks): What was the first film that you shot (when photography was something more than a passing fancy)? What did you use for developer? What camera did you use? What paper did you print your masterpieces on?
