A Beginning

I took this self portrait when I was 8. This was from one of the first “photo shoots” I can remember going on. I had just gotten a “micro 110” camera at Burger King. I don't see the Creepy King serving those up on his commercials these days. The camera was only about two and half inches long. The end of the 110 film cartridge actually stuck out the side of the camera! It had a little red shutter button that I thought was cool. The view finder was a pop-up square piece of plastic, well, the whole camera was pretty much plastic.

Anyway, I remember taking this camera outside that evening and wandering around my grandparents Big yard. I was amazed that I “had the power” to capture whatever image I wanted to. I was shooting shrubs, trees, etc. Then I turned the camera on myself and pressed that cool little red shutter button. I love having this picture, because it shows an interest in photography that I had even at 8 years old. This was taken long before I would know anything about shutter speeds, aperture or film speeds, I was just capturing images.

I found the image of this Micro 110 on the internet. It’s almost identical to the one I took this self portrait with. If you look closely at the diagram on the box, you can see the film cartridge sticking out of the end of the camera.