My Voyage as a Photographer – Part 1

Photography has been part of my life for much longer than I realized.

As a child, I was always fascinated by family photographs. I loved looking through old albums and asking questions: Who is this person? What was the occasion? Where was this taken? At that time, my curiosity was not really about photography itself. It was about what a photograph could reveal and the stories hidden behind each image.

My journey as a photographer began when I was 16 years old and received my first camera. It was a small automatic film camera — nothing fancy, but it opened a new world for me. I first used it during a trip to Belgium. Unlike today, there were no screens to check the results immediately. I had to wait weeks for the film to be developed.

But when the photos finally arrived? They were a disaster.

Most people would probably have been discouraged, but for me, that experience had the opposite effect. It made me want to understand photography better. I wanted to know why the pictures turned out so poorly and what I could do to improve them.

A few years later, while I was at university, one of my friends got a digital camera. It had a whopping 1 megapixel resolution, which seemed incredible at the time. The most amazing part wasn't the image quality — it was being able to see the results instantly.

We spent hours walking around, photographing our surroundings and the people around us. It felt magical. For the first time, photography became more than just capturing memories. It became a way of seeing the world.

Looking back today, those photographs cannot be compared to what modern cameras can produce. They were small, grainy, and far from perfect. Yet those early images played a crucial role in shaping my future. They helped me discover a passion that would stay with me for years to come.

But that was only the beginning of the story.

In the next blog, I'll share how my photography journey continued and how this growing passion became an important part of my life.

Stay tuned