I found this roll of old film in one of my drawers.  It made me recalled what I have done to it.  It was a poor film that did not capture any meaningful pictures.  Besides, the guy in the photo lab didn’t even bother to put it into the film pocket.  It’s still in a rolled shape.

Here start the stories of photography and me……

Chapter 1:  First Encounter with Photography

It was 1991.  I was reading a magazine and I just flipped through.  I saw a picture of a butterfly.  It was nothing special.  Within the same page, I saw another picture of a beach and mountain.  Some questions came into my mind, “How did they take these pictures?”  “Won’t the butterfly be scared and flew away?”  At that time I had no idea about “zoom”.  My biggest curiousity was how did they make the background of a photo blur.  The answer was on the same page in that magazine.  It’s a section of photography.  From there I have learned about “Depth of Field” and zooming.  At that moment, I told myself that I want to take photographs of the nature things (including insects and flowers) which the background is blurred.

I like to watch National Geographic Special which was shown on TV.  From there I also noticed that they made the background blur when shooting the pictures of wild life.  Blurring the background of a photo became the strongest force that pushed me to get into photography.

Later, I had got a camera from my dad.  The camera was a gift of a product which I have forgotten what it was.  The camera was extremely simple with a fixed lens, fixed shutter speed, no battery required, and I had to roll the film manually to move it to the next frame.  It had a mechanism to prevent double exposure on the same frame.  It was only suitable for outdoor photography.

I have forgotten what I had taken using that camera, and where did I put those photos.  I only remember that the camera was broken after a few months.  Since the camera was broken, I took the screw drivers, opened it up and did some operation on it.  It worked again, but I had to use 2 black paper cards as the shutter.  I was happy because it allowed me to do multiple exposures.  Since the shutter control must be opened and closed manualy, I needed to fix this camera on a tripod.  I loaded the camera with film.  My brothers became my assistant while I did some experiments on this camera.  My youngest brother even became my model as Qian1Shou3Guan1Yin1 (multiple hands effect).  I had taken a roll of film successfully after the operation and this camera was broken again.  I did not repair it again, but I have done a craziest thing. 

To be continued……