My mother was a fashion photographer before she met my father; When I was a child, I used to leaf through all of her old tear sheets, prints and negatives, analyzing the poses, lighting, and camera angles.
Years later, using her Zeiss Ikoflex DLR, I began shooting photos of my neighbors and friends from the neighborhood. Those pictures were pretty awful, at least as far as lighting and posing were concerned.
I graduated from high school and went on to do a year of study in Scotland, where I bought my very first SLR, an Asahi Pentax 35mm w/built-in metering. That's when my interest began to "mushroom". I took a few photography classes at school, and after I got home I started to take my photography business seriously.
My local high school contracted a Gawd-awful, older-than-dirt photographer for their yearbook portraits; usually heavily-lacquered hair (the girls, too!), black suits for the guys and ugly-ass black velvet drapes for the girls.
A few weeks after I returned home from Scotland, I began to approach the parents of the more attractive young ladies, offering to do much more "natural and lifelike" (what is this, a mortuary?) photos of their kids for their homes. Surprisingly, I was a hit, and produced some beautiful photos of some of the most drop-dead gorgeous female graduates.
I eventually landed a job as a studio assistant with a well-known New York fashion photographer, where I learned even MORE about commercial and fashion photography. Worked there until my boss retired, so I had to eventually get a "real" job. I moved to San Diego and became a firefighter/paramedic, still doing the odd portrait of various California beach babes. Still, twenty years of 24-on/24-off was enough. I retired and took up computers...then pastry production (cheesecakes my specialty), and now I've decided to return to my first true love, photography.
I set up my own studio, bought new equipment (all digital now), strobes, backdrops, and the like, and am diving headfirst back behind the camera.

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