It was 1987 when I first picked up a camera. I was in Year 8 and took Photography as an elective at High School. Something different to my usual strong subjects like mathematics and science. Back then we were lucky to get an elective at our school so the opportunity to 'fool around' as part of the class was a great incentive for someone who just wouldn't sit still in class. It wasn't until I was in the darkroom developing my first roll of film and subsequently my first print did I realise how much I would really enjoy photography. Alas it only lasted a year because my family wasn't that well off that would could even consider buying an SLR of sorts to encourage me to take this further. Even the family camera we owned had a busted lens that caused any and every photo to be off center. I must've had the first tilt-shift lens in my neighbourhood and didn't even realise it.
It was some 18 years later when I eventually bought a second hand Canon 300D off eBay that I started to get back into photography again. I had no intention of making a career out of it, I just wanted something to get the creative juices flowing again. By this time was a software developer exercising my brain with mental gymnastics, because that is all I knew after completing my High School years and entering University by accepting pretty much any course that would have me. It was a welcome relief to finally be exercising the other side of my brain.
To begin with I was taking pictures of anything and everything, just as long as I was outdoors and not in front of a computer screen. It wasn't long before people started noticing my work and pretty soon I was asked to shoot a wedding of a friend of my sisters. That was a daunting request to even think of. A professional gig, for someone who'd only recently picked up a camera again not 1 year ago. I bit the bullet, borrowed another friends camera body incase my old eBay purchase died during the event, and also borrowed a varied collection of lenses. Because you can never have too many, right? Right? It was a small gig but once word got out that I had shot a wedding, other friends started asking, and friends of friends started seeing the results and they started asking and I figured I may as well make a go of this if I ever wanted to get away from behind a computer screen.
Photography was not my main source of income over the past few years. I knew the job I was working at was coming to an end and I waited it out for the inevitable handshake goodbye when my position was made redundant. At that point I decided to work on Steve Koukoulas Photography full time. That was June 2013. The rest as they say, is happening now.