How I became a Photographer – the Begins –

nature landscape in the ardennesEverything started in 2014, when while on a trip in Scotland I decided to take with me my father’s old camera. I had some souvenirs of myself when I was a kid and used to ask him if I could borrow his camera and go out and take some pictures. I could feel the excitement when pulling the film and hearing the “click” in the hope that the photo taken was a good one. Then the curiosity and the anxiety would take place while waiting at the shop for the results on the developed film.

I received my  first camera when I was 6 years old, my dad, and I remember how I was fond of it, I received then a compact olympus, but I was really satisfied when I could finally use the old dad’s reflex, wow, that was a completely different matter.

Then, I grow up and I stopped taking pictures. Why?  Good Question. I don’t know, I remember I always had the idea that a photographer was someone that took weddings photography, people, fashion, and I wasn’t really interested by all that. Actually, I’m not good in interacting with people, asking them to take this or that position, to pose without moving, I don’t like giving orders, even if those directions are essentials into achieving a good photo. So, I went to college, got an university degree in English and French literature, found a job, got married we had a little girl and just continued to live my life as all my family was expecting me to do.

smurfs toys macro photography

However, I was aware that something was missing, but what? I had the impression that I needed to create I needed something different. As I loved reading I started writing stories, I finished a first novel, which is not a best seller but I’m proud of having done it, I started writing a second one with a friend which is not finished yet and I don’t think it’ll be finished soon. But I was still missing something, until when the destiny brought me on the road that I had abandoned 25 years ago and almost lost.

Scotland Castle by Fran J. Lotti

Two years ago with my best friend we planned a trip to Scotland, it wasn’t our first one, Scotland is one of my favourite places in Europe, but that would have been a different trip. Before leaving, as I was visiting my  father, I found his old reflex camera in a closet and asked if I could take it for the holiday, actually he gave it to me because he wasn’t using it anymore. I bought some films, prepared my travel bag and started reading articles about exposure, opening, focusing etc.. and got really confused. However I was confident, I used to photograph with that camera as I was a kid, so, why could’t I do it again, right?

During my trip I used 2 films a colour one and a black and white one. Actually, the colour one was not fixed correctly, so there were no pictures in it. Yes, those are the surprises of argentine photography, but the black and white was correctly inserted and something like 4 photos on the 36 poses I had taken were nice. But the really important thing weren’t my photos,it was that I felt it, I felt the excitement, the happiness, the curiosity that I used to feel when taking pics as a kid. I knew that this was what I was missing and I needed more, I wanted to take more pictures, I wanted to learn, to leave my testimony, to create, to expose, to print, I wanted everything, but most of all I wanted a new camera.

nikon d800 and lenses
This is the equipment I have today.