My love for photography started long before I could use a camera, in fact my first attempts were painfully bad. At the age of fourteen I discovered an EOS 620 that my father had bought some years back, the reason behind it remains a mystery. Just reading the manual it was immediately apparent that the creative possibilities over my old auto-compact camera were immense. The kit came complete with a 50mm lens, still my favorite walk around lens and a speedlight that was always out of power when it was most needed. For the first time the camera featured a ttl meter, from which I could see the deviation from my own estimates.
Going off to University a lot of new opportunities and stimuli became apparent, like minded people of similar age to contact through the photo club was something I was craving for, strangely enough most photographer enthusiasts around my area where much older, making it hard to relate. Being a physics student it also meant that the optics and exposure involved in photography where far from challenging.
The work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Annie Leibovitz, Joel Meyerowitz and Irving Penn whilst somewhat unrelated to eachother have had great impact in my perception of photography, each a master in their time and field has managed to amazed and shock me with their results and techniques.
My current workhorse is an EOS 10D, waiting for the next FF release before I can upgrade, combined with a range of lenses and an embarrassingly sizeable collection of editing software.