I got my first camera in about 1952, along with $10 for processing, from an affluent relative. It was a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye, a black plastic cube with a gray plastic shutter button. I thought it was magic, and set about documenting the rural life of my family. Sadly, even then $10 didn't support that many trips to the drugstore for film and developing. Rural life didn't allow such extravagances, so my career as documentary photographer ended as abruptly as it began. Still, I had caught the bug.
In the intervening decades I took photographs as time and funds allowed. In the normal course of events, rural life became city life, financial limits turned to time limits, and my family role turned from child to parent and husband. Children grow up and sometimes spouses die, so now I have both the time and the funds to pursue my long interest in photography and graphics arts.
As a teenager and even later, I spent a lot of time in museums, at least the ones that were free. I learned about leading lines from Monet, geometrical abstractions from Lionel Feininger, negative space from Oriental screens, and color from Cézanne. From Rembrandt and the other Dutch Masters I learned about lighting. From the Surrealists I learned that you can depict what you imagine as well as what you see. From the abstract painters I learned that all the normal composition rules still apply even when there's nothing but shapes and colors.