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Starting out in photography: first darkroom

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Starting out in photography: first cameras
Albert Maysles Film-maker
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I should- I should talk about how I started out in photography and then lead up to the first film and so forth. When I was a child, I couldn't afford a camera except that somehow I heard that you could buy a brand new camera in a hardware store around the corner for 35 cents. Now how I got 35 cents is- I don't know because that was a lot of money too. But I bought the camera and started taking pictures with this tiny camera that used Univex 00 Film which had to be extremely inexpensive as well, even for- even for that time. And- What did you take pictures of? Do you remember? I took family pictures. I must have them somewhere. That's- I think almost all- everything was just family pictures. And then at some point, I think I was in High School by that time, a distant relative offered me a much much more sophisticated camera for 16 dollars. And somehow- I used to around washing peoples' windows and I'd earn 50 cents if I shoveled somebody's garageway- of snow. I had enough so that I could buy the camera and I took pictures with that. And I- and I- with that kind of equipment I then developed my own pictures.

Albert Maysles (1926-2015) known for his important documentaries on Muhammad Ali, Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles, pioneered the documentary style known as Direct Cinema. He helped create techniques still widely used in modern documentary production, as well as many of the techniques used in reality TV.

Listeners: Rebekah Maysles Tamara Tracz Sara Maysles

Rebekah Maysles, daughter of Albert Maysles, is an artist living between New York and Philadelphia. She has her own line of clothing, Blackberryrose, and co-runs the store Sodafine in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, New York, a vintage and handmade store that sells clothing, books and other products made by artists.

Tamara Tracz is a writer and filmmaker based in London.

Sara Maysles, daughter of Albert Maysles, is currently doing her BA in East Asian Studies at Columbia University, and working as an Archivist of the photographs and photographic material at Maysles Films Inc., Albert‚s film production company. She spent ten months out of two years working with Tibetan refugees at a center in Nepal, and continues to travel back and forth between America and Asia.

Tags: photography, camera, film, family portrait, school

Duration: 1 minute, 45 seconds

Date story recorded: September 2004

Date story went live: 24 January 2008