Everyone's First Road Photo

[Ian]

Hey all!

I thought I would start a topic on everyones first road photo! Here is mine:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Iansignal/PennsylvaniaTrafficSignalsAndRoadSigns#5289072473565409986

A traffic signal set up not too far from where I live. Taken with my older camera.

So, what was everyone's first road photo?
Ian

[xonhulu]

My first I no longer have, but it was a black-and-white of one of these assemblies in Idaho:



However, it dated from about 1974, so the shield on the left probably still read "I-80N", which makes me really regret no longer having the photo.

That makes the oldest photo I still have this one of a sign goof on OR 216 between Tygh Valley and Grass Valley:



This sign has since been replaced.

[Dougtone]

My first road photo was taken in 1994 during a family vacation to Québec.  Took a picture of an Autoroute 50 shield outside our hotel in what was then called Hull (now Gatineau).  I started taking road photos regularly at the tail end of 1999, and thus, a monster was created. 

[agentsteel53]

I, being of limited intelligence, didn't think to *take pictures* of highway signs until about 2005, and good pictures until about 2007.

I do have an inadvertent photo of a DC US 50 cutout from 2001.  I discovered the old shield in the photo 5 years after the fact. 



the oldest photo of mine that was specifically intended to be a shield photo was from 2003 - the last remaining US-666 shield in New Mexico.  Of course, it came out blurry, because my camera decided to focus on a heap of bird crap on the windshield instead, and I was dumb enough to not immediately inspect the photo for general quality.

[74/171FAN]

My first highway picture ceases to exist but here's my first picture that I took on my camera 

[Hellfighter]

This was my first try, on a charter bus...

[WillWeaverRVA]

This was my first intentional photo of a road sign, taken during a visit to my dad's parents in PA:



On the same trip (July 1995) I sort of documented the end of PA 880, which looks no different nearly 15 years later.

[usends]

I think my first road photo must be the 1992 shot, third-from-last on this page...
http://usends.com/20-29/024/024.html

Well, technically it was my wife who shot that (at my urging, of course).  After that, I didn't do much more with endpoint shots until 1997.  Many of those have since been taken offline because I've re-shot them more recently, but a few still remain, such as the north end of US 385 (2nd image on this page)...
http://usends.com/80-89/385/385.html

Somewhat related: just a couple months ago, I discovered several road sign photos that my grandfather took in the 50s and 60s!  Is it possible that kind of thing gets passed down through the genes?  Weird.  One of the more interesting shots shows colored US highway shields in Arizona (but of course they're black-and-white photos).

[agentsteel53]

any chance you can send along your grandpa's photos?  Would be great to see those!

[usends]

any chance you can send along your grandpa's photos?  Would be great to see those!

Yes, I plan to eventually put together a webpage with those photos.  I'm currently trying to gather more info about exactly when they were taken, where were they going, why did he shoot signs, etc.  I'll post here when it's up, but it'll probably be awhile...

[agentsteel53]

excellent!  if you'd like to donate them to the Shield Gallery, we would love to host 'em, complete with captions, historical information, and everything

[corco]

I wish I still had the uncropped version- that's the beginning of the physical roadway (ie non-ferry) section of SR 163 just as you come off the Vashon Ferry

My photography skills started really really bad and are slowly but surely improving

[Scott5114]

The day I graduated kindergarten my mom took photos and gave me the camera to finish off the roll. Among the pictures is a photo of the stoplight on eastbound S.E. 15th Street at Sunnylane Rd in Del City.

This would be about May 1996.

[Alps]

I have a ton of Arizona scenery photos, and I'm sure the road shows up in a few of them.  The earliest photo that shows up on my website is http://www.alpsroads.net/roads/ny/ny_17/scenery.jpg.  After that it would be my first RI roadtrip, which shows up on a few pages there: http://www.alpsroads.net/roads/ri/i-295/6.html were probably the first ones I took on that trip back in 2001.  There's the Zzyzx Rd. photo on my CA I-15 page that my dad took, too, and I could dig up some Welland Canal bridge photos from the 80's.

[mobilene]

Here's my first.  It's an old alignment of US 40/National Road, just west of the Indianapolis (Marion County) line in Hendricks County, Indiana.  Current US 40 is right of the billboard.  That bypass has been there since at least 1937 according to historic aerial imagery I've seen.  Looks like it was built to avoid a very challenging three-road intersection, two of the roads intersecting at about 15 degrees.

[Alex]

The first photo I ever took was of an Interstate 516/U.S. 17/80/Georgia 21 assembly on I-516 westbound in August 1990. Wasn't a good photo, but it used to be on the old A.A. Gallery and I cannot find the scan or the hard copy of it around here.

[Chris]

I'm not sure if it was the first one, but I started making pics in 2005, and the summer vacation was one of the first. At first, I mainly started focussing on the signs only, now I try to capture as much from the road as possible too.

In Paris, France

[njroadhorse]

My first road photos were in Boston, MA in 2003 on a little disposable camera.  I'm not sure if I still have them, but they were all taken from sidewalks and stationary positions so I could get them without flaw.

[Revive 755]

My first digital camera road photo:


(No, I did not intend to shoot through the blue strip, that was due to IDOT letting I-255 right before that sign getting extremely rough.)

I believe this was my truly first road photo, excluding bridges:


Course had digital cameras come along much sooner, I'd probably have a lot more early ones.

[getemngo]

I took this photo just last summer on my phone.  It's --- REDACTED

edit by AgentSteel53: that is the last known pair of embossed, square font, cutout shields anywhere in the US.  We're not going to give the sign thieves a beacon to it.

edit by getemngo: Wow, I knew that they were old, but I had no idea they were that special.  What an honor to be censored for something like this. 

[US71]

This may not be my absolute first, but it's one of my first 

[Truvelo]

I took plenty of pictures in the 80's but most of them have long since been thrown out. Of the ones I still have I can date this one to the summer of 1989 using a 110 camera, does anyone remember these? The film was in a plastic cartridge but each negative was half the size of 35mm so the resolution was awful.

[rickmastfan67]

I only have a few shots of roadgeek stuff before I got my first digital camera because I was young and well, parents wouldn't let me waste the film because we needed it for something else. LOL.  The earliest shots are some of the original posting of the I-74 signs for Exit #101 on I-77 in NC because, well, I was allowed to take a few pictures since we wanted to develop the film. lol.

Then with my first ever digital camera (which I got for my birthday back in '03), I was able to start taking pictures of anything (and everything) that I couldn't take before.

So, the whole family just jumped into the car and we drove up to Niagara Falls (the Canadian side) the day after my birthday. lol.

So, first "parking lot" sign:

First picture of a highway (I-79 NB; no idea where):

And my first true road road sign picture:
(That's @ the JCT of US-20, NY-5, & NY-438.)

All those pictures were taken on 11/02/03.

[Truvelo]

First picture of a highway (I-79 NB; no idea where):

Could be here.

[rickmastfan67]

First picture of a highway (I-79 NB; no idea where):

Could be here.

Can't be.  Should have been more specific.  It would have to be north of I-76 in PA since I live in the Pittsburgh area.  And I normally don't get on I-79 till in Cranberry since we use US-19 to get there.