Just browsing through my old photos and came across my first road pic I ever took. I'm relatively new at taking road/sign pics.
June 2013.
(https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2882/9264357529_d9b5f76314_c.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/f7EfJe)
Do you have your first road pic?
First one as a roadgeek (this year; I didn't take my own photos until recently despite becoming a roadgeek a few years ago):
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/gallery/12069_04_05_17_12_18_48.jpeg)
First road pic (2011, before I became a roadgeek):
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/gallery/12069_17_06_17_1_29_35.jpeg)
The oldest one I'm aware of having taken myself is this, from August 19, 1985, with an old Polaroid camera.
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.teresco.org%2Fpics%2Fsigns%2F19850819%2Fus101ca33.jpg&hash=b84cd699aad5d00a6583ff62700cf49333d2188f)
I have just a couple more from that trip taken by me or by family members.
Then, we jump ahead almost 13 years to August 1, 1998, and my first digital camera, for the next one I have.
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.teresco.org%2Fpics%2Fsigns%2F19980801%2Fde1and7.jpg&hash=f61c2be11ef853ad6e0b7fe9c93adc3c33d5cebe)
It's definitely possible some other old photos from trips of many years ago have some signs in them, but, well, they're in boxes somewhere and I will not have the chance to sift through them any time soon.
This is the first photo on my imgur account:
(https://i.imgur.com/tu0AypQ.jpg)
It was taken in July last year, and it shows the recently redone overpass for Highway 85 over Guelph Avenue in Kitchener, ON.
No clue, but it would have been mid-2000s.
The oldest digital road photo I have is from Feburary 5th, 2010 of the San Diego-Coronado Bridge which carries CA 75. I know the date off the top of my head because I was hit by a car running a stop sign at 4th Street and Avenue C a couple minutes after taking it.
(https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2894/32677173134_2d145cdafc_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/RMz47N)Z7 (https://flic.kr/p/RMz47N) by Max Rockatansky (https://www.flickr.com/photos/151828809@N08/), on Flickr
I find that interesting that I went so long without taking really any digital photos of roads, my Flickr says that I have about 23k now.
I'm not sure what my first road photo was either. I have a feeling it was a pair of Ontario Highway 7/8 shields taken in the village of Shakespeare either in late September or early October, 2003.
I've been addicted ever since.
This picture is from June 2007, taken on former MN-293/Dellwood St in Cambridge. This picture is from an era before I specifically started taking road pictures–this picture was one of many I took just walking around town randomly with my dad's digital camera. Of course, now it counts as one. :)
(https://i.imgur.com/Wt2RQ7R.jpg)
My first "road" photo is nothing to write home about, but here it is nonetheless. A photo shot back in November 2007 showing incandescent signals with very burnt lenses (since replaced with new LED signals) along Baltimore Pike at Grandview Road in Media, PA.
(https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3268/2699448771_20b5cb1d7a_z.jpg)
I'm sure this isn't the first road picture I ever took, but it's the first one I can definitely remember. My dad and I were out for a drive several years ago and we were on Alt. US 58 in Virginia. I spotted this sign error, grabbed a little point-and-shoot film camera I had with me, and opened the window to take this picture.
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmillenniumhwy.net%2Fsigngoofs%2Fva%2FUS270.jpg&hash=4b558202a492695b3fb10655a1cb6c92f9417138)
I no longer have my earliest ones. Back in 2007, I took some pictures of Illinois state highway ends with the intention of submitting them to the www.illi-indi.com site. This was before I had a camera phone (were those even a thing in 2007?), so I used a digital camera. I never did submit the pictures, and I no longer have the camera.
The first road pic I still have access to is this one shortly after crossing the Mexican border in March 2009:
(https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3653/3406894998_03763761bd_b.jpg)
Technically, I had taken this one earlier in the day, somewhere between Round Rock and San Antonio, but I don't know if it counts as a road pic:
(https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3643/3406894578_34d3a9b953_b.jpg)
I might have older sign or road photos from playing around with my camera, but they're nothing really interesting. I'm quite sure these are two of the oldest intentionally-photographed sign/road photos in my collection, from May of 1992 (I think):
(https://live.staticflickr.com/3471/3394213440_75c50e14e9_b.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/6aWepo)
Miles 'n' Klicks (https://flic.kr/p/6aWepo) by formulanone (https://www.flickr.com/photos/formulanone/), on Flickr
(https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3798/18938324914_299de14af8_o.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/uRvScm)
I don't think I have it anymore, but I believe it would've been a photo of North Avenue (US 29/78/278) that I took to add to a presentation relating to a project for one of my Georgia Tech classes. That would have been when I was living on East Campus, so in the 2007-09 timeframe.
I'm one of the most recent members to take photos of road signs, where I started in April 2017.
The first picture I took was of the backlit signs for Richmond and Charlotte at the I-64/77 split in Beckley, WV.
Now the oldest pictures for there to be road signs...tough call. My parents weren't much of a roadgeek, so they we're completely incidental. I believe the oldest one that I could find dates to mid-1988, and it's of some Philippine sign I couldn't recognize.
There's probably older, but they're still in the Philippines and we most likely don't have the camera anymore.
mine would have been on one of the Destin aria roads/bridges... at that time, i was just playing with a disposable camera though...
Likely a Polaroid of MO 266 and MO 96.The film was badly outdated, so the colors were off
My first road photo was taken at the instant I decided to collect one photo for every state, federal, and interstate highway in Illinois. I was 14, and I remember that the photo was of the westbound junction marker for IL-89 on US6 in Spring Valley, IL. I don't think I still have the photo, though. Since the junction marker is 36x36", as is typical, I eventually phased it out of my collection when I decided I only wanted 24x24" highway shields. A 24x24 IL-89 photo eventually took its place. Interesting that I was born in '89, and my route collection was born with route 89! I literally just noticed that.
I took my first real road photos with a digital camera when I was 10, on a 13-hour trip between Seattle and Salt Lake City. I believe the first one was of a mileage sign somewhere on I-82. I probably took somewhere between 100 and 200 pictures and went through two sets of batteries that day.
Unfortunately, I don't even know if those pictures still exist. They were on an old laptop computer that died, but my parents may have saved the hard drive. If I had 3 wishes, I would use one of them to get those pictures back.
I think this was my *first*
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.roadfan.com%2Ferror95.jpg&hash=4ba90b788b3fea551409337a75e08c1e349a5d55)
Or Maybe this one...
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.roadfan.com%2Fwhite30.jpg&hash=320013f3a4bd030a68b2d674b5aa7b0be205d874)
Either way, this shortly after I had discovered the online roadgeek community & Misc.Transport.road usenet group in 1997/98.
Whatever it is, it had to be sometime during the 1980's (I wish I could say it was earlier). I'll have to dig through some storage sheds in my back yard in order to find them.
I remember the where and when of my first bunch. Family vacation July 1978, El Paso, TX. BGS's on I-10. My mom let me use her new 110-film camera. I might still have the pictures.