I bought my first camera when I was 11 years. A small 35 mm with viewfinder for the price of 3 LPs. My inspiration to get into photography was Jan Schrøder, a butcher in Denmark, who had shown me the love of his life: A Nikon FM with a 50/1.4 lens.

My mother saw where it was going, and for my confirmation at age 15, she gifted me a Nikon EM which was the first "cheap" camera Nikon made.

Soon after I was making my own film rolls from raw film on cans and photographed somewhat 150 meters of black and white films a year which I developed and copied myself.

Tina Maria Nielsen from my school, laursens Realskole,1982

I had a thing for this. I had figured out how the cameras worked inside and the whole principle of "painting with light" even before I saw how a camera actually looked inside. As a kid I had lots of time to philosophize on this and to train my eyes and hands.

I also build my own 6x6 camera in wood, with a tilt-shift lens, which made nice pictures. It could only contain one shot at the time (in film loaders of wood and paper I had made). It was a very nice project and the camera works.

I still have the 6x6 wooden camera I built when I was 14.

My mother was renting out rooms to all sorts of people, an African prince, a girl that worked with horses, another girl that was working at the best restaurant in Denmark.

And so on, a lot of funny characters. I brought them to my "studio" with its do-it-yourself lightning and did portraits of them.

I also walked a lot around in the nature and photographed the lake, the trees, cows and the buildings.

Tina. My brothers girlfriend shot Sunday morning with the cat Jackie, 1981.

At one stage I was very much into photographing demonstrations and went with so-called BZ'ere (young people who took over empty factories and houses at night to occupy them illegally) to photograph the takeovers and the life lived in the buildings.

I photographed my school friends, my bigbrothers girlfriends, my girlfriends girlfriends, my girlfriends girlfriends brothers' girlfriends cats and so on.

I did few commercial works of houses and people (fashion) and some times participated in photo competitions where you could win a camera. I sold my first photograph to Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency for $850 at age 15.

At one stage I wanted the passion of photography to become my profession in life, but because I was slightly colorblind (red/green) I couldn't be allowed into the photographic school. I told them I didn't give a damn about color - I only wanted to work in black and white. They didn't really care.

When I got into the advertising business in 1985 I calmed down my interest in photo and even sold my darkroom after a while.

Our bathroom zink always had beautiful light in the morning.

I still used my Nikon EM till it broke in 1996 (it lasted for 17 years and 4.000 roles of film) and then bought both a used Nikon EM as well as a used Nikon F3 and a used Nikon FG.

In 1998 I met a film director in the Caribbean who always had a Leica Minilux with him, and I was so impressed with the pictures that I soon got one. The Leica Minilux is a nice little portable camera with a unique 40 mm lens.

The rest is history, as they say...

The beach.

Thorsten Overgaard and brother Martin Overgaard at Aarhus Beach, August 1971 [Thorsten far left, Martin far right].

Thorsten Overgaard in 1988 as the executive director for D3 advertising agency K/S in Denmark.

Thorsten Overgaard in his AD ONE advertising and internet company [1999], which he sold in 2000 and then left the advertising and internet business.

The AD ONE headquarter bunker.

Thorstens mother and fathers wedding 2 June 1962. In the picture (from left) it is Poul with his mother and father. In the middle of the photo Jyttes grandmother.

Thorstens father, Poul Overgaard Nielsen. Here a picture from 1984 when he worked at Aarhus Stiftstidende, the local newspaper.