I got into photography when a friend loaned me a Nikon FE. I only shot B&W back then since I couldn’t develop my own colour.
I never did anything professional as a photographer for years. I just shot for my own pleasure. I got into photoshop very early (ver. 1.5) so that I could do away with the whole darkroom business. I found it very easy to use. No one seemed to know anything about photoshop or digital images and scanning. So I started a freelance consulting business setting up desktop publishing for various businesses and training people how to do it.