I still remember the first time I laid my hands on a semi-decent camera...
Back in 2009 (when I was just a wee little HS freshman) I took a stop-motion animation class, and had to buy one to participate in the course. I ended up with a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ38...it wasn't amazing or anything, but I guess it wasn't too bad either. Anyways, I made it through the year-long class without producing anything too embarrassing, but I'm not about to show anyone here on dA xD Before I even considered taking photos as an art in itself, I became intrigued with how...well, cool my camera was; I was probably a bit too entertained by some of the simpler features, like going back and forth between depths of field while looking through the viewfinder. Before I knew it, I was trying out neat artsy stuff and, with a bit of encouragement, I put some time in and got to how I am today~
I now use a Nikon D5100 with two AF-S NIKKOR super-zoom lenses (18-55mm, 55-200mm) and an AF-S Micro NIKKOR prime lens (40mm).
Concerning my post-processing background, I started off with CS3 in 7th grade (2007) at school during recess and pretty much just taught myself through experimenting and messing around. I currently use Adobe Photoshop CS5~