The title is self explanatory in this case. I'll start.
I first got into lighting in 2012 by viewing Parrot175, tpirman1982, and other YouTube channels I can't recall now. My very first lighting experiment was making a 15w tube be ballasted on a 60w incandescent lamp. Sadly, I broke the fluorescent lamp while moving things around, but I remember it was a GE /WW from Menards. After that summer, I forgot about lighting until August 2014, when I bought my second fluorescent tube at hab for s buck. Soon, weekly hab trips became a thing and I googled stuff about fluorescent lighting and ultimately joined in November of '14.

I don't remember exactly how I found LG but it was while surfing for info about modern CFLS IIRC. 

Well, the story goes really far back. In 2010 and 2011, I was extremely interested in ceiling fans. Every year, whena new lighting catalog came out at menards, I would snatch it and look at the ceiling fans in it. I later found out it had light bulbs in the back, so I gained interest in that too. When we drove through farmland, I would often see NEMAs and Yardblasters with greened out /DX MV lamps. Since the catalog only listed MH and HPS fixtures, I assumed that these were MV. I had wanted a MV yardblaster fixture for a long time, and earlier this year, I got not one but two, along with 3 lifeguard lamps. I later bought a $30 HPS yardblaster from fleet farm, and currently it is in my collection. Anyways, back to the point. My interest died down for around 2 years, and I had almost no interest in lighting. But, around Chrismas last year, I found a burned out CFL, and somehow that started my interest again. My first experiments were running linear fluorescents on CFL ballasts. My first HID lamp was a 275w Westinghouse SBMV sunlamp and fixture, which still works very nicely. We first got internet in August 2014, so I was able to gain more knowledge about lighting. I would search things on Google images and Youtube about lighting, and I kept getting this LG website. At the time, I just though it was just a lighting marketing site, so I didn't pay much attention. I later found out that it was actually a forum, but I lurked for about 6 months. When I got my m250r2 from Ebay, that finally broke the camel's back and I joined. So here I am.

I first heard about LG when I was looking at migget's videos about vintage lightbulbs he mentioned LG and so I came and had a look and joined next day

I think I first found L-G through a Google image search. I lurked for a while, but when I bought three Guth preheat troffers and nine Sylvania Lifelines at the ReStore, I finally joined. Those were the fixtures and lamps that really got me into vintage lighting, though I've been interested in lighting in general practically since birth. One of those Guth troffers now resides at John's farm.

Back in 2006, I had started looking around online for some info on streetlights, hid ballasts, etc when I came across a streetlights group on Yahoo by Jim Terry. Through a link I came across L-G. I was pretty stunned that there were other collectors/experimenters out there for lighting. I started to collaborate with Jace (tudorwhiz), Jeremiah (J-frog), Rudy, and Dave (silverliner) with chats and the rest is history!

After my initial interest in lighting waned for several years due to being fed up with the bad quality of modern portable fluorescent lanterns (which I had previously had a large interest in), I discovered FlashlightMuseum.com and started looking at pictures of vintage fluorescent lanterns there. I came across the Rayovac Magnum and decided I wanted one, so I managed to snag one on eBay.

The quality of the lantern was so far above what I expected that it re-started my interest in fluorescent lanterns. I decided to join Candle Power Forums, but quickly realized that they were mostly interested in modern LED stuff. I only ever made one post there, which you can still read here, before I quickly became disinterested.

A couple of months later I was googling pictures of the Rayovac Magnum, when I came across Patrick's Photos of his on here. I didn't have to poke around the site long before I knew I belonged here. The Rayovac Magnum was the first photo I uploaded. When I first joined my only interest was portable fluorescent lanterns, but mains-powered stuff gradually grew on me as I continued to participate here.

I can't believe it's been 3 years already! 

I got on because I was good friends with the site's founder. We chatted a lot when he was interested in lighting. When he started this site, I was one of the first to get invited, and I've been here since May 2005!

@don93s I remember the chats we had! I was still living up north.

What's Phil up to, nowadays?

I discovered LG at 2006 during my browsing in Philip Slawinski past website. During this period, this was my beginning of activation in forums generally, and I couldn't be contact with english speaking people at forums. Before discovering LG, I thought that I'm the world's only lighting fan, as there are no other lighting fans here in Israel. When discovering LG, I didn't believed that in the lamps and the lanterns field, there would be a community of other lighting fans beside me. However my beginning in this site was hard because of my disabilities and because the american and british lighting looked different to what I used to see here in Israel, but I gradually accepted this. Also during this period I was attracted to new lighting technologies, while most LG members of that time was different from me in the fact that they are lighting collectors and so attracting to the old lighting.

Mustang07 told me about this place actually on another forum.

I've been into lighting pretty much all of my life.  www.elightbulbs.com was one of my favorite sites to visit as a kid.  On another forum I was on I posted in their off topic section asking if anyone else had an interest in lighting, Mustang07 saw it and replied and told me about this place, so I took a quick look, but being young at the time I didn't register nor stay on much due to not really having permission to do so.  A year or 2 later I started getting more into lights and I had pictures of them I wanted to share, so I asked my Dad about this site and asked if I could register, so I did.  My knowledge of lights has grown a lot since then.

The site was mentioned to me when I commented about lighting equipment on the Vacuum Collector forum site or appliance one.This is a really good,simple site that doeesn't have complex rules or logins.This site is also very imformative.I feel there should be a section created here for portable lighting.

Was it Universal Dave on here? He is a vacuum collector and he said somewhere that he has an account on a vac forum.

Yes,Beleive it was Universal Dave that introduced me onto here from the Vacuum cleaner forum site.

I have always been a fan of vintage fluorescent lighting since I was a young child and have collected up quite a massive amount of it through the years, much of which is in use around my farm.  I discovered Lighting-Gallery through You Tube users "DieselDucy" and "Daveman". Before that, I thought I was the only crazy son of a gun who gave a damn about it!  It is nice to have "friends" from around the world being brought together because of our crazy hobby.  I also have some vintage fans, vintage appliances lots of diesel engines.