"Rendering" is most commonly used when talking about 3D graphics and video effects - even though technically, many more things could be considered renderings. But it's very very unusual to forinstance say that a photo edit is a render.
I've seen people using Photoshop (when drawing), Illustrator and similar refer to the artwork as renderings. I don't really know why - my guess is that they are calling it renderings because of the complexity of the artwork (photo realism).
In my book, "rendering" is when you do 3D or video effects only - color grading/tweaking/compositing/manipulation/etc. a picture is color grading/tweaking/compositing/manipulation/etc or whatever other word fits, except "rendering". If you do a car pic in 3D app, and then use Photoshop to slap in a photo background, then that would be a composited render. Same result could be archived in a 3D app also, and would still be a composited render.
I usually keep it simple and refer to my pictures as renderings, if the primary element of interest in the picture was made in an 3D app - if not, then I would probably call it photo manipulation - I'm not sure, really - I don't do much non 3D/vid effects work really
I don't have any "first renders" - some of the oldest I have are from 1995. I started playing with 3D in 92/93. That's a very long time ago
Abnormal Activity:
Attached stills are from the first somewhat serious project I was involved in back in 95 - check out the attached txt file as well to get a good lol and to be amazed by the hardware used at that time (which actually was pretty hardcore - when the animation was shown and the credits rolled, about 3000 ppl were like "omg" @ the hardware)
No anti aliasing was used because we were in a huge rush to meet the deadline.
Genetic Species:
This one is from my first professional/commercial project - a rendered game intro I did in 1997: Genetic Species intro (quality isn't the best and there's some frame skipping going on ).
Karolis Kliaudaitis is 17 years old and lives in Lithuania. He does some BMX riding and listens to wierd music when he isn't too occupied with Live For Speed.
Karolis has proven himself to be a very fast driver and we are happy to announce that our roster has been expanded by another young talent.