photography education

[ron.richardson]

i am self-taught in photography, and i find myself wondering if i missed out by not taking any "formal" classes about it. i've never used film (besides a cheap point and shoot 35mm back in the day), and never developed my own film or anything like that. i sometimes wonder if by not having those experiences or education with film, it's not allowing me to grow more as a photographer.

i am a believer that doing something will allow you to learn it better than by just reading or listening about it. there are pros and cons to each, and a mix of the two would be best, but not always possible.

how many of you have taken formal classes in photography, and how many are self-taught?

[ChristianJames]

I'm totally self taught, and the one thing I tell photographers going to school for it is to learn as much as you can about the business aspects of photography!!! Your style will come w experience, there is tons of info about any problems you might have online, and tons of blogs like this to teach you new tricks, but the hardest thing I find to learn online is how to sell your work and yourself & setup a business.

[Nicole]

I'm definitely self-taught. No photography courses for me unless you count just finding all the information I possibly can, and trying out new things. I think that my photography skills are growing with experience, and will continue to as long as I'm willing to try new things.

That aside, I would love to take a course to learn how to develop my own film because I think that would be really interesting to learn.

[Beauxtx1]

I'm two months into serious photography and have taken no formal classes. I have purchased and read about 10 books so far and have immersed myself in "stuff" from the internet. Learning by mistakes is how I normally do things like this. I must be really learning. :-P

Attached is a photo I took of a tiger at the Houston zoo a few weeks ago.

Peace, out!

Beaux

[whitemug]

well, when i got my first P&S camera about 4 years ago, I just took shot after shot after shot, without learning the "hows" of photography through a formal workshop or class.

when i got my dslr, i signed up for a 6-session class with the main objective of really understanding the technical side of photography, and making sure that i make full use of the equipment i have (instead of always going on automatic mode).

since that time, not only have i grown more confident in my abilities, i'm now very comfortable (at least more than before) in discussions on photography. in fact, i've also found myself helping out a few friends on understanding how their camera works and on the different technical details of photography.

what works for one, may not necessarily for the rest, huh?

[sageone]

took classes in college, but really self taught. I can't learn things from books. I need to be hands on and learn from experience. Classes will help with basics like learning what white balance is. Why it's important. How to manipulate aperature and shutter speeds to get desire effects, etc. At the end of the day though, you just gotta do it and learn...trial and error type thing.

[NeuroVision]

I definitely feel that I've learned more through doing than in any class I've ever taken, be it photography or otherwise (trust me, there were many!).

I probably learned most when I was a newbie at the paper I worked for and had to re-do my photos again and again to the editor's perfection. Definitely develops an eye for a good photo, even if this is "their eye". Life experience and self-interest have also contributed to my skill set, because I now look at photos very differently when I was 18-- in particular, I tend to recognize how difficult it might have been to shoot something that caught my eye.

All this said, I would love to learn more about lighting and digital photo processing. Although I study vision professionally, I am continually amazed at how much our visual system picks up that the very finest cameras cannot. I would like to learn to make the best of any particular sensor to mimic what the eye "sees" to share one person's view of the world with as many that care to look.

cheers,
-Leanne

[googlit]

I'm mostly self-taught, though I've taken a couple film photography classes recently. Being a Photoshop nut, I loved drawing parallels between darkroom processes and Photoshop functions.

I learned a lot, too, and I've been doing this stuff for years. I'd recommend it, especially if you love playing with chemicals. I'm planning on taking some digital classes, too. Refresh some of the old stuff, maybe learn some new stuff.

You can never go wrong by learning things methodically from an instructor who knows what he/she is doing. My first teacher worked under Ansel Adams. Can't go wrong there. :)

[Lynette 77]

I'm self-taught with my photography. I did enrol into a Photography course about 10 years ago as I was really interested in developing my own photo's but didn't "survive" it. :( The course was extremely thorough and became too technical for me with it's mumbo-jumbo.

So since then I've just been reading up on photography via books or the internet. I find this way works best for me. Oh, and of course, learning from my mistakes too!

[RichardsonPhotography]

Another self-taught here. Have been to a single class that has to do with photography. First I bought myself a camera, then I bought The Complete Idiots Guide to Photography, which I read in 2 days. After that its all about reading through your manual and trying each new setting you read about. I would have liked to take some classes but I think in the long run I'm glad I did it this way. When I do it myself I tend to remember things a lot better. If I read it in a book and its not an aspect of photography that I may not be particulaly interested in then I'm bound to forget all that info I learned.

DPS has actually taught me more then I thought it would coming in to it. So if you count sitting on the computer reading articles from Digital Photography "School" formal training then I suppose I have been to school for it :)

[Joshua Schroeder]

My wife and I took a 4-part series of fairly low level classes at a local scrapbooking store last summer. There wasn't a lot of new content for me, especially when it came to the session of software. Beyond that, I'm another of the trial-and-error, and learn from the 'net folks.

I'd like to take a photography class at the University, but I haven't taken the arts prerequisites to get into it. I may enroll as an open studies student next summer, since I hear they waive the prereq during the summer semester. It would be a good opportunity to immerse myself more in the artistic side of photography.

[Fraggleroxer]

in the spring i will graduate with a degree in photography. its mostly for the tech side, and to learn the business.

even though good photography cant be taught, your born with the eyes

[Bail]

I am a still learning self taught photographer. Mostly trial and error.

I did think about going to school for photography.
Near where I live there is a school called "Hallmark Institute of Photography" http://hallmark.edu/ that I was really thinking about going to. A lot people hail it as the best photography school around. The only problem is 40,000$ to attend a 10 month course. I rather take some night classes at the community college.

Learning how use my camera directed me to this site. This site along with flicker helped me more then any book could.

[Saralonde]

I'm also self-taught. There is a ton of info all over the internet, plus forums like these to ask questions. I thought about taking classes but never know what level I'm at. I consider myself a noob, but I'm not a true beginner. But if I try a level 2 or 3 course, will I be out of my depth? Since I don't want to be a pro, I'll just plug along at my own pace. You can learn a lot by just doing! At some point you have to put the books down and just do it.

[Angela]

I took a 6 month certification course at a local Art Institure and though i did learn some basics, it was a very expensive class and when weighing what I put out in money and what I learned, it was definitely a waste.

I left there feeling like I got ripped off. So did the others in the class.

So I guess what I'm saying is, if you're good at the type of photography you're doing, and people are please with the work you do for them, a few seminars or keeping in touch with other like minded people, (such as those on this site) will probably be your best source of learned information, plus the pluthera of informative books that you can find on photography.