Those who can, do..those who can't teach...heh

[amy_bb]

I'm toying with the idea of offering to teach a beginning digital photography course through a local school district's continuing community education offerings. This would be targeted to adult learners (evening/weekend class) and for the beginner to maybe the advanced beginner.

This would be a class, covering the basics of photography, some composition topics, use of the camera, basic editing, how to post and save photos, etc.

Have any of you ever done this? If so, did you narrow the class down so it was just for dSLR users? Did you offer it as a general beginning photography class to include point and shoot users? How many sessions did you offer and how long was each class session? Did you do have access to computers when you did the class? Can you share your syllabus/curriculum?

I have no real agenda for doing this accept I think I have something to offer beginners (and I get so frustrated when I see people w/some VERY nice cameras shooting on "auto" mode when there is so much more to their camera.

TIA for your thoughts.

[windrider86]

Forgive me for asking but do you shoot anything besides kids sports? Teaching photography to others will require you have a broad knowledge of every aspect of photography.
I've been asked by our local college, numerous times but for me anyway, feel I'm not qualified to teach. I can take a mean photo but I'm sooo not brilliant at the numerical aspects of photography

[amy_bb]

Originally Posted by windrider86

Forgive me for asking but do you shoot anything besides kids sports? Teaching photography to others will require you have a broad knowledge of every aspect of photography.
I've been asked by our local college, numerous times but for me anyway, feel I'm not qualified to teach. I can take a mean photo but I'm sooo not brilliant at the numerical aspects of photography

Very fair question, Windrider and I'm happy to answer.

You are right that I mostly shoot sports/kids, at least far as my new business venture goes. I do shoot other types of photos for personal use but am not interested in doing so professionally nor do I think it's my forte, however I do understand the basic concepts of shooting other types of photos.

I would not begin to think I was remotely capable of teaching at the college or even professional workshop level. The prompting for my question comes from this conversation that I've had multiple times over the past few months from friends and acquainances: (paraphrasing multiple conversations here)

Friend/Acquaintance:"My husband/brother/mom just got me this great new dSLR camera for my birthday/Christmas. They know I like to take pictures and thought this would be great for me. It has so many buttons and features and settings! I really have no idea how to use any of it so I just put it on "auto" and shoot away! I wonder why I can't get pictures closer to my kid on the field? How do you do that thing where the foreground is in focus and the background is blurry? Why was that picture I took so grainy? How can I get that shot where my kid looks like they've stopped in mid air? This is hard to use, maybe I'll just put it back in the closet and go back to my old point and shoot. I wish there was somewhere close by that I could get some lessons on using my camera"

etc....you get my drift.

I feel comfortable with the concepts of aperture, ISO, shutter and WB and the ability to communicate this to a beginner audience. That's why I was wondering if anyone has done this specifically for a group of beginner adults and how it went.

[sk66]

Unless you are VERY knowledgeable on all aspects I would avoid it. The only caveat might be being able to teach a very basic course without a very strong knowledge of lighting (but not without basic knowledge of lighting).

Regardless of what you are trying to teach you will get questions and stray into areas not intended. Sometimes everyone has to say "I don't know", but if you have to say it often or you have less understanding than the "student" on the topic then you are screwed. Your credibility will be ruined, the students won't respect or trust you, and they will learn little because of it.

I teach advanced college level classes on Aerodynamics, Instructional Psychology, and Systems Malfunctions. It's surprising what you can get into and how easily you can "get caught out". Having skill in teaching and how to manage a group of students is also crucial.

Just to give you an idea...I've been into photography over 30 yrs. I have a very good knowledge in almost every area, and even "expert" in some areas. I have a strong understanding of how a camera works mechanically/electronically including the science and math behind it. I feel I could easily teach a "beginner class". I could possibly teach an "advanced class" on specific subjects (depending on what you classify as "advanced"). I would not consider teaching an "expert class". At the "advanced level" I would expect to occasionally have to say "I don't know" and to have to control the class/group/discussion etc in order to keep things on focus and to keep things within my area of comfort.

[amy_bb]

Originally Posted by sk66

Regardless of what you are trying to teach you will get questions and stray into areas not intended. Sometimes everyone has to say "I don't know", but if you have to say it often or you have less understanding than the "student" on the topic then you are screwed. Your credibility will be ruined, the students won't respect or trust you, and they will learn little because of it.

Very good point, Steve. Thanks for pointing this out to me.

[Gulf Coast Girl]

I'd like to chime in here from the "student" perspective. I just took up photography as a hobby earlier this year and the first thing I did was look for some classes. The local college only had classes during my work hours on weekdays so that was not an option. Then I found a smaller technical college that offered Begging Photography for DSLR. It was more of a workshop course (not a full semester) that consisted of 4 3-hr. evening classes.

What I learned: The basics of Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO and a bit about lighting. What I attended 4 classes to learn, I could have learned in 3 hours reading on the Internet.

Here is where (IMO) things went wrong:

There was no syllabus, agenda, outline.... nothing. It was more just fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants verbal instruction. He talked a lot without giving us any actual use situations. The exception to this was the lighting bit.... he setup a couple of table lamps to demonstrate lighting. Most of the class he would just talk and often get VERY sidetracked with personal stories about his "career" instead of actual instruction on photography. He was a nice enough fellow, but honestly I didn't give a rat's hiney about his career editing movies in Hollywood, I was there to learn about photography. I'd say about 50% of the time he was reminiscing with his Hollywood stories. I think if he had an outline prepared of topics to be covered for each class it would have helped him stay on track and focus on the subject we were there for.

There were no actual assignments, just lecture and that was that. I think he should have had specific assignments prepared for us that we would perform and bring in our results for evaluation and critique on how to improve. There were only 10 of us in the class so it's not like he would have been overwhelmed.

Camera operation..... there were a mix of Nikon and Cannon users in the class and he was not familiar with Nikon at all. Now I'm not saying he should be an expert on every camera out there but at the very least I feel he should have been able to help Nikon and Cannon users with finding the basic settings like ISO, Aperture and Shutter speed. Luckily I brought my manual with me and was able to figure it out myself.

A few months after the course I signed up for a 1 day course on Panoramic HDR. This was at the same place, organized by the same guy, although he had an actual photographer in this field of work come to teach the class. I liked it because we actually went out and took some photos, however once again the class was weak in structure and instruction style.

I'm in a very small town and have limited options, so I'll likely continue to sign up for a few workshops and just get what I can out of them. In all honesty though, I learn more here reading the forums as well as watching instructional videos on YouTube.

I'm not posting this to discourage you in any way, just passing on some info. from a students perspective so hopefully you can avoid some of the mistakes I've encountered.

Best of luck to you

[NathanFranke]

Originally Posted by amy_bb

Very good point, Steve. Thanks for pointing this out to me.

That being said, you should still teach the class. You won't know what questions they ask until they ask them, and you may already know all the answers. Worst that can happen is that the students end up with more knowledge than they started, and they don't ask you to teach again.

You did say you were weak in the math part (I think), so I'd study that--Law of Reciprocity in particular. I haven't seen anywhere mention that since my photography classes, back in the film days. People explain it, but names are helpful too. Short version: 1/125 @ f/8 = 1/60 @ f/11 = 1/2 sec @ f/64. All will give correct exposure.

edited: I've been trolling the archived articles, and found this. Sums up reciprocity nicely. If you know the mechanics, and you know the rules of composition, everything else can be faked. Get good with lighting--you will get asked. You can either say "that's outside the scope of this course", or reverse engineer the setup that the student is asking about. The more you know, the better you'll be, but there's absolutely no reason not to try teaching at this point.

[autofocus]

Yes Amy, I have thought of it, and have actually done it on a very limited basis. A few times in front of a group/classroom, and other times mostly one on one. A few years back a good friend of mine convinced me to try this, and that we might be able to make a small business out of it. The plan would be for me to teach a basic understanding of the camera and it's functions along with some basic tenets of composition. It would be done over a 2-3 hour session to small groups of ~10 subjects, and we thought we'd do it two nights a week and charge $40 per subject. My friend invested in the advertising costs, bought an overhead projector, and could provide his office conference room as the place. Needless to say, the response was underwhelming. I was quite surprised by this as I assumed most families today probably own two or three digital cameras and are probably somewhat clueless as to how to get the most out of them. I prepared a 71 page Power Point presentation to be used, and although I did teach a Parks and Rec adult ed session, I've used it mostly for one on one sessions. Good luck with whatever you decide to do about this

[SusanH1970]

Originally Posted by autofocus

Yes Amy, I have thought of it, and have actually done it on a very limited basis. A few times in front of a group/classroom, and other times mostly one on one. A few years back a good friend of mine convinced me to try this, and that we might be able to make a small business out of it. The plan would be for me to teach a basic understanding of the camera and it's functions along with some basic tenets of composition. It would be done over a 2-3 hour session to small groups of ~10 subjects, and we thought we'd do it two nights a week and charge $40 per subject. My friend invested in the advertising costs, bought an overhead projector, and could provide his office conference room as the place. Needless to say, the response was underwhelming. I was quite surprised by this as I assumed most families today probably own two or three digital cameras and are probably somewhat clueless as to how to get the most out of them. I prepared a 71 page Power Point presentation to be used, and although I did teach a Parks and Rec adult ed session, I've used it mostly for one on one sessions. Good luck with whatever you decide to do about this

And it's too damn bad it wasn't the success it should have been. As a one-on-one student of yours when I first started out, I can honestly say I wouldn't be where I am now, had you not taught me the basics.

So...in a nutshell, Vinnie: My obsession with photography is all your fault!

[amy_bb]

Originally Posted by NathanFranke

That being said, you should still teach the class. You won't know what questions they ask until they ask them, and you may already know all the answers. Worst that can happen is that the students end up with more knowledge than they started, and they don't ask you to teach again.

You did say you were weak in the math part (I think), so I'd study that--Law of Reciprocity in particular. I haven't seen anywhere mention that since my photography classes, back in the film days. People explain it, but names are helpful too. Short version: 1/125 @ f/8 = 1/60 @ f/11 = 1/2 sec @ f/64. All will give correct exposure.

edited: I've been trolling the archived articles, and found this. Sums up reciprocity nicely. If you know the mechanics, and you know the rules of composition, everything else can be faked. Get good with lighting--you will get asked. You can either say "that's outside the scope of this course", or reverse engineer the setup that the student is asking about. The more you know, the better you'll be, but there's absolutely no reason not to try teaching at this point.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Nathan. Although I did not mention it directly, the true math aspect of calculating focal length, aperture and shutter speed is not a strong point of mine (were you reading my mind? )
. I have found that with most, it is difficult to do these calculations in the regular course of shooting but to understand the relationship btw. these concepts does make for better photographs.

Originally Posted by autofocus

Yes Amy, I have thought of it, and have actually done it on a very limited basis. A few times in front of a group/classroom, and other times mostly one on one. A few years back a good friend of mine convinced me to try this, and that we might be able to make a small business out of it. The plan would be for me to teach a basic understanding of the camera and it's functions along with some basic tenets of composition. It would be done over a 2-3 hour session to small groups of ~10 subjects, and we thought we'd do it two nights a week and charge $40 per subject. My friend invested in the advertising costs, bought an overhead projector, and could provide his office conference room as the place. Needless to say, the response was underwhelming. I was quite surprised by this as I assumed most families today probably own two or three digital cameras and are probably somewhat clueless as to how to get the most out of them. I prepared a 71 page Power Point presentation to be used, and although I did teach a Parks and Rec adult ed session, I've used it mostly for one on one sessions. Good luck with whatever you decide to do about this

Thanks for this information. Still got that 71page PP presentation hanging around? Ha.

I'm definitely looking at this in a Parks and Rec format/Adult ed. I would not be doing it to make money per se although there would be a fee for the class, part of which would be my take.
I would be doing it to force myself to become continually educated in photography, to help teach other newbies how to make the most of their photography experience, to improve my public speaking and organizational skills and to provide an educational experience for attendees

GulfCoastGirl-this is very helpful information and will be taken into consideration if and when I ever put something together. It's great to know what has worked/not worked for people in this format.