What is your photography educational level

zeppelin390

New member
And where did you get that education?

I have always enjoyed photography, and in the past year have started earning money from it by doing real-estate photography. I have no formal education and picked up the knowledge I do know from trial-and-error, youtube, and speaking with people in flicker groups.

While I know enough to get by right now, I'd like more of a solid foundation of the fundamentals, e.g., lighting, composition, and exposure. My local community college and university don't get into their photography classes in the way I'd like, so I'd hate to take on a bunch of debt for classes that don't offer what I need. I prefer a hands-on education, so I guess workshops may be the best route. But if there are some reputable online classes, that may be a good place to get started as well.

Also, I'm curious who else here is making a full-time career from photography and what they might have to say about things that helped them along the way to becoming a better photographer, the kind of photographer they envisioned themselves being.

-Scott
 

Roy1961

Senior Member
Contributor
my level would be "in there somewhere", not at the bottom and no where near the top, just a hobbyist, all self taught with a large help from people on here. I am into wildlife mainly, birds and critters. I love to get out to walk for a few hours shooting at whatever is about.
 

Ta2Dave

Senior Member
I was in the photography class Junior and Senior year in High School back in the 90's. I used a Canon Ae1. I snagged a Nikon D3300 last year. My first "real" camera since 1996. Took a short break due to some family stuff...but a little while ago, I picked it up and started shooting again. I just got a D7100 recently as well. Since getting back into photography with the '33, I've learned most from Nikonites.com, and a couple of books. An old US Marine vet has been mentoring me a bit recently as well. When got out of the Corps, he picked up photography. It's not his full time job, but he does make good money on portraits.

I'd like to take classes at my local community college, but as OP said, I don't want a bunch of debt, the classes might bore the hell out of me, and I have a ton of stuff going on when I'm not at work.
 

paul04

Senior Member
Self taught, with help from these forums,, and trial and error,

Enjoy getting out and about, and talking to other photographers I meet on my travel's, and picking up a few hints and tips from them.
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
And where did you get that education?

I have always enjoyed photography, and in the past year have started earning money from it by doing real-estate photography. I have no formal education and picked up the knowledge I do know from trial-and-error, youtube, and speaking with people in flicker groups.

While I know enough to get by right now, I'd like more of a solid foundation of the fundamentals, e.g., lighting, composition, and exposure. My local community college and university don't get into their photography classes in the way I'd like, so I'd hate to take on a bunch of debt for classes that don't offer what I need. I prefer a hands-on education, so I guess workshops may be the best route. But if there are some reputable online classes, that may be a good place to get started as well.

Also, I'm curious who else here is making a full-time career from photography and what they might have to say about things that helped them along the way to becoming a better photographer, the kind of photographer they envisioned themselves being.

-Scott
I've taken a number of formal classes and workshops from many different venues. There are a lot of online resources, and I've used some of them to good effect, but a formal class just can't be beat in my experience. I have tried online photography classes but I've never found anything that helped much, really. I'm sure there are some good ones out there, but a formal classroom setting is what works best for me and where I've learned the most.
 

Danno

Senior Member
Self taught, YouTube and some books... A lot of help from folks on this forum... Much of the stuff I best understand comes from here because every is so helpful and have already dug thru and found the best resources.
 

Nero

Senior Member
Depends. Either self taught or mostly self taught if magazines and books don't count as self teaching. Line is a bit blurry there IMO. lol
 

RON_RIP

Senior Member
Self taught. It would seem that you know your goals so set your own lesson plans and then practice until you feel you are proficient in a given area. The joy of digital is the ability to use each photo as a teaching aide with immediate feedback. Like other skills practice makes perfect. Then when you get photos you are happy with, post them here for further evaluation by the many excellent photographers on this site.
 

MaxBlake

Senior Member
This and other similar forums can be a good way to at least get some suggestions that you can test out and see whether they work for you. I do that frequently and find, not all that surprising, that some of them work better than others. :)

I was in the newspaper business for 20-plus years and learned a great deal from a handful of guys who were mostly self-taught, as it turned out. But I still learned a great deal from them.
 
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I started off in the early 70s by taking classes at a local junior college in photography. Since my wife taught at that school I ended up taking the 3 quarter class for about 7 or 8 quarters. I ended up assisting the instructor and we became good friends. I learned a lot from him. I later went to work as a free lance photographer and learned on the job so to speak. Then into photo finishing and through that I learned many things. In seeing all those many photos and assisting customers I got to see all the mistakes people made and was able to help them along in their photography and teaching is the best education I think anyone can get.

Now I get ideas and questions from the people here and the ideas that interest me I go out and test extensively. Some ideas are thrown out, some changed to suit me and some kept and used by me. The trick is to listen to what everyone has to share and then test the ideas for yourself and go from there.
 

RobHD

Senior Member
self taught mostly intact majority , got bought a course for xmas , and its reinforcing what i already figured out as well as making me go "oh so thats whats happening, damn" so i am also learning from it
 

kkchan

Senior Member
I took some photo class in college, then worked for the school newspaper, after a while I attended the Art Institute and grabbed an AA degree in commercial photography, after 2 years of somewhat wasted of monie still owe 20K up to date kinda BS, I worked at some portrait studio in the mall and cameras store.
I drove down to LA with my friend and worked for 2 big studios for 2 years, mainly photographing and video stuff for some music magazines and CD covers, it was fun because I met Eddie van helen, Qzzy, Zakk, Aero Smiths, and many many others.
I came back to the WA state and back to the camera shop again, a little bit of side works.
Now I work at a major drug store chain, no time for side works or any projects, and did some tutoring at a youth center about photography.
In the real world, all they care is get the shxt done quick and get paid ASAP, no one cares about how you lid up the stuff and how to place the subject, those are for the Art director and assistant to deal with.
 

Texas

Senior Member
Self taught, enjoy fiddling with all things photographic.
Learned enough to sell cameras in the late 60's at a membership dept. store.

Made all the mistakes,
no scratch that, still make some and I'm still trying to figure out if 'auto focus' was something the world really needed, not to mention all the currently available auto focus options.

Started in early 60's with my dad's Argus C3 and flashbulb contraption. Darkroom in the closet. Tri-X 400. I still remember how hot those bulbs got and how they melted and smelled.

Progressed through:
Yashica Electro 35, Miranda Sensorex, Yashica Mat, Nikkormat EL, Nikon F2AS (practically wore it out then sold it 20 years later at a nice profit <neglecting inflation of course>), Nikon 8008, Epson 850Z, several Canon and Fuji pocket sized point and shoots, Nikon D's: D50, D90, D200, D300s...

I think my best film pictures were made with the Yashica Mat 120, I had good small child subjects and the color negative film was more forgiving than the 20,000 slides I made with the other film cameras.

The Nikkormat EL was the most fun film camera I ever had and lots easier to handle than the F2
AS.

My first digital was the 2MB Epson 850 and even with it's fixed lens it really got me impressed with what was happening in the cheap digital world.

I still cannot get over the attraction of more than 6MB, raw, iso 3,000,000 or full frame for normal people, especially those who live in front of a computer screen to view and share their photos.

Things that make me laugh: guys that have to have the latest $2,000 camera that does the metering and focusing for them at 10fps and folks that think they are creative because they bought a camera. Woops, I used to be that creative guy.

As to current state of education, I'm determined to master all the fine points of the D300s (and commander mode flash) before I get too old. Then it will be time to say goodbye to Nikon for one of those much smaller and fancy Olympus, Sony, or Fuji's.
 

kd7eir

Senior Member
I took photography in high school back in 1981. Learned to wind my own film into cartridges with a bulk film loader, take my pictures with a Canon AE1, TLR, and 4x5 view camera, then develop the film, make my own prints. Today I use a Nikon D7200 - much quicker and simpler, but I still read a lot of photography books and magazines, and several forums - the learning never stops, it's just quicker because we can see our results and make adjustments on the spot.
 
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