Has anybody taken photography classes?

[radhak]

I have been looking around for somebody to teach me something beyond the basics of DSLRs/photography - Books can teach me only so much.

I see that my local community college offers evening classes - 3 hours, weekly once, for 8 weeks, cost $100. People have recommended the instructor a lot. Other than the awkward timing, I'm also wondering if a 'professional' school (I hear Nikon has some, and others) would offer anything more.

I am not looking to change careers, just that I'd like to know what I'm doing, instead of blundering around .

Of course, my experience of community college has been great, and I like the idea of promoting their efforts; if they don't see enough response, many classes get canceled, which'd be a pity.

[thrytis]

I took a photography class through a local community college with a similar schedule. The class i took was very good, but designed for beginners and didn't assume you had thousands of dollars invested in equipment. If you knew and were comfortable with the basics from reading (aperture, shutter speed, light color, types of light sources, etc), it might have had fairly little value though. I didn't, so i got a lot out of it.

[Tom Slick]

Your community college is the right place to start. I've taken a couple night art classes and there are others just like you there. I haven't taken a photography class but I'm sure they are the same. Make sure the class is in the type of photography you are interested in.

I've looked at photo workshop schools, I have a very good one locally. They are a couple thousand $ and not for beginners.

If you have a good local camera shop ask them what they recommend. Mine offers very basic classes reasonably priced and they'd have a recommendation for taking other courses.

[billwmeyer]

My wife took a course through a local community college and really enjoyed it. I think for the money it would be hard to beat.

Bill

[alpha]

The community college would be a great way to have someone guide you through the basics. If you are the self-directed type, there are many free tutorials on the internet. Here are a few links to get you started:

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials.htm

http://www.photoxels.com/digital-pho...tutorials.html

http://www.geofflawrence.com/

Here's a couple links to photography forums. Usually there are some tutuorials in these:

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/

http://photocamel.com/forum/

You probably can learn as much as you can absorb if you just go through a tutorial and take lots and lots of pictures until you get the item mastered. Good luck.

Bob

[sparkeyjames]

What do you want to know? There are many facets to good photography. A good beginning course will teach you some of the basics. Beyond that there are many good books on many specific areas of photography. Portraiture, Architectural, Photo journalism, Nature, Commercial, Landscape and Scenic are some of the areas you can study. Good photographic technic can be learned it does not all have to be trial and error. Though there will still be plenty of that. Luckily these days with digital cameras trial and error does not cost a fortune in film development to see your results. I was a self taught amateur nature photographer. I read everything I could get my hands on. I learned my equipment inside out and backwards so that in any situation or lighting I could take a really good photo. Framing and composition is another thing that must be learned. Take a look at the photo I posted in the Haiti thread. Look at how the angle of the street and the position of the people in the photo draws your eye further into the picture. (it's the reason I used that photo) Composition is learning how to frame a picture so that the viewers eye is drawn into it. You could spend a lifetime (and a fortune) learning the art of photography. The camera is your brush the world is your canvas.

[havighurst]

You might want to check out the New York Institute of Photography. It is a correspondence course. I took it about 15 years ago, but they have updated it for digital. The benefit to me was that it was cheaper than the local college and I have the materials to review down the road (which I have done quite often). I really did learn about a number of different areas of photography- beyond the basics.

[Norm in Fujino]

I've been doing photography most of my life, and I agree that the community college class is probably the best place to start, especially if the prof comes well recommended. I mostly shot color slides before I entered grad school, when I had the chance to take a couple of photography classes at a nearby community college. Mind you, this was back in the dark ages, and we learned developing black and white film, and printing on those nice big Omega enlargers. But at least as important for me was the hour or so we spent each Saturday at the end of class, critiquing each other's photographs. It really helps develop your eye for "seeing" to have other people tell you outright what they think "works" or doesn't work about your photos. I would highly recommend taking a class like that, even if it's focused on digital photography. And unless you're only interested in learning how to operate the camera better, I really like the idea of going to platform-neutral classes, where you have people using lots of different camera types, not just the one the corporate sponsor recommends. It makes you focus more on the photographs themselves rather than the hardware.

[radhak]

Love it!

Thanks everybody for all that input. Bob, I'll take some time to go thru your links - lots there!

I checked out NYIP - but looks like their courses are around $1000; maybe next time, if I feel the need to really go whole hog...

The reason I've been looking outside of books/websites is that I keep getting these small questions that seem difficult to describe or search, but should be so easy to demonstrate.

I decided to take the plunge and registered yesterday for the CC, and even went in for the first class last evening!

And I loved it!

The class had around 15 students, of which half were repeats / advanced. The rest of us were newbies of varying sorts. I happened to be more advanced in that lot , as I have self-learnt a little bit about apertures and shutter speeds and ISO and what they mean and how they function. And also, my camera was the most beaten up (a CL buy 2 years ago, and well used since). Most of the rest had shiny new gear, and couple of them had not even seen most of their menu/settings, or used anything beyond the 'auto' option. I appreciated their self-awareness : they knew to get help this early, while it took me all this while to realize there's more I could learn...

The instructor knows what he's talking about, and he talks a lot! He's aware of all sorts of DSLRs and their little doo-das. He made sure we remembered it was a 'photography workshop', so all questions were answered by actual demonstration (by fellow participants, or by himself).

He made us walk thru all our camera menus, and explained how and where it'd be used in an overview fashion (to be delved deeper later). Then he proceeded to mystify us by asking us to take a close-up picture of a pure-black sheet of paper, and another of a pure-white one : all of us found that we only got a slate-gray color in both cases! Learning about the 'gray-card' is left to later.

Now I have a bunch of pictures to take as first homework : outdoor and indoor shots using all the various white-balance options available on the camera, and I have to print these with the tiff information for each. Long time since I was as excited about homework !

Shall keep y'all updated (whether you like it or not )...

[Norm in Fujino]

Then he proceeded to mystify us by asking us to take a close-up picture of a pure-black sheet of paper, and another of a pure-white one : all of us found that we only got a slate-gray color in both cases! Learning about the 'gray-card' is left to later.

Ah, yes, the mystery of what the light meter "sees," and that 18% gray.
Good on you for taking the course, and yes, do let us know how it goes.