Would you consider going on a photography course?

[stevegreen]

I'm interested to see if people would be interested or have considered going on a 1 day photography course, if it was fairly local to them.

There are a number of Landscape photography courses running in the country and they seem to offer pretty much the same things, ie: a walk about some photographic hot spots, a bit of advice on settings composition etc and then a short introduction to post processing. Many seem to be aimed at accomplished photgraphers but, look back to your earlier days in photography and vote in the poll please as to whether this would have been an attractive thing to do.

Also, what would you have liked a course to include if you would have gone on one.

If you are new to photography, what would you like to be included on such a course?

I'm just after general opinions here

[ukbootlegs]

yup

i havea fjui s7000 with tons of features such as white balance, iso, macro etc and i have no idea how to use them or what they are for

i would love to a course that showed all this

also a basic photoshop course would be cool

[tontoshorse]

Very definitely, so long as its not too "clubby"

Can't stand cliques.

[garysherpa]

as a noobie to the site i would luv to

[geofftelforduk]

Definately, I would be up for that!

In Northern Ireland there is a severe lack of decent photography courses.

I know a guy who enrolled in a digital photography course in one of our local technical colleges. On the first night the tutor stood up and said (and I quote):

"Welcome to my digital photography course... as part of this course you will learn about digital photography and image manipulation using Adobe Photoshop. I want to make it clear that when using Photoshop I do not believe in using layers..."

So my mate just accepted this and came back the next week to be told:

"If you want a copy of Adobe Photoshop, just bring me a blank CD next week..."

Needless to say, that was the last time he went to that course!!!

So in short, I would love a good course dealing with basics and a range of shooting techniques etc!

[barongreenback]

I think I've mentioned this one before, but I've been on two of this guy's courses and he's excellent:

http://www.photographycourses.org.uk

[pixelpixel]

Yes I would love to go a one day crash class. Maybe have a range of cameras that you could exchange around. So you could feel what a canon 400D did and does and also what some other compacts do. Maybe have a test, that one image from that day would have to be say iso 100 f 2.8 and so on. Something that all the cameras could handle.

Also was thinking about the flickr walks as well.

[Liquid101]

Originally Posted by geofftelforduk

"Welcome to my digital photography course... as part of this course you will learn about digital photography and image manipulation using Adobe Photoshop. I want to make it clear that when using Photoshop I do not believe in using layers..."

That should read:

Welcome to my digital photography course... as part of this course you will learn about digital photography and image manipulation using Adobe Photoshop. I want to make it clear that I don't really know what i'm doing.

I cannot believe that somebody would do that. Layers are a fundemental part of anything you do in photoshop. Personally, the very first thing I do when manipulating anything in an image is create a copy layer, even if it's just a slight tonal adjustment.

I want to find this person and rub their nose in something unpleasant.

Re the orginal question. Sounds like a good idea to me, I was part of some weekend courses at a place called Duckspool in Somerset, which I found very informative. Not only because you learn from the tutor, but also it puts you in an environment where you talk about all aspects of photography.

I would watch the costs though - some of these day courses can be horribly expensive, and pretty bad value for money.

In some ways, something like the Birmingham meet might be more valuable than a course because it's more informal, and possibly a more conducive environment to share ideas and techniques etc.

[Astaroth]

I would love to go on a course... currently waiting for the prospectus to come through from my local adult education college as they do a couple.

As to short courses I think it would be good though I personally wouldnt choose landscape. My two issues with them are firstly quality control, as per Geoff's comments, there is no assurance that the people who are doing it know anything - I think it being associated to a formal college reduces this risk - and secondly the short courses are just so damned expensive. The 30 hour course at my local college is about £80 where as looking at things like 1 day studio lighting or wedding courses are frequently £300+ for a single day which from reading a few reviews is realistically 6 hours (plus with some of them you have to supply your own models on top of the charge)

[T0MAT01]

Originally Posted by tontoshorse

Very definitely, so long as its not too "clubby"

Can't stand cliques.

Same here.

The main reason I haven't gone to one is because I don't want to be standing around while everyone else learns the basics while I'm waiting to get to the more advanced stuff.

[stevegreen]

Interesting, thanks for the replies so far

Originally Posted by Liquid101

I would watch the costs though - some of these day courses can be horribly expensive, and pretty bad value for money.

I have seen one course which charged £185 for a day and £495 for 3 days, per person

[Peakoverload]

Would I go on a course when I was new to photography? Possibly but for me courses are about specialising in a specific type of photography and when I was starting out I wanted to do everything but I probably would have been interested in a basic introduction to the camera style course if it wasnt too expensive.

Would I go on a course now? Absolutely! There are many areas of photography that I would love to know more about. The main problem for me is that many of these courses are simply more than I can justify to spend.


On a side issue, last year I was thinking of running a course myself along the lines of 'a newbies guide to the camera, composition and exposure'. I made a few enquiries in my local area and virtually got my hands bitten off with the amount of people who were interested in such a course. However as soon as you start mentioning money I found that an awful lot of them became less enthusiastic with some saying that they wouldnt be interested in paying anymore than £25 for a day's course which I didnt think it was worth my time and effort to do so it never happened

[senu]

I would love to go for a course as I've been self taught ever since a few "courses" many moons ago in the days of film .

Speaking to pros though I dont think the self tutoring has "failed " me
but
I would find a course/Seminar valuable mainly for interaction with other people ( Hence some regrets about being unable to do the Birmingham Meet)

For courses though I reckon the difficulty would be that people may be at different levels and a course to fit "all" would be hard to get, So small grps of people on similar levels would be ideal even if their Photographic interests differ slightly ( Portraits, landscapes Weddings, Wildlife/Nature etc)

I think though that Photoshop type courses should be run with a bit of structure with lots of practice material and CD/DVD tutorials at home for later as it can be difficult to suddenly acquire the skill in one day

Not a skinflint ( and TBH " compulsory" courses in my Professional life are frequently disgracefully overpriced) but I don't think £80-125 for a Useful day( 8-10 hrs with some material to play with) is too much .

Free courses are often undervalued and hard to package.
Furthermore if corners are to be cut to make them cheap as chips they may genuinely not have much to offer

[StevieDvd]

Years and years ago my Missus was doing evening classes and as I was driving her there and picking her up I arranged to do a photography class to save me too many extra journeys.

The course was black & white developing, colour slides, composition etc with some nice models (clothed), but as I was more into colour film and had my own colour developing equipment I ended up doing a couple of nights as the tutor!

At the time what impressed me the most was the guy who came in with 2 slide projectors and did a show to music where he faded from one projector to the other using a little diy fader. The fact that the images were theme based and each transitition was so well done made you think how much thought had gone into each picture - and this was in the days of film

Some basics still stand the test of time and the technology does not necessarily make up for the simple rules being taught.

[wabbitt]

I think I would go on a course, but not so much about using the camera or using Photoshop.

I'd prefer it to be about composition, and studio lighting techniques. How to pose a model and framing your shot, etc.

Got me thinking now.