Are you photographers self-taught?

[Rotary8]

Illustration is my trade. I took Photo 101 at pratt institute around 10 years ago and a week into it, I dropped it for animation. I think that was the only time I had any formal training in photography. I was a poor college student who didn't want to deal with film so some years later when DSLR's got much better, the idea of taking pics with little to no cost was appealing to me.

A lot of what I know now is from doing lots of research online and also advice from other photographers. Trial and error helped a lot as well. Still, I do it for fun and when I'm a guest at a wedding, I'm driven by the idea that I could shoot better pics than the photographer the bride and groom hired.

Photography is more creative and some technical. I've seen people take better pics with point and shoots than noobs who think they're the hot sh*t with slr's.

 

[::Lisa::]

Another 100% self taught. I've quit doing it as a business now and just hobbyist status again

100% self taught.

Mostly I've learning from books, the internet and of course practice, practice and then when I think I'm improving more practice.

I just want to add the book Understanding exposure really helped me.

POTN is a great forum.

^^^ I agree with the comments above and the same for me too.

 

[jordygreen]

I'm self taught and just learnt by trial and error and practice and practice and practice I suppose after a while you just get a hang of what settings to use under what situations and this was apparent when I was doing the whole trial and error.

 

[leumluath]

I learned to develop and print from my junior high math teacher. I learned more from the local newspaper photographer, and shot sports for them through high school. Followed that up with a BFA in Photographic Illustration plus some grad study at Rochester Institute of Technology. After that, professional seminars and workshops, such as the Kalish Photo Editing Workshop.

Tried for a masters in Photo Editing from Ohio U, but couldn't make the financial aid work out.

And, the camera's just a tool. Great cameras don't make great pictures, the user does. Good photographers can make good photos with a plastic camera. Although sometimes, the tool can help, i.e. sports photos are easier when you have an SLR with a long lens.

 

[Doylem]

Self-taught, and I wish I could have all the film back that I wasted (I could buy me some damn fine lenses with the money...).

Some people pick up the photography 'thing' in an instant, but, for me, it's been a long hard slog. But worth it...

 

[SLC Flyfishing]

Fully self taught, I ask(ed) questions when there's something I don't know. Then I experiment with what I'm told. Mostly it's just buying nice lenses and learning to get the most from them and my camera. There's also a lot to be said about learning about composition and also learning to do photoshop well.

SLC

 

[juanm]

I went to a photography school for two years, and then worked as an underwater camera assistant for movies and commercials (mostly with the Arri 435) for another two years.

 

[filmamigo]

I think of myself as "self taught" but I did a 4-year BA in Film.

Much of my first year emphasized exposure and composition. Even though I was in film, and shooting both video and motion picture film, the really important stuff I learned was taught with still photography. Multiple assignments a week, shooting manual SLRs, using slides (NO CHEATING!) and evaluating the projected images in a class/seminar setting. I learned the nuts and bolts of exposure and technique, and that has carried over into every other kind of image making I use -- video, motion picture film, digital photography, analog photography. It also forced me to buy a light meter -- the best photographic investment I ever made.

Without that fantastic foundation, I don't think I would be nearly so comfortable shooting so many different media and using so many different cameras. Having a good understanding means I can be perfectly at home with a matrix-metered beast from Nikon, or an all-manual medium format TLR.

If you aren't interested in a full university education, then at least consider taking a class. In Toronto, the local public school board offers some amazing adult-education courses including a full range of photographic courses. They are taught by good people, and are a bargain.

The value of a course is two fold -- the learning happens quick, because you get the correct information immediately and if you have a question you can get an answer immediately. Secondly, you are forced to practice and evaluate your results in a short period of time. Shooting and comparing your work to others gives an invaluable perspective on WHAT you might want to improve/learn more about.

Dave

 

[benzslrpee]

i was and still am too broke to really buy any photography books/guides one i just sat down with my D50 and literally set the ISO at 100, left the f stop alone and went through the shutter speed from 1/2000 to 2 seconds and see what happened. then i left the shutter speed alone and fiddled with the f stop...and then i'd mix and match shutter speed and f stop. then i went to ISO 200 and did the same...you kinda get the picture.

yeah it's boring and tedious but by the time i got to higher ISO's i was kinda able to predict how the picture would turn out. the hard part for me was actually reading tutorials and understanding the technical jargon that people wrote. for instance, over-exposed = super bright things etc, i stop up/down = raising/lowering the numbers etc etc etc.

 

[seenew]

self taught until college. I really thought I was something special until I got into formal training. I was so ignorant, it's hard to believe how much I've learned from my classes. Not just technical training, either; I feel so much more enlightened from my photo history courses...

There are some things you can pick up easily enough on your own, but you should never discount the instruction of a good professor (or three, or four). And learning film (small, medium, and large format) as well as being in the process of learning salted paper and cyanotype printing has really made me appreciate how easy the technical side of photography has gotten. We've come a looooong way since 1839.

Reading some of these posts makes me realize that a lot of the self taught people understand what the different technical aspects of photography do, but not necessarily WHY or HOW they do what they do, or are called what they are. If that makes any sense.
Don't underestimate formal education!

(I'm a photo major at the Savannah College of Art and Design, btw)

 

[law guy]

I went to a photography school for two years, and then worked as an underwater camera assistant for movies and commercials (mostly with the Arri 435) for another two years.

The underwater camera assistant was an unexpected bit. Very interesting.

 

[juanm]

The underwater camera assistant was an unexpected bit. Very interesting.

Yeah... You don't see a lot of these
Basically this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_puller, but underwater
I forgot to mention documentaries, along with feature films and commercials, but those were made on video.

 

[Abstract]

Self Taught. I took a photo class a few years ago....

Funny that.

Self-taught, listen & learn, mostly. Look at other work I like and see how it differs from mine and learn do recreate the look. Follow some photography forums, talk to the folks in good, old-style camera shops. But then, I'm just a shutterbug, purely for my own enjoyment, nothing more than that.

Same method I used. I also read a lot on different message boards on what others thought of a particular photo. Sometimes I didn't agree, or care, about the improvements people suggested because I think it's easy to over-analyze and be overly-critical when its not your work. I'm also quite easy to please, so I don't sit around and pixel-peep, looking for slightly blown highlights, moire effects, poor RAW conversions, or any of that stuff, particularly when the composition seemed fine. I also don't think it's as relevant to photography as those "pro photographers" think it is. I'm sorry, but nobody is going to hang their photo on the wall because it has very little noise, or because there's no chromatic abberation. People look at composition and impact (which may be due to the composition)

Anyway, after I learnt all I needed to know at the time, I stopped reading those types of message boards.

 

[SLC Flyfishing]

I don't sit around and pixel-peep, looking for slightly blown highlights, moire effects, poor RAW conversions, or any of that stuff, particularly when the composition seemed fine. I also don't think it's as relevant to photography as those "pro photographers" think it is. I'm sorry, but nobody is going to hang their photo on the wall because it has very little noise, or because there's no chromatic abberation. People look at composition and impact (which may be due to the composition)

Truer words were never spoken! I get sick of comments on people's photos about stuff like that, as long as the photo looks good at a first glance and I don't need to dig deep to find something wrong then I'm happy with it. It really is all about how it impacts someone, not the technical aspects of the photo's execution.

SLC

 

[-hh]

I'm 98% self-taught, but this includes a lot of self-guided reading of 'how to' books, a local photo club and other things that are clearly "learning" rather than trial-and-error.

The other 2% was a 4 day Underwater Photography class I took in 1990, roughly 20 years after I first dabbled with cameras as a kid. Yeah, I'm dating myself. Next thing you know, I'll be reminiscing about remembering that when I got my driver's licence, gasoline cost a whopping 62 cents a gallon.

This class was quite helpful in two ways. The first was for the photography challenges specific to the UW environment, and the second was that it spurred a greater interest in the technical nuts & bolts of imaging science, which was immediately applied to UW, but also folded back into my land photography and then expanded into that realm as well.

My dad had an SLR system from before I was born. Back then there were no automatic cameras In fact there was no place where to could put a battery in a camera.

No batteries ... ah, those were the days!

The earliest cameras I can remember being around the home was that my Dad had a 35mm rangefinder (an Argus) and my maternal grandfather had a bellows-type Polaroid. In looking at Wiki, I'd say that the Polaroid was a "Highlander" .. the photo on the right looks like a Perfect Match from what I remember as a kid.

FWIW, one of the things I remember about this Polaroid was that the pictures frequently curled (this was rolled instant film, not the later flat stuff) and after the image was developed and fully dried (yeah, they came out wet!), you had a final step which was to take out this wet sponge thingie out of its little black storage tube and use it to squeegie a clear liquid onto the surface of the developed/dried image. I had no idea what it was at the time, but today I suspect that this was some sort of lacquor (or the like) to add a clear protective coating.

I think my first camera was a Polaroid 'Square Shooter' (1971). I still have a small stack of photos that I took with it (somewhere) as a pre-teen. I apparently had enough fun with it that a few years later, I got a Kodak 126 film camera...another Point n Shoot...which went with me on a high school Band trip to Rome, Italy. Still got some of those images stashed away too. Neither of these had any meaningful controls, so the only things to work on for improving was composition and knowing when to put a flash cube on for lighting.

He explained the basics of exposure because it was imposable to take a picture without understanding it. I bought an SLR when I was in the 8th grade and it was pretty advanced because it had a built in light meter. No auto modes just "match needle".

My High School graduation present was a Pentax K-1000 SLR. A fully manual camera with a "match needle" exposure system like the above. Someone must have shown me the basics of how to use it, but I can't recall anymore.

I still have that K (one of these days, I'll finally experiment with Infared film!), but added an auto-everyting modern SLR in the late 1990s, and chose the Canon EOS series at that time (Elan IIe). Just finally moved to digital for land photography a few years ago and the faster feedback loop and the "free" film paradigm has been a lot of fun to experiment & learn more.

Books are very important way to learn. I like the series by Ansel Adams. He wrote for the person who aspires to be a technical perfectionist like himself but he uses simple terms and examples and offers good advice along the way.

I've yet to specifically read Ansel's stuff. There's some 'how to' books by John Shaw that I've liked.

There's also a wonderful tutorial that was written by UW Photo Pro Jim Church prior to his death a few years ago. Its known within the UW community as "JIM CHURCH'S COWS' and it is beloved because Jim's humor shines through. Jim did give his permission to reprint his writings as a training guide prior to his death, so the writings live on:

Understanding Photography the Easy Way
–or-
Barnyard Banter About the Basics​

In looking quickly through the above, I see that Roger's missing a few of the chapters; I'll have to go find the time to go dig through my old, old emails to find them and put them online myself and send Roger a copy for his webpage too.


-hh

 

[Abstract]

Truer words were never spoken! I get sick of comments on people's photos about stuff like that, as long as the photo looks good at a first glance and I don't need to dig deep to find something wrong then I'm happy with it. It really is all about how it impacts someone, not the technical aspects of the photo's execution.

Thanks.

Several months ago, I had just met someone at uni who was getting into photography. He was talking about how his camera produces low noise (he bought a Canon 400D/XTi), and that's actually when I came up with that "museum" argument. I told him that he should believe that a photo is good when he likes it enough to print it and hang on his wall, not when a photo has low noise, or when there is very little mazing produced during demosaicing. It rarely matters to people who look at photos to appreciate it. The only people who would disagree are engineers and tech nerds who buy cameras for this sort of reason. You want to hang "art", not tests or numbers.

 

[art gardiner]

I attended a couple of Continuing Education courses at my local Adult Ed Center when I first got out of the military in prep for attending Corcoran's BFA in Photojournalism program. Prior to attending the two classes at the Adult Education Center, I read Ansel's; The Camera, The Negative, and The Print book series, as well as several others on lighting, composition, and film/filters. Between the "Fundamentals of B&W", and "Intermediate Photography" courses, together with the people I met in these classes and the research/studying I did on my own along the way - I was able to put together a portfolio within six months, and was accepted into Corcoran's PJ BFA program.

As others have stated, there is no one "correct" way to get into photography. That said, regardless of where you want to take your endeavors - a basic understanding in B&W fundamentals will serve you well. It will assist with learning composition, lighting, and most offer an intro into the "zone" system. This will allow you to visualize the final outcome prior to taking the photograph. No longer simply recording/reproducing what's in front of you, but learning to create your own vision. i.e. - learn to make a white wall white, and a black, black; or a white wall black. In other words, you will learn to control the outcome rather than the environment controlling you.

Best wishes in your endeavors.

Art

 

[seany916]

A mixture of classes and my father teaching me back in the days of film.

Still have my Canon FT w/ 50mm 1.8 lens (first camera). My father gave it to me. I have SO many great memories with it.

Switching to digital, everything became easier and not having to swap out film every few shots was a godsend. I LOVE DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY. Wait, I LOVE DIGITAL VIDEOGRAPHY as well.

Being able to shoot over 1k pictures without swapping anything is simply mind-blowing. Though I never do...

That said, digital photography has it's own way of doing things and it never hurts to read and collaborate with others to improve ALL our skill sets.

Now, what does ISO mean?

 

[SLC Flyfishing]

Thanks.

Several months ago, I had just met someone at uni who was getting into photography. He was talking about how his camera produces low noise (he bought a Canon 400D/XTi), and that's actually when I came up with that "museum" argument. I told him that he should believe that a photo is good when he likes it enough to print it and hang on his wall, not when a photo has low noise, or when there is very little mazing produced during demosaicing. It rarely matters to people who look at photos to appreciate it. The only people who would disagree are engineers and tech nerds who buy cameras for this sort of reason. You want to hang "art", not tests or numbers.

I admit that at times I can be a bit of a tech nerd! I like to hang around the tech-oriented blogs and read camera reviews as much as anyone, but you're right on with your assessment. I learned a long time ago that the technical aspects of a camera are nice and all, but people still make gorgeous photographs with lesser equipment than even I have. It was then that I tried to start focusing more on making good photographs than how "good" my gear is! I still have a long way to go; but now that I'm worried about the right things, I feel like I'm making headway quickly!

SLC

 

[Digital Skunk]

Some Young shooters on here!

Self taught through high school,

Went into Broadcast journalism as editor/videographer and took photo classes and graphic design classes and journalism classes. Paled around with two professionals from local paper and three freelancers from around the city.

After 5.5 years of college graduated with degree in Comm Studies with a concentration in TV production, photojournalism, and graphic design. spent about a total of three years in related internships, and snatched a freelance photo editing/lab tech job at local paper.

So I would say about 15% self taught, which will only get you so far even if you practice.... trust me I was there. Then 50% mentored with working pros that were a mixture of different careers and backgrounds in photography. Then 35% working world trained in the pit of fire/accredited college trained, the best teacher right there.

Nothing against those that are self taught and practice, practice, practice.... (that's where you must start) but eventually you will have to go somewhere to get actual training/critiquing/apprenticeship for growth beyond what the tiny world of "My Own Eyes and Mind" can see.

p.s. total time shooting nine years.

 

[Dfndr90]

My first years were all self taught until I thought I was a pretty good photographer. Then I spent a couple of years at the rochester Institute of Technology which is one of the best photo schools in the country, and learned I was not really all that good after all. Spent another couple years just playing around and now I make a bit of money with photography, so all has worked out well. I think you needs equal parts self discovery and painful class room critiques to really find your way in this wonderful field.



Matt...

 

[Digital Skunk]

and learned I was not really all that good after all. Spent another couple years just playing around and now I make a bit of money with photography, so all has worked out well. I think you needs equal parts self discovery and painful class room critiques to really find your way in this wonderful field.

SECOND THAT!

Not that self taught photogs aren't good, but I can promise anyone of them that going to school/apprenticeship/classes/critiques will improve their eye, their craft, and their ability to catch the moment a lot better than going it alone.

There was a time when I thought there was nothing else to learn about photography, all I needed to do was practice and shoot more..... go figure.... I fooled myself and once that Pro got a hold of me my career was changed forever.

Soon I will be back in school and this time I will get it right.

 

[Crawn2003]

I'm also quite easy to please, so I don't sit around and pixel-peep, looking for slightly blown highlights, moire effects, poor RAW conversions, or any of that stuff, particularly when the composition seemed fine. I also don't think it's as relevant to photography as those "pro photographers" think it is. I'm sorry, but nobody is going to hang their photo on the wall because it has very little noise, or because there's no chromatic abberation. People look at composition and impact (which may be due to the composition)

I agree with you as a pro photographer. On this forum, the photos are there to please others, show what we see on a daily basis, and/or show others what we can do.

I've found two extremes on here: 1) People over critical to the point where I want to say "go shoot it yourself and process it if you're such a pro" because all that does is make others feel like their work isn't that great. Or 2) No one comments on the photo at all and the person feels that their work is worthless.

I take the second except for the worthless part. I've gone to school for photography. I've worked with a few major companies including Proctor & Gamble and a few others I'm still under contract with not to say. Out of all the photos I've posted of my own, hardly anyone has said a word about them, good or bad, and I just gave up and don't care to post any more of them.

Am I a sour grape? No, not at all (although I bet some will say I am) but I'm not bothering to post a series I did going cross country from Ohio to California 3 weeks ago nor am I going to post any from the last two weeks I've taken with my Sinar 4x5/Fuji S5 Pro of San Francisco/the Pacific Coast/Santa Rosa/Bodega Bay that includes architecture, panos, stand alone photos, etc. Why? Because I feel it wouldn't be beneficial because no one comments on them and I would rather just send them out to companies/agencies that do.

But back on topic, yeah, I agree about the details matter. Reminds me of an art director I worked with once that kept making me reshoot the same shot over and over because he kept seeing a highlight somewhere that I couldn't see. Finally, frustrated, I called the director for the shot (with examples of what I was doing and where this magical "highlight" was appearing) and was told that the shot was fine, there was no highlight in that area, and was told to put the art director on the phone. Five minutes later he had his coat on and walked out the door. I found out later that he'd been fired because he was constantly doing that to all the photographers he worked with.

Oh well. Just my 2 cents.

~Crawn

 

[seany916]

as far as posting your work on forums...

I wouldn't care what anyone on this forum would think of my photography.

But then...

I wouldn't care what anyone on Nikonians might think of my choice for a workstation...

I have to admit to clicking on people's work and admittedly NOT providing a response. Honestly, I rarely feel that MY opinion actually means much, good/bad/or a "helping" critique. Who am I to judge? But for the people that do post pics for us to see, "Thank you" and there are a LOT more lurkers (that's such a horrible term!) and people checking out your work than you think. Just because people don't openly express their opinion of your work DOES NOT mean that they don't appreciate it.

I'll make it a point to respond next time I view someone's work. They took the time to post the pic, so maybe I should take the time to post a critique...

eh... we'll see.

 

[Crawn2003]

as far as posting your work on forums...

I wouldn't care what anyone on this forum would think of my photography.

But then...

I wouldn't care what anyone on Nikonians might think of my choice for a workstation...

I have to admit to clicking on people's work and admittedly NOT providing a response. Honestly, I rarely feel that MY opinion actually means much, good/bad/or a "helping" critique. Who am I to judge? But for the people that do post pics for us to see, "Thank you" and there are a LOT more lurkers (that's such a horrible term!) and people checking out your work than you think. Just because people don't openly express their opinion of your work DOES NOT mean that they don't appreciate it.

I'll make it a point to respond next time I view someone's work. They took the time to post the pic, so maybe I should take the time to post a critique...

eh... we'll see.

I see where you're coming from. I agree! lol

I should clarify a little from my post: I don't care too much if anyone posts something or not on my photos (I'd still like some feed back!) but it boggles my mind when I see a post with a person critiquing multiple photos (lets say a days worth of photos) but always skipping over some peoples work entirely on a consistent basis.

I agree that to have 10,000 posts saying "Wow, great job" would get boring but I feel bad for some people that never get commented. I know of a couple times when I see this happening that I sent them a long private message detailing what I like and don't like (but never to the point of saying it's bad work) but more of what they could do to improve that image.

And you know what? It's worked well so far.

Oh well. Back to post processing. Got to much work to do to keep fiddling around on the forum.

~Crawn