How did you learn photography?

Damaso

Damaso

Photojournalist
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For the past few months I've been thinking more and more about how we learn to take pictures. Recently I started teaching photography on a one on one basis and have been pleasantly surprised by the progress of my students.

I first learned how to take photos by reading copies of Photographic magazine. Then I took a course in high school and went on to study photography at university all while working as a newspaper and magazine photographer. Each method has taught me something important.

So the question is: how did you learn what you know?
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I learned by myself. My high school didn't offer any courses, and no one in my neighborhood was interested in photography.

Sometimes, I don't think that I taught myself too well.
 
My dad was a part-time private investigator and used to take photos for his work. I 'helped' him develop the film and enlarge the prints in our basement and he gave me a Diana camera so I could take photos too.
 
I still fondly remember my Grandfather showing me how to use his Argus when I was 9 or 10. Strangely he emphasized not dropping the camera...;)
Later, in high school, I worked on both the yearbook and the school newspaper and all of us who did got a crash course in the darkroom and some very basic camera instruction.
Since then, I've tried to educate my self; primarily trial and error, and then by reading--most of the photo magazines available in the mid to late 70s plus every photography book in my small town's piblic library--and more trial and error. I do miss not having explored photography in a more formal(a class or workshop) setting. I think I could have learned a lot of what I now know quite a bit faster and, maybe more importantly, having two other things would have helped my slow progress a lot: a structured learning environment and receiving, as well as giving, lots of face to face critique/criticism.
Rob
 
I am still learning photography by reviewing my work with a very small group of photographers who I believe have vision at a higher level than I do. Interestingly, they follow the same process.

I found that feedback from on line postings and membership in camera clubs was not just neutral, but actually a negative, in the personal development process. That seemed to me to be one where everyone tended to urge you to middle of the safe road.
 
I started in high school...took a few courses after...but mostly self taught with the help of a ton of books and magazines coupled with a ton of shooting.
Photography is a Passion for me so any time spent learning or doing isn't considered work...it's what I was meant to do...
 
bmattock said:
My dad was a part-time private investigator and used to take photos for his work. I 'helped' him develop the film and enlarge the prints in our basement and he gave me a Diana camera so I could take photos too.
Click to expand...

Bill,

I have an old book from the early 70s that is about teaching your children photography. It is based on the diana camera!
 
At age eight, my grandfather gave me an Ansco TLR and provided film and processing. At twelve, his brother, my great uncle, who in 1947 was developing and printing color in his home darkroom, gave me my first 35mm, a Perfex 44 which had a built-in exposure meter! (Albeit an extinction type.)

A few years later, a high school classmate introduced me to developing and printing my own work.

From then on, it was read, experiment, read, experiment...

Now, 60 years later, I am still learning, and I fear that when one ceases to learn it is time for a dirt nap.
 
i learned about two years ago when my dad handed down his old rolleiflex tlr and nikon fe to me. i mainly learned through him and the internet.
 
My Dad was photographer for the Army and then for a few commercial outfits. He'd pass me rolls of Plus-X when I was grade school, by junior high we doing prints in the laundry-room together. There were always photo gadgets around and he was always eager to talk about what they were and how they were used.

He had ulterior motives though, since carrying a camera is what he did for a living, he wasn't real eager to do it in his spare time. Thus, by the time I could "find my ass" as he'd say, I wound up covering the family events while Dad got to relax.
 
My father bought a 35mm SLR when I was a kid because he wanted to do snapshots of the family, and the point n shoot cameras of the time sucked. Back in the early 80's 35mm SLRs were all the rage, everyone was buying them! I was interested in the camera, because he had bought a long zoom lens. He taught me how to use it when I was about 8 yrs old and then got me one like it (with a 50mm f1.8 lens) when I was 11.

I practiced and read photo magazines and then took photography in high school. My school had a very dedicated art teacher who had been there forever. Don Goss had been the art teacher there when my parents were students there in the late 1960s! His students consistantly won awards in the scholastic Art Awards competitions and many went on, as I did, to become professional photographers, graphic designers, and illustrators. It was in high school that I realized that photography could be art, and I decided to go to art school. Studied art at Indiana University, but in the 10 yrs since I graduated I have still kept learning and teaching myself. I learned Photoshop, scanning, digital printing, web design and computerized graphic design all on my own, as that stuff wasn't in wide use when I was in college and wasnt being taught much yet.
 
My degree was in photojournalism, but I'd have to say most of what I know is from my own trial and error and trying to learn from watching other photographers
 
Bought an AE-1 & a 50/1.8 at the PX (later it was exchanged for a Rebel XS & kit beast). Took lots of bad pictures. Took lots more bad pictures. Maybe one keeper in a thousand. Got tired of being bad about the same time as I found a cheap Yashicamat 124 on ebay, then found a Yashica GSN at a flea market and trying to figure out how to use it lead me here.

Now I'm still as bad a photographer but I've got a nice Leica to make my bad pictures with & plenty of company here to share them with... :)

So seriously, practice is the only way to learn how. A couple of books here and there have helped, especially "On Being A Photographer" by David Hurn and Bill Jay.

William
 
Trial and error. I became the family photographer as teen by default with the terrible equipment we had around in the late 1960's. It wasn't until I bought myself a Minolta Himatic 7s in 1971 that I actually produced an in focus photo. Then I read all that I could from the magazines (including Pop Photo which had great columns by some guy named Bill Pierce) and all the books in the Public Library. I started developing my own film based on the How-To articles in Pop Photo and bought my little Durst enlarger for bathroom and kitchen use in the late 70's. It wasn't until much later on that I had the time to take some courses at the local Community College and then at the ICP in NYC.
 
My Mum and Grandmother got me started with a Box Brownie.

After that it was trial and error

It might not be the best way to learn but 45 years later I'm still taking photos and i still have that Brownie
 
The internet and trial and error ... certainly not the best way IMO!

My initial commitment to film was with a Fed 2 three years ago with C41 then progressed to developing my own black and white and did some colour developing a year ago.

Now thanks to GAS peer pressure I have a cupboard full of cameras and lenses that I currently have very little time to use but hopefully that will change next year! :D
 
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