formal education

[unohuu]

Would like to take a class, but I have been too busy shooting to have someone talk down to me about my street and lab experience.

 

[kiev4a]

I joined the Army (U.S.) in 1981 and my training as a public affairs specialist included a week of photography and darkroom work. It wasn't until I was stationed in Germany a couple of years later that I really got interested in photography. I was running a small one-person weekly installation newspaper and had to take the pictures for it, so I had a swift, steep learning curve. Like one of the other forum members, I spent a huge amount of time in an Army craft shop photo lab, this one in Garlstedt, near Bremen and Bremerhaven. The exchange rate was really cheap in those days, so I was able to by a box of 100 sheets of photo paper for about $25 from the German photo stores, and I went through many, many boxes. Also pored through magazines and books. Mostly, too, photography gave me a reason to head off base on weekends in search of new pictures and places. The Army issued me a Canon F1. For my second body, I sold my Pentax to another GI and bought a Nikomat at a German camera shop.

Several assignments later, in 1988, the Army sent me to a summerlong photojournalism course at the University of South Carolina. Ten weeks of total immersion for 10-12 hours a day. That was my only formal schooling.

Speaking of public affairs units the members of our unit were stunned back in the mid '70s when we transitioned directly from Speed Fraphics to Canon F1s and Canadian-Built Leica M4s. Wish I had one of those Leica kits today--Black body and 35, 50, and 135mm lenses.

 

[Uncle Bill]

I am self taught, however I would like to take some specific classes at some point, when I have time, I am taking classes for my career.

Bill

 

[DougK]

Self-taught, mostly. A lot of pointers from my dad growing up, reading everything I could get my hands on, and shooting lots of rolls of crap. I'd like to think I'm making some headway though.

 

[djon]

Took two formal classes, wonderful. Both at Mendocino Art Center in 1967, both two or three weeks long. Taught two courses in photography, one as a psychology course at San Francisco State College and one for general public in 1982, immediately after I'd abandoned commercial photography, in Calistoga CA.

Teachers:

1) Ed Cooper, a fine traditional studio photographer, one of the first in the country to use studio strobes routinely. Graphic orientation. Fine man, fine teacher.

2) Conrad Forbes, a personal student of Minor White...he (perhaps) taught me to see the obvious (zenwise, more or less). Conrad died at 45 of Parkinsonism, which had been diagnosed when he was 31...he was my mentor for 12 years, I met him shortly after his diagnosis...his last photographic work was a color exhibition he managed to accomplish despite being almost immobile for his last several years...he was largely "frozen" much of the time, substantially the result of being an early subject of L Dopa experimentation: his exhibition: "A Scream From Within." For context, see the video "Case of the Frozen Addict."

...also, my great grand uncle was a portrait phographer (his huge Voigtlander lens is gathering dust over my desk) and everybody else afterward seems to have been. My mother shot color slides at the 1939 Treasure Island Fair in San Francisco http://www.sfmuseum.net/hist6/gayway.html then processed it at home...I have the slides, Anscochrome, they're very colorful today. My mother taught me to process film when I was 8 (1951)..I'd shot the big Kodak my grandfather had used extensively, and that's now fallen apart in a box under my desk...I have my grandfather's film from that camera. :angel:

 

[nomade]

Well no i taught myself, and still teaching myself, books and internet...

 

[wlewisiii]

I joined the Army (U.S.) in 1981 and my training as a public affairs specialist included a week of photography and darkroom work. It wasn't until I was stationed in Germany a couple of years later that I really got interested in photography. I was running a small one-person weekly installation newspaper and had to take the pictures for it, so I had a swift, steep learning curve.

Yikes! You have my sincere sympathy. The Illesheim craft shop was fine for sort of teaching me the basics in the darkroom, but to be publishing _anything_ based on that???? Major :bang: :bang: :bang:

I'll admit the ~5 DM to the dollar exchange rate made much of the experimentation practical though. Nice to see you made a better career than I out of it 😀

William

 

[nzeeman]

i am self taught and i think i dont need any classes because i just do this for fun. i dont expect to make some great piece of art and to make any money from this, just to have a little fun.

 

[lubitel]

my first experience was shooting with Lomo 35 and developing and printing with my dad and my brother at age 8. Back then in USSR (at least in Moldova) that was the only way to get photographs, there were no photo labs.

then I didnt do anything until senior HS, where I took a photo class and bought Canon AE-1. Then I took a beginning class in College. And that was it. About five years after that I got back into photography and cameras. I would like to develop by myself again, but have neither time, nor space. I'd like to take some more classes though. A few months ago I had my first photo show, multiple exposures done with a holga. Didnt sell anything but it was a lot of fun.

 

[markinlondon]

I see we autodidacts have it so far. I did have some informal instruction at school and took a printing course as a refresher a few years ago. Apart from that it's been making it up as I go along with the help of a lot of reading.

Mark

 

[Ergo]

I once saw an Ansel Adams copy on antique roadshow...

 

[Pherdinand]

look at my gallery and you can guess. For the ones that have no time to waste, here it is, none. Nothing.
But i got a lot of education in other stuff!🙂 Not that THAT would be visible!

 

[RicardoD]

Self-Taught. Bought a Minolta manual SLR with money saving up from cutting lawns at age 16 after I found my Dad's Minolta lenses in his closet. A high school friend showed me how to use the school's darkroom and I even made my own prints. Very terribly but I did it myself! Got back into photography via the digital revolution after college and now thanks to you guys I know about Diafine and here we go again back to film in the coming months!

I would have killed for all this info back in my high school days (early 80s).

 

[dazedgonebye]

I've been playing at it on and off for almost 30 years now. The last 3 have been my most productive.
I've never had any classes, but as a teen, a studio photographer that went to my church took me under his wing for awhile.
I'd love to find good classes or a mentor. Most of the classes I find are too basic. Most of the experienced photographers I find are either too modest to teach or too arrogant to be tolerated.
I have seen workshops advertised that look to be very good, but I don't have thousands of dollars to travel to some distant city and can't spend a week or more away from my family.
I'd like to do the Santa Fe workshops thing, but that's a distant dream.

 

[dreilly]

High School, but that only taught me about exposure and some technical things: everything I learned about taking pictures just took practice. 2 years as a Peace Corps volunteer, with a ton of time to kill and cheap developing, worked nicely as a kind of "university of life" in terms of photography.

 

[Warren T.]

I've had a real camera since I was about 10. I learned the basics of photography in the photography club of my junior high school (middle school). From that time, I've been mostly self taught except for the 3 years that I was an assistant to a well known, local professional wedding photographer from whom I learned the wedding photography business. I have not put that knowledge to professional use, having made the decision to advance my career in Information Technology rather than take over for my retiring mentor. I still entertain the idea of doing some sort of professional photography someday when I retire from my current profession.

Regards,

Warren

 

[amateriat]

Save for one year's HS photography class (which was great), nothing formal for me. Did stints in a number of NYC labs, including one right next door to Magnum's old W. 46th St. HQ. We did a ton of work for them, and that's where I feel my true education kicked in, from hanging out with (insert well-known Magnum shooter here), and simply forcing myself to just shut up and listen most of the time (not easy for me around those guys and gals). Everything else I learned was from Seat o' the Pants University, Hard Knocks Campus (Associate degree). 🙂


- Barrett

 

[Simon Larbalestier]

"Photography" was a rather loose term when i was studying it was either Graphics or Fine Art and i was bang in the middle of both when studying at college. At school it was worse "ART" wasn't even considered a recognised subject so according to the head of sixth form i was studying "two "A" levels and Art" ( it was the 70's)
so my formal training is

BA (Hons) Graphic Design 1981-84, Newcastle Polytechnic
MA (RCA) Illustration 1985-87 Royal Collage of Art, London

The Illustration course was very loose in its defintion of "illustration" so i spent 99% of my time in the Photography department and got tutored from both deparments - the best of both worlds.

From 1992-2001 i was a part time lecturer at the Camberwell Collage of Art, now the London Institute. I opted to teach photography to those students who enrolled on the Graphics Course
but found themselves image makers at heart. I still go back to do tuturials when i have time and am in London.

working with fresh enquiring minds is very inspriational.

 

[oftheherd]

I enjoyed snapshooting for many years with a box camera under the indulgence of my father. After he died, I got a little more interested during my first year of college, using a camera he built from a 9x12 and a roll film camera.

After joining the US Army, I just snapshot until 1967. I went to an investigative school and we were given about a week of evidence photography with the venerable 4x5. On arriving in Vietnam, we didn't have any Army supplied cameras, so I used my Minolta 16 and Welta Welti. Kodak in Hawaii processed the film at US Army expense.

In 1974, while in the US Army in Korea, I found myself in a mid-sized office in Korea. Very soon I had to investigate a breakin. The office Instamatic had been abused in about every way possible, and I was disgusted with the results. That began my quest to provide the office with good photographic support. I then had a Yashica TL Super I had purchased in Vietnam.

I began reading every photo book at the library and those books and magazines I could purchase at the PX. I went to the Army craft shop and got with a knowedgable Korean instructor. He retaught me development and printing. I volunteered to photograph all crime scenes and on my own photographed all our parties and my own travels about the country. It was fun! And I was off with photography as a hobby. I acquired a Fujica ST 901, some additional lenses, and a Super Press 23.

I did take a photo class in Korea not long before I left, and did find some things to learn. I got something of a reputation wherever I went after that, as the office photography man.

By 1983 I was teaching as an adjunct instructor at Austin Peay State University, teaching amoung other things, evidence photography. I found I had to spend the start of the quarter teaching basic photography. That was OK by me. I enjoyed teaching and felt I taught well. My students seemed to agree and I think because they were all interested in learning, they in fact did.

All that to say my education in photography was mostly on my own. But I had a lot of help from Army craft shops, fellow photographers, photo books and magazines.

And mistakes along the way. I always say you should learn from your mistakes, and I have learned a lot! 😛

No vote as I didn't think anything quite fit the options.

 

[smudwhisk]

Got back into film photography courtesy of the only B&W developing and printing course in the whole of Birmingham 18 months ago - had gone digital basically before that. Now my poor bank balance is suffering more than when I bought my DSLR! But am enjoying it more, otherwise self taught and definately shows it ..... :bang: