[Dryfire]

Interesting topic. I have been on both sides of the teaching coin as a student and a teacher. The photo school I teach at is accredited but it is not paid for by the student. We teach mostly beginner and intermediate photography techniques. We do cover the “rules” but instead call them guidelines. That they are starting points not the end all be all of photo making. We do a lot of in class critiques and the assignments we give the students are also done by the instructors to show different approaches. All the feedback I have received from the students has been good; we try to be a springboard into photography, and hope to create an interest not set ridged rules.

As a student I think some of my classes were/ still are invaluable. A couple in particular helped me wrap my head around ideas that I was struggling with. I have attended some “cash driven” photo courses also. I didn’t feel like I got as much out of these but it did light a fire in me to shoot in different ways, get me out of my comfort zone, and I made some great contacts that have paid off 10 fold the entrance fee.

Is formal training a requirement… far from it. Is it worthless… far from it. Like FHPhoto said everyone learns different ways and to discredit someone for the technique used to get there is poor judgment in my eyes. If you run across someone that has received training but still seems off track then try to get them back on track, if you continue to let them fail then who does the blame fall on?

[gamgee]

GREAT thread!
It seems that I agree with almost everything that was said - I can see where different viewpoints come from and I can relate to all of them, from Bens original post to the last one (Dryfire's). As I'm in similar situation like Dryfire, I would really like to hear many different takes on how Art school Photography course should (in your opinion) look like. Hopefully, I'll enrich my views and broaden horizons so as to become as good teacher as I am able to. I'm at the very begining of that journey and open to any advice I can get. So far, this thread already is helpfull - it shows that things are not much different in other parts of the world. Here we also have many courses (on everything and anything) that teach dry set of rules "as gospel", without understanding on THEIR part, let alone encouraging creativity in students...We also have very young Art school that's strugling to evolve and mature.
Thanks everybody!

[PeteyJ]

One example I just thought of which proves my in classroom experience has been invaluable. The zone system. I shoot film about the same amount as digital, so this is still relevant for me. The internet and books use hundred of pages to try to explain something that my professor was able to condense into about 10 minutes worth of lecturing, and I understand it better after that then I would after trying to read any of those huge books on the topic.

[pentaxian_tmb]

Interesting topic. Having attended school (not for photography) for the majority of my adult life, here are my observations:

1. Schools cannot teach talent. Every profession requires some innate amount of raw "talent." Interestingly enough, I went to school originally as a music performance major for clarinet (like a previous poster). I wound up abandoning that track because I had gotten where I was through mostly determination and long hours of practice. Sure, I had enough talent to get a college scholarship. But after two years there came a point when the amount of time I needed to put in could not justify the results I was getting. I could not keep up with other classmates with more talent. Was I talented enough to play well and teach? Yes, but to perform for a living, no.

2. (related to number 1) Schools cannot teach creativity. Most arts, as well as most professions, require a basic knowledge of fundamentals and skills and a lot of creativity. You need both to excel at something. Example, you can take all of the creative writing classes you want, but unless you have innate creativty, you cannot produce anything other than boilerplate, formulaic, stories. You have to have an imagination, a story to tell to be really successful--and that cannot be taught. In music, you can spend hours studying how to improvise--what chords/notes you need to hit at what time for any given piece at the right moment--but ultimately, it is talent that allows someone to be able to play a great guitar/or drum/piano solo or compose a song.

3. Many of the "greats" in any field had no formal education and a lot of innate talent and creativity. E.g., many of the worlds most talented musicians never learned to read music.

4. Schools are great at teaching basic fundamentals, theory, and exploring ideas, but rarely can convey the kind of practical, technical knowledge that real world experience can provide. The better schools include workshop courses taught by professionals that try and make up for this deficiency. On the other hand, trade schools, as oppossed to college and other higher education, tend to focus on the "how-to's" of any given profession and produce products-- "graduates"--that in turn produce goods and services someone is willing to buy.

Not to say that is bad. Sometimes "technically correct" is good enough to "get the job done." A good welder doesn't need to be able to make interesting yard art to be employed. This is why people pay a premium for athetics.

5. Finally, almost no school teaches the "business" aspect of any profession. Ultimately, if you have no business sense and no ability to "sell" yourself or your work, no one will appreciate (or pay) for it.

I had (and am still) debating going back to school for photography once I am done paying off my student loans. However, I recently spoke with a professional photographer who told me he loved photography right up until the time he became a professional photographer. He explained how he spends all of his time taking pictures that other people want to purchase rather than what he thinks is interesting and that photography has just become a "job" for him rather than something he is passionate about.

(funny...that is how i feel above my current profession).....food for thought.

[CWyatt]

An interesting thread to have a read through.

One point that seems to have been missed (sorry if I've missed this or we're only talking about actual classes) is that photography can also be taught through books.

While it has been pointed out that creativity can't be created by teachers, it can be fostered, encouraged and given new leases.

The best teachers seem to be the ones that encourage you to learn all you can, e.g. from other photographers, books (of photographs or techniques), or articles, while developing your own style.

[Ratmagiclady]

I often observe that people with art school 'degrees in photography' are often shockingly uneducated in the technical aspects, camera handling, and the 'people skills' (occasionally even disdainful of the idea that that's of any importance whatsoever.) I learned photography primarily as a trade skill, from experience, and some study, but actually quite often when I've found myself teaching, it's for people who already have some artistic talent, ...and find themselves in need of some remedial learning or are at sea from the start. (The local university near where I lived for a while seemed to have this problem a lot, so that could be pretty helpful to people. )

I agree that trying to 'teach composition' and such is pretty dubious: people really do learn differently, (really this applies to all aspects of things: that's a benefit of being able to interact and tailor things on a personal basis) ...What I usually do with composition is a) While getting the technical basics into em, get em to stop boresighting on whatever they're looking at like the camera's a gun or something, and b) Get em to use their feet and keep looking around.

Beyond that, it seems best to just challenge them, compositionwise, keep em answering the question 'what''s going on here,' ...it's the feedback and awareness that's important, rather than 'rules.' (I've got kind of a kind of abstractly-handwavey sort of way to talk about composition in terms of subjective 'motion' that I sometimes use, if someone relates that way. I don't think you can really teach composition, though the Rule of Thirds helps for quick and dirty, 'Start like this, then pay attention.'

If you can 'teach composition,' I certainly wouldn't call it a one-size-fits-all proposition.

[George Lama]

It's the same thing with many other fields. In my case, I see it all the time in IT, where a certified help-desk tech can't even properly troubleshoot a computer issue simply because they're going by the book.

There is an art to composition, just like there is an art to troubleshooting. Some teachers teach the facts instead of teaching the concept then allowing the student to explore and grow in their understanding of such an elusive thing. I can nail the facts about golden ratio to someone's forehead but if they don't understand the concept of composition, they will never truly get it.