[hinman]

Hi members,

Disclaimer: I am amateur to my gear and my passions.

I have an odd question to ask. I hope you all bear with me for a non-camera gear and photo question. I find myself lacking knowledge and having a good book really motivates me but I find myself lacking in discipline to explore further into the learning of photography. I love taking pictures, blogging about stuff around me, and even starting to offer photo portraits to neighbors. I am not a young fellow but I am not that old either, my two boys are 5 and 3 and they are a big part me and the reason for me to buy dSLR with Pentax K100D.

And I wonder if it is a good idea to go back to school for photography. Will a single course in testing the idea better? What would you recommend? In your opinion, is it something worth pursuing if you find yourself in love of taking photos and want to explore further in the field. I never find myself getting tired in taking photos and working on my photoblogs. Any comments and other suggestions, negative and positive, are much appreciated as I want to find a path for my passions so that I can channel my energy to the most important aspects in learning photography. My passions can be seen in

Hin's Photo Blog
Hin's Tech Corner

Thanks,
Hin Man

[Jimsi777]

I was thinking the same thing, maybe a class to open my eyes to possibilities of expanding my thinking. This is nothing but a hobby to me as well, I dont think I am all that good and would like to have a broader perspective of what the big picture is....Good question

[khardur]

I've taken a few hands on photography classes, though they were back in the mid 90's and thus were all film, black and white only classes. I guess one of the nice things it gave you was an assignment, rather than just going out on your own and wandering aimlessly trying to find something to shoot.


I think if you're interested, taking a single course or two certainly couldn't hurt anything. Check in to see if whichever place you're thinking of taking classes has a full photography program (in case you want to continue) or if your credits would transfer to some place that would. (again, in case you would want to continue down that path after you take a course or two)

-Dan

[little laker]

I think that the odd day workshop is better for most of the people on this board

It isn't that hard to figure out exposure on your own, and for me that was the hardest part.

My personal opinion is that you'll learn more by simply joining a camera club.

[Nels]

I agree with Stu on this. I am new to photography as well, however just goin out and shooting and also reading the many posts here of photos and techniques used has helped me tremendously. So much in fact that My daughter's friends want me to take their senior photos after they saw hers. I love to read and look at the postings here by the talented members.

[VAV]

I took a two hour free class offered by a local school/photo studio on exposure and was greatly benefitted. Seeing an instructor demonstrate the technique helped me understand things much faster than reading by myself - especially since I don't have anyone around to see / learn from. If you are in the same situation - I am sure a short weekend workshop / class would be of great help to you. Many photographers seem to offer short courses/workshops on selected topics such as nature / landscape / portrait photography etc in person as well as online.

[little laker]

in fact that My daughter's friends want me to take their senior photos after they saw hers.

Congrats Nels

In my opinion that's quite the honor. You should be proud of yourself

[Cloudy Wizzard]

I think that the odd day workshop is better for most of the people on this board

It isn't that hard to figure out exposure on your own, and for me that was the hardest part.

My personal opinion is that you'll learn more by simply joining a camera club.

Hmm, I'm also thinking of doing a small course. It's not really "back to school" it's one of those that you can do at home (in your own time). It's not only photography but Digital Photography and Photoshop (Elements 5 in their case).

They seem pretty professional (gouvernement licensed, and stuff like that).

The advantages for me would be (I guess):

1. In my own language (I guess always a bit better then in a foreign language where you don't always understand what they are saying).
2. In my own time, they give you the option to take up to 5 years to follow their 1 year course.
3. Professional advise from a "teacher" you can contact by email.

I guess 2 and 3 would also apply to forums like these ?

Anyways, I've been reading a bit on certain settings like shutter time so I guess I will try to "experiment" a bit before looking at the possibility to take some lessons.

[little laker]

Cloudy Wizzard,
Are there no photography forums in Belgium?

I can really understand language barriers making things tough for anyone.

If I knew what language you spoke I'd try translating my odd post towards you before I sent it.

[PDL]

I wholeheartedly support photography classes. Over the years, most of what I know has come from books, friends and my late father. I took a class in photography in college because I needed the "Arts" credit; I thought I was going to breeze through it. I had to work reasonably hard to get the grade, but I did reaffirm the basics that I knew the basics, but I did learn quite a lot. Mostly due to the requirement to research and write a paper on a photographer assigned by pulling names out of a hat. I got Imogen Cunningham - very interesting lady. FYI Imogen Cunningham - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Strange how things work out - I live near Seattle and I have been to places that she used in her photos - I have probably been to some of the same spots too.......

Anyway - back to classes -
Many photo stores run classes that you can attend. Some large cities have camera societies/clubs that hold regular classes. Or you could go this route:
In Oct. 2005 I attended a National Geographic Photographic Expedition in Santa Fe, NM USA. It was, for me, a life altering experience - for several reasons that are too boring to go into here. The best part of the trip was the interaction with the other workshop participants. Just that part - to be with 22 other people whose total focus was taking images and sharing was the best part. While most participants were from the US, we had one from Belgium and one person from Italy. We had a professor of Dentistry, two doctors - one an ER doctor from Kentucky, a graphic artist from California, a housewife who lives less than 1 mile from me, several retired people and a librarian from AP in New York City to mention a few careers.

We talked about equipment for a total of 1 hour at the beginning of the workshop. The majority of the time we talked about === the image ====. I highly recommend that if you get the chance to take a class - that you do. It does not have to be through something like National Geographic - but getting together with other photographers and spending quality time behind the viewfinder and in front of the computer is worth every cent/minute.

I am saving my pennies to go to Italy for another Geographic workshop next fall.

PDL - the elitist

[Mechan1k]

I went to my local camera shop ... and they suggested a couple of local courses that they reccomend as well.

Problem is they are night courses on set days ... and i am a shift worker ... which makes it difficult though.

Although have been invited to a camera club that meets twice a month ... so am going to try and attend and see what it is like ... no harm I guess. Any extra knowledge can only be benficial to me.

[Cloudy Wizzard]

Cloudy Wizzard,
Are there no photography forums in Belgium?

I'm sure there are some (found at least 1 of them) but from the discussions I've seen there they seem to comment of takes pictures like the DOF you used is not good or just nice picture. But not really on techniques (spelling ?) for beginners (I don't know if these forums here are diffrent though).

Anyways, I guess the first thing I'm going to do when I finally get the K100D Super is to take a wide range of shots in diffrent settings to see what setting causes what effect since the whole aperture combined with shutter time and film ISO is still a big question (been reading various dutch and english resources about it though and from what I rememberd the smaller the aperture (biger the number since the bigger the number the smaller the opening) the more focus there is on the whole image but you need a larger shutter time which causes moved images or a larger ISO number which causes noise. So I guess you need to actually do it for a while to get a feeling on what you are doing.

For this (camera basics) I thought a course would be ideal and this course also includes some stuff they claim isn't included in most other courses here in Belgium (like how do I make better photos).

I can really understand language barriers making things tough for anyone.

Language barries is mostly a problem when talking technical stuff and that's the problem with most Hobbies but most of the stuff I do understand (had to lookup Aperture since that's not what we use in Dutch).

The biggest problems for a foreigner are acronyms, Jargon words and cultural differences. Like for example we don't have a senior prom or 'homecomming queen" and from what we see in US Movies that's as normal as apple pie over there in the USA

but don't worry if I don't understand I'll ask

If I knew what language you spoke I'd try translating my odd post towards you before I sent it.

n/p I understand most of it

[Cloudy Wizzard]

I went to my local camera shop ... and they suggested a couple of local courses that they reccomend as well.

Problem is they are night courses on set days ... and i am a shift worker ... which makes it difficult though.

Although have been invited to a camera club that meets twice a month ... so am going to try and attend and see what it is like ... no harm I guess. Any extra knowledge can only be benficial to me.

I have the same problem, but most courses here are between 8 and 10pm (doesn't count as night course more as evening ones so I don't know if you mean those ?). so when you work shifts you can't follow there courses.

that's why this "study-at-home" thing was interesting for me since I could do the studying" whenever I wanted. Also since they exists for 70-years this year I assume they offer quality education (or they wouldn't last that long).

[hinman]

I feel like having mocha in my brain this morning in seeing all the valuable replies. I will have a more detailed reply later when I find the time. For now, I want to thank you sincerely for your time, thoughts, links, pointers and questions to ponder about. Your replies and suggestions are of great value to me.

Thank you all,
Hin

[gpaual]

.........
I have the same problem, but most courses here are between 8 and 10pm (doesn't count as night course more as evening ones so I don't know if you mean those ?). so when you work shifts you can't follow there courses.

that's why this "study-at-home" thing was interesting for me since I could do the studying" whenever I wanted. Also since they exists for 70-years this year I assume they offer quality education (or they wouldn't last that long).
......................................................

.....an interesting home study course for digital photography......NYIP ( new york institute pf photography........actually, they are VERY good. you can find them on line/good luck