Where did you learn photography?

[Hertz van Rental]

Degree in Photography, and a Post-Grad along with several professional qualifying exams followed by a lot of mentoring by some top photographers. The rest I learned through being a professional.

 

[Lensmeister]

Self taught .. experiment ... learned froim my cock ups .... and just letting myself feel what I want to take .

Rule #1 = FART

F orget your embaressment
A lways take your time
R eview Whats in your viewfinder
T ake the lenscap off !

Just one of the thins to help you remember

 

[loopy]

I got into photography in grade 6, when our teacher taught us how to make pinhole cameras and develop our own pictures. I also took 3 years of photography in high school, the rest was just through trial and error.

 

[Noodle]

I'm self taught as most of us here are. I also bought a photo mag every month. At the end of it was a section where people could send in their pics and a photographer would critique them. I used to look at the pics and critique them myself, then compare it to what the photographer had said. I also have books which I refer to, but I hardly ever used them.

 

[Christie Photo]

...unless you intend on being a professional in which case the education is usually necessary.

Good advice!

Photography isn't that difficult... Taking the picture is just a choreographed, predetermined movement based on the meter.

Uh... well... this is not exactly right. I agree that the technical part of photography is more easily taught/learned. Becoming familiar with your "tools" is essential. I believe this is accomplished much faster and more efficiently with instruction. But the art side of photography requires some study too. Composition, posing, lighting... all these elements must be learned and understood, no matter how naturally creative you are.

I did it by clinging to the shirt tails of local "working professionals" and attending seminars and workshops. This is a painfully slow and difficult process without the foundation of formal training.

School is the first part, but seeing first-hand how the classroom translates into real working situations is invaluable.

 

[the nightfly]

Completely self-taught. Learned photography itself simply by taking lots of photos, usually with an old Instamatic, when a teenager. Learned processing and printing by essentally locking myself in my college's darkroom during one "party weekend," and not emerging until I'd developed the rolls of Tri-X, made contact sheets, and produced several decent-looking 8 x 10 enlargements.

I did take a (still) photography class while in film school, but that was more a diversion, since it didn't teach me anything I didn't already know, just give me a few homework assignments to complete.

 

[photogoddess]

I got my first camera (Kodak 126) at 8 and was hooked. As a teen, every once in a while my dad would take me out and show me how to experiment with night shots (freeway overpasses) with an old Rolleiflex SL35. I took 2 years of photography in High School and learned some basics there but I feel that for the most part, I'm self taught. In other words, LOTS of trial & error.

 

[hobbes28]

I guess I learned like most people on the forum..by myself. I was taught a few principles by my aunt because she believed in self teaching so she wouldn't give me that much. I also read some books to get familiar with the controls and methods. For the rest, I posted on the forum and asked for help to get a better picture, which also helped me to critique my own pictures. I'm still learning today.

 

[wharrison]

Well, I began photographing at an early age - didn't we all - with a Ansco Panda. As a young teen, I purchased A Zeiss Super Ikonda B which took 16 pictures on 120 film and I soon found that shooting color prints was an "expensive" endeavor for a semi-employed teenager - I did a paper route for a friend for some time.

I should have kept this fine old camera, because it has since became a collector's item. Instead, I traded it in for a 35mm Diax camera, because it offered the option of having a few interchangeable lenses.

After completing my undergraduate studies at Simpson College with a major in Political Science/History with a minor in English Literature, my interest in photography renewed itself again and I ended up working in a wonderful camera shop for nine years.

As a young married man, I traded that camera in for a Pentax H3v and added a few Pentax lenses. After a short time, I eventually decided that I really wanted to take candid shots of people under all sorts of lighting conditions and that the SLR camera was not the suitable tool, especially as I also wanted to have consistently accurate focus and extremely sharp photographs.

So in 1967, I traded all of my Pentax equipment for a then new Leica M-4 rangefinder and have gradually added an array of lenses, other equipment,a Leitz projector and enlarger and so on and so forth since then.

Later, I became a staff photographer at the University of Illinois - College of Medicine - Peoria campus and taught "Architectural Photography" at a local community college. Actually, the course was little more than an excellent introduction to the basics of 35mm photography with an architectural interest.

In addition to reading more than several books and magazine, I've attended numerous photographic seminars the best of which were presented by the folks at Leica and at Hasselblad, as they spend considerable time on photography and far, far,far, less time on touting their cameras, lenses, etc.. I have also been to photographic seminars presented by Kodak, Pentax (a week long adventure in Colorado, where I found out that all three instructors used Leicas), Canon, and Nikon. I gradually entered the wonderful world of professional photography - whatever that might mean - until I decided that my first love was learning and teaching.

So at the ripe age of 52, I began working on my Master's Degree in Library Science and graduated from Rosary College, now Dominican University, in River Forest, IL in 1994. Shortly afterward graduation, I accidentally dropped my wonderful Leica loaded up with a Visoflex III, a Bellows II, and the lens head from my 135mm Hektor. With graduate student loans and other expenses, I've had to temporary postpone the repair of my beloved Leica and will do so in the near future.

In between all of this, I also acquired a 4 x 5 Toyyo View camera with a small array of lenses and accessories, but rarely make use of it these days. Over the years, I've also added a Pentax K2 with a wide array of Pentax lenses, which I recently gave to my daughter and her husband so that they can photograph their young family.

My wife, Sue, is currently shooting with a Canon AE-1 and a 28mm Canon FD lens purchased by her former husband. Over the past few years, we added a goodly number of Canon FD lenses and an Canon A-1 body and 50mm F/1.4 lens (for me) and we will soon be adding a Canon FD 24mm and a 300mm as time and money permit. In made sense to combine our efforts into one camera system.

For those who may wish to know, there is a difference - often significant - between the results from a Leica and those from other 35mm cameras. Of course, it goes without saying that it is the photographer who takes the picture. Philosophically as well as actively, I am wholely in favor of the Mozartian approach to life, which says a lot if anyone pays attention.

One of my little pet peeves is that photographers (at least in my day) have a bad habit of spending far too much time discussing all sorts of things such as films, cameras, lenses, developers, photographic paper. And I do admit my own guilt! ;>) While much of this type of discussion is needed and worthwhile, I have often wondered how much time Frank Lloyd Wright spoke of lead pencils, drafting paper, drawing boards, erasers and the such and whether these type of 'discussions' had any significant relelvance to his architecture.

Well, all of this doesn't make me much of "expert" on much of anything, since I am alway learning and sharing what I've learned and experienced. So let's go from here and see what we can learn from one another.

Bill

 

[laudrup]

I'm self taught to date. I try and read as many magazine and books as I can lay my hands on. I also spend a lot time wandering around galleries and looking at pictures wherever they may be. I also find myself walking around (when i haven't got my camera) looking for scenes or subjects that would make good shots and thinking about how I could tackle them!

The is no substitue for shooting as often as possible. It can almost be a problem solving exercise, working out how to make the most of what you have in front of you and what techniques to use etc.

You can learn a lot by trial and error, so i try whenever possible to note down the settings i've used for each exposure. It's not always practical, however you can often identify whatever's worked well or gone wrong and learn from that.

Using this forum has been pretty helpful, because you can get feedback on your shots and also learn and share experiences with the other members.

I've noticed that some comments posted so far seem to have a downer on taking photography courses, as if having to take a course in some way negates your ability or value as a photographer.

I haven't taken any courses yet and by no means do i have an aversion to this. Any tool that helps you improve can only be useful in my opinion.

Naturally not everyone can wander the streets shooting from the hip like Henri Cartier-Bresson, or spend hours composing shots in Yosemite like Ansel Adams, but learning to be technically proficient can only help translate your vision into the final image you produce.

 

[Rob]

I started taking pictures frequently as a teenager. Family holidays to exciting foreign destinations were my main subject matter. I knew nothing of composition or of technicalities and many of these pictures are pretty dull.

A couple of years ago I bumped into a retired Fleet Street journalist and architectural photographer in the pub I was working in. Over many long liquid lunches (I can't wait to retire!) he talked of his experience, mentoring and how things used to be, back in the days when the front pages were made by the fastest photographer (shutter to newspaper, via darkroom).

From this man I learnt an immense amount about the basics of camera operation, through composition, techniques and a veritable feast of dodgy techniques, shortcuts and experimental ideas. He convinced me to sell my all singing and dancing F100 (with which I never managed a decent photo) and go back to aperture priority and one fast standard lens. I thoroughly advocate this technique and really didn't appreciate how I was limiting myself with the laziness of long zooms and poor composition (due to the relatively basic autofocus points of the F100).

This inspiration led me to start my website, which friends wanted to display their pictures on too. Now the site has a very large number of visitors and we all have a great excuse to meet up for drinks and photography.

So I guess to summarise - I've been doing it for about 18 years, but only the last five have been "serious". I just about break even doing the occasional job to fund more kit or just more photo taking.

Interesting reading from everyone!

Rob

 

[Eric.]

Self taught .. experiment ... learned froim my cock ups .... and just letting myself feel what I want to take .

Rule #1 = FART

F orget your embaressment
A lways take your time
R eview Whats in your viewfinder
T ake the lenscap off !

Just one of the thins to help you remember

Wow man. That is perfectly put for myself too. I started in december when I got a old Canon AE-1 for my birthday. I took several rolls guessing what I was doing and figured it out slightly. The camera then broke and had to borrow one from my gramps. My dad got back into photography after I did and bought a canon 20-d which I use on occasion now. I do not like the non manual settings. I don't think the camera is smarter than me in what Creative way I want the picture. Even autofocus is kinda wack in my opinion.

I took a course this spring. It was really boring and wasn't to helpful. It was more like here's how to turn on a camera kinda course.

 

[Willc73]

sorry for a late reply, just joined, looked interesting.
Went to art school in CA. Art Center College of design.
Good place to go if you are interested in commercial photography.