Photography class section?

snappin · Mar 11, 2007

I have also been thinking over lost prophet's request to adopt a noob. I really like the idea and would love a bit more 'structured' guideance from one (or a few) of the most experienced photogs here. I really like The_Traveler's idea to start a matchmaking thread, but I have one worry that within busy life and everything its going to be real hard for a good mentor/student relationship to develop there. I would just like to put out my suggestion as well, I'm not trying to steal anybody's thunder and I hope it doesnt come off that way.

My idea is for a "Photography Class" type of deal. It would be very similar to the "Bi-weekly photo assignments" but with few key differences.

- The topics would be more geared to reflect certain techniques/ideas that one would want to teach a new photographer (ie.. this week is contrast, or composition, etc.) And maybe one of the mentors could give their explanation of what they think is a 'good' representation of the topic.

- Then once the students go ou and get their assignments and turn them in (post them) a group of mentors (whoever happens to look at them) will honestly critique them with respect to the given assignment (and probably other general photographic rules) and assign a grade. Obviously a grade will be very irrelevant but I think it might be kind of fun.

Now this is obviously a very rough idea of how this could be done, but the thing I really think shows promise is that it could start out VERY informal (ie assignments are totally optional, and even grading is totally optional - except maybe for the person who gave the assignment hehe). But its something that if takes off could become even more structured and I think it could really benefit us noobs in forcing us to practice some of the fundamentals.

What do you guys think?

ariadne76 · Mar 11, 2007

I think this is a wonderful idea. I would maybe not go so far as to give assignments a grade though, just some constructive criticism and feedback. For some reason, grades always feel like a competition to me, especially if posted publically...

enne · Mar 11, 2007

that is an interesting idea. I'd participate :]

snappin · Mar 11, 2007

ariadne76 said:
I think this is a wonderful idea. I would maybe not go so far as to give assignments a grade though, just some constructive criticism and feedback. For some reason, grades always feel like a competition to me, especially if posted publically...

Hehe good point about the grades being public. My thought for the grading were that if someone didnt do so hot on a certain theme they might come back later and give it another try and the grades might be able to show improvement. Maybe we could call it "score" instead of "grade" hehe. Or maybe the crit could be public but the score sent by pm.

nabero · Mar 11, 2007

This sounds like a good idea...I'd participate as well :sillysmi:

meesh · Mar 11, 2007

OOoh..i like! i want in! everyone on here seems to have so much talent and insight - id love to learn!

ashfordphoto · Mar 11, 2007

count me in! super rad.

battlestation · Mar 11, 2007

me too

Patrice · Mar 11, 2007

I'd have a go.

bytch_mynickname · Mar 12, 2007

I think this is a great idea. I would definately participate

The_Traveler · Mar 12, 2007

What do you think of an assignment to find the 'best' f stop for your favorite lens?
It would require some thought on how to and some effort to demonstrate.

I actually would do that myself.
It would be quite useful to know.

snappin · Mar 12, 2007

The_Traveler said:
What do you think of an assignment to find the 'best' f stop for your favorite lens?
It would require some thought on how to and some effort to demonstrate.

I actually would do that myself.
It would be quite useful to know.

Hmmm I'm intrigued. What exactly do you mean by 'best'? Do you mean sharpest? Most creative? Do explain a bit more please.

The_Traveler · Mar 13, 2007

Strictly from the point of view of lens sharpness.
What is the best f stop - and how would you demo that it was the best?

Hertz van Rental · Mar 13, 2007

The_Traveler said:
Strictly from the point of view of lens sharpness.
What is the best f stop - and how would you demo that it was the best?

What you are talking about here is resolving power and requires lab testing. If you use film (or digital) images to check this what you are actually doing is testing the resolving power of the whole imaging system.
In film the type and make, as well as the developer and processing, all play a part. Something similar will apply to CCD's.
In light of this I think it is beyond the scope of beginners - and many advanced users.

It would be better to demonstrate the effect of the different apertures on depth of field.

HvR's 'Pedantry While You Wait' service strikes again :lmao:

The_Traveler · Mar 13, 2007

Hertz has pointed out that this might be considered testing a lens and non-photographic in nature.

I look at the assignment sort of differently. When I shoot, I choose the f stop based on two considerations:1) what dof I want and need and 2) if I have the choice, what f stop I would use to get the most clarity in the resulting image. For those persons who are tuning their photography skills, I think this would be an interesting and useful exercise to figure out how to use the lens on their own camera.