Good/Best Online Photo School?

[excessnoise]

Anybody have any suggestions or better, any experience with online photography schools. I was checking out New York Institute of Photography. They are reasonable @ $1000 for the course. I checked AIU university. They have online but $$$$ 5400 per quarter. Ouch!

[BOBinsane]

LOL, I don't know but since I got my first cheap digital camera in 2001 I've taken just about 14,000 pictures. And with my new camera with manual controls and features I've learned how to use them by reading the manual and just taking tons of pictures experimenting with settings.

It's when you're out there shooting an interesting sunset or taking good pictures of you friends when you're learning and becomming experienced. And if the cost of these schools are that much and you want to learn to do studio photography, then in my opinion I would make a lot of space in my bedroom for specialized lighting and backdrop stuff with a nice tripod and I'm sure you already have a nice camera if you're going to take photo classes. And then just offer people to come over and take pictures of them, maybe a close neighbor holding their dog, or a guy holding his guitar. You don't have to find supermodels to be a good portrait photographer.

I don't know of any online "photo schools" but this website has some neat information to read if you want some help with the technical aspects of photography.
http://thephotocollege.com/

but remember, photography isn't just a matter of holding a frame in time, but it's also a form of interaction and enjoying your surroundings. ;)

[The Photo College]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for giving The Photo College a reference in your reply. TPC doesn't just specialize in film and digital cameras, we treat every student as an individual while tailoring our Course and Email support to each individual student.

Our Course material does not provide college credit, however many home-schooling parents have received approval from his or her local school administrations to apply credit towards graduation based on our Books and Email support.

Again, thanks.

Tom Jenkins
TPC

[The Photo College]

Dear Excess Noise:

Thanks for giving The Photo College a chance to reply to your query; we receive many Emails asking us to compare ourselves to NYIP.

TPC doesn't just specialize in film and digital cameras, we treat every student as an individual while tailoring our Course and Email support to each individual student. Even if you are interested solely in portraiture, our PSD&O will take you step-by-step from start to finish, including props, equipment, layouts, design, and more 3D poses than you can imagine.

Our Course material does not provide college credit, however many home-schooling parents have received approval from his or her local school administrations to apply credit towards graduation based on our Books and Email support.

Again, thanks.

Tom Jenkins
TPC

[Leighow]

For variety take a look at http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=4148#17969

HOWIE

[excessnoise]

BOBinsane wrote:
... I've learned how to use them by reading the manual and just taking tons of pictures experimenting with settings.
I)

Bob thanks for the reference to "The Photo School". It does look interesting and the cost is super reasonable.

Regarding schools.

A few rare individuals CAN teach themselves but I've found in my own experience in computers and photography that most people including myself:
1. we only progress within our "comfort level"
2. we strengthen areas that we excel in and tend to avoid areas that we feel less confident in thus weakening those areas (skills) even further.
3. We tend to learn but with large "holes" in our learning. Going thru a good structured program tends to educate with a fuller, more developed learning of the subjects and related subjects.
3. need accountability of others to push pass plateaus.
4. Why "re-invent the wheel". Learning from others tends to speed up the progress.

[excessnoise]

Also I guess it depends on whether photography is just a hobby, leisure or therapy vs thought of turning it into a possible future career.

[BOBinsane]

I agree with every theory on this page. Everyone has their own style and technique to doing certain things. For instance I've been learning .net programming from books, but there are many times when I just can't understand something or there's a big hole in my mind. Fortunately I can turn to a friend of mine who's an expert at his job. Otherwise I'd highly consider going to college to learn this stuff. Hopefully one of these links or whatever helped you out.

Bob.

[backlot]

With the digital camera boom our local junior college offers a class. I will say that half the folks dropped out for they thought they could just take picture of whatever they wanted. In fact it was quite structured. One week evaluative, one week shutter, one week portraits, etc. We had to have a slide show every week and we were able to see what others were doing. Having to be structured like that really is what works for me. The entire fee was under $125 (including textbooks). During the semester we were able to use the portrait studio anytime class was not in session. The lab tech was wonderful and was the one who inspired me to get a Canon. It was great to drive over and have some hands on. Now if I was to take another class I would have at least have a pretty good foundation and the money I would be spending would be totally worth it.