Betterphoto or ppsop.com photography classes

[yanz]

Hi. I have been looking for a while to take a course from one of these sites. Only few reviews are available on photography forums from people that actually took their classes. Is there any one here that took classes from theses sites? Betterphoto looks like they have a better selection of courses but I think ppsop is growing and now they are offering more classes. It’s not cheap so I wanted to get some opinions before signing up for a course.

Thanks everyone in advance!

Yan

[DavidPhoto]

I've taken a few at BP. They were pretty good. I'd recommend the 8 week classes over the 4 week ones though. Its good if there are a bunch of people in the class that are into it and of course some instructors are better than others.

[yanz]

Thank you very much for a quick response. I figured that 8 week courses would be more rewarding. Is it basically you get an email every week with information and then you submit few pictures for instructors critique? If you don’t mind me asking which courses did you take? I was looking into taking course on composition. Would you be able to recommend an instructor?

Thanks again!!!

Yan

[DavidPhoto]

Its been a while but here's what I recall.

I took one with Jim Zuckerman (he's awesome) and another with Rob Shepard (something like The WOW factor) and a short course with Paul Gero on strobes. I really wanted to take a composition course with Branda Tharp as I really like her work and have heard that she is a very good instructor but it was full so maybe next spring. I enjoyed them all.

The site is setup pretty well. As a student you get access to private areas that allow you to submit photos and to have discussions on photos that have been submitted as part of the class (by assignment/week). You can also read the critiques on other students work and ask questions. So you can learn from their work as well as your own. If the class is decent you will push each other. Unlike most classes, I think in these its better when there are more people in the class. Plus you get people from all over the world which can be really cool.
There is also a section where you can ask questions and you can attach photos there as well. The instructors and students can respond so again you can learn from other peoples questions and answers.
I found that some instructors are quicker to respond than others and that makes a huge difference. Also, some of them will post additional articles, photos, tips and tricks etc.

Each week your sent some background information with some photos and assignment(s). You can then ask questions or go to work on it. When you are ready you post your assignment photos which are usually critiqued before the next assignment. At anytime you can go back to a previous week and look at anything thtas been posted, discussed, critiqued etc.

Let me know if you have any specific questions and I'll do my best to answer them.

[yanz]

I really appreciate your elaborate response!!! Thank you very much! I am thinking to take either Getting the Wow Response with Rob Sheppard or Eight Steps to More Dramatic Photography with Jim Zuckerman. What do you think about these two courses. Only 6 spots left in the Eight Steps course. I guess that would be a better course to take because it will have more people. These courses are kind of the same but different. Which teacher do you think is better?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!

Yan