Have you ever taken a photography course?

FerozeK wrote in post #14530496
...I learn more by making mistakes....

+1 to This

John Greengo's Digital Fundamentals - lots of review, some good tips. Excellent for beginners. May be boring for semi-pro or intermediate people.

Mark Wallace's Speedlights 101. Awesome stuff. Flash is difficult, and he breaks it down very nicely.

Saw both on CreativeLive.

harcosparky wrote in post #14545547
Yeah you should be afraid of that one semester in the darkroom with film, you might actually learn something useful there.

You can say you'll never shoot film, blah blah blah, and don't need it however I can guarantee you will learn things that apply to digital photography as well because after all photography is photography.

I developed my own B&W film, read all of Ansel Adams books and played around with the zone system. I'm glad I did all of that before digital came in.

i don't think so, but given i spent 14 years in a university (i liked the place) and changed majors every few years it's possible.

No, but I'd like to go to some workshops once in a while.

I imagine higher education for photography would be very similar to higher education in sound engineering and mixing. From what I've heard from those going to school for sound engineering etc. was to choose the school with the best facilities. Yes, you'll learn from classes, but the best way to learn the software, techniques, concepts, etc. etc. was hands on using top of the line professional gear. It'll be a lot different learning theoretical concepts from a well known professor and mixing on analog devices versus learning theoretical concepts from an OK professor while being able to spend nights on end mixing on Pro Tools HD systems and using top of the line compressors etc. Learning on the most current and most used technology is probably more helpful for your profession because everything is based off of the old analog systems, so one could say learning on analog systems are a waste of time (unless you like the stuff or you're going for that old classic sound).But hell, what do I know. I don't go to school for sound engineering or photography!

On topic though, I would love to be able to take some workshops / seminars. Not necessarily on how to use my camera, but on composition and lighting.

I took part at a photographic workshop when I started photography more than 20 years ago.
That was great, I learned b&W darkroom technic, and a bit of photography.

In my academic studies to become an image engineer, I took part on some workshops there from Hasselblad and Linhof. And a 5 days workshop on solid state imager by Mr. Theuwissen - which was absolutly great, but probably not fully that what you asked for - there was no picture taken, "only" the theory how sensors work.

Nowadays I think I would not join workshops to learn how to take a photo, or how to flash..