Are you self-taught or did you go to school?

jtk · Sep 20, 2018

My mother, herself a fine amateur photographer (Bantam Special), taught me to shoot, process, and contact print with 616 Kodak box camera cc 1951. Continued to on-and-off, especially in Newfoundland and, later, at Laguna Seca race track in California. Sports Car Illustrated viewed my Stirling Moss Lotus photos and kindly told me that I needed a long lens to be serious. Later, in exchange for editor's make-out use of my 56' Ford, I was given the college newspaper year book photographer PAYING job. Was handed a Rolleiflex and told to get to work. Made a mess of the newspaper's darkroom, took heat, learned the hard way. In graduate school (research psychology) I audited a couple of design classes taught by Jay Baldwin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Baldwin. Fellow student, then wife, dragged me to Sierra Club HQ in downtown San Francisco to appreciate Ansel Adams (got to handle dozens of his prints). Visited galleries, immediately abandoned Ansel for Edward Weston. Took a Mendocino Art Center course from Conrad Forbes, a protege of Minor White. Conceptually reverse-engineered "of" and "something more." Was Zen-oriented. Returned to San Francisco and within a year was working with professional photographers every day via Adolph Gasser's and Media Generalists (managing E4 duplication and processing, worked on ) and went nuts around town with black Nikon FTn. cc1970

Slippery slope.

Theo Sulphate · Sep 20, 2018

Self taught.

As a pre-teen I liked to photograph my neighborhood (Venice, California) with a 127 Brownie. I could hardly wait for the prints a week later. Only when I bought an 8mm movie camera in 1964 (by saving nickles and dimes for six months) did I learn about exposure.

I then continued to read photo magazines given to me by a lady who was friends with my grandmother and who was a good photographer (thanks, Floy!). I still have those magazines.

I was greatly influenced by the work of Andreas Feininger, which I loved.

Continuing my interest, I bought my first SLR in 1971. The greatest improvement in my skills came from doing my own developing and printing: I realized that if I were going to be printing from 9pm until 5am, I better have more than two negatives worth printing.

tedr1 · Sep 20, 2018

Some of both:
for me photography has always been a pleasant pastime.
Like many young men in my twenties and thirties I played around with BW 35mm in home darkroom.
In my forties I went to part-time adult education school with the specific goal of improving the ratio of my pictures that were worth a second look. I was fortunate to have a first rate tutor and with his help passed some formal exams and began to study photographic history and aesthetics. He also introduced me to an informal local photography study group. I started reading books and going to galleries and attending more study groups. For me learning never stops.

MattKing · Sep 20, 2018

There is a third alternative - I have learned an awful lot of what I know from others outside of a school environment or a formal program of instruction.
But mostly self taught.
My Dad started me on this road over 50 years ago, and I am very glad for it.
I've found that one of the best ways to learn something really well is to take on the responsibility of teaching it to others.

Photo Engineer · Sep 20, 2018

This is a complex answer for me. One of my uncles was a graduate of Brooks and he encouraged me in the field. I had worked my way through college in a photofinishing lab and ended up in photography in the AF working in aerial reconnaissance and intelligence, and then at the Cape. I was surrounded by professionals during the latter assignment. I have an extensive education in Chemistry, and when I went to Kodak, they gave all new employees internal courses in all aspects of photography taught by super experts in particular fields. As one person put it, it was a PhD in making, testing and using films.

My education lasted for most of my life.

PE

winger · Sep 20, 2018

My parents gave me an instamatic when I was 5 and my dad started showing me how to use his Pentax H1a when I was about 10. In high school and college, I took photography classes to satisfy art requirements. I majored in biology and then got a MS in Forensic Science and was a TA in grad school. I helped teach the undergrad photo class. I've also taken several classes at a museum school once I was out in the world, but didn't have a darkroom at home. More may have been learned via experience, but I had a good base, too.

msage · Sep 20, 2018

Both. Self taught at first with the Time-Life photo series books and photo magazines. After completing college I attended a Voc-Tech school for Commercial photography (2years). Learned a lot from jobs I had and shooting as a freelancer through the years. Many weddings, portraits, events, baseball games, hockey games, rolls & sheets of film in the last 45 years! I now have a catalog of 120 k digital images and am still learning! I still have a wet darkroom and I still love photography (film & digital)! Photography has been my profession and my love & passion for most of my life. I have attended many classes, seminars and workshops to learn new skills, mostly in my professional life (forensic photography).

mooseontheloose · Sep 20, 2018

Mostly self-taught. Although I had been taking pictures most of my life, it was always in a point-and-shoot mode. It wasn't until I moved to Japan that I wanted more control over my photography. Friends who had taken photography courses and knew more than me helped me pick out my first manual SLR (Nikon FE, which I still shoot), but I had to teach myself all aspects of photography. I mostly did that by ordering books from Amazon and learning through trial and error. When I moved back to Canada in 2005 I took a darkroom course to learn the basics of developing and printing, and I've done a couple of lith workshops as well, but that's the extent of any formal learning that I've done.

Berkeley Mike · Sep 20, 2018

Ian Grant said:
Started first processing films and printing around the age of 9 or 10 with some help from a school teacher. Only became serious aged 13-14- self taught reading Kurt (Curt) Jacobson's books, "Developing" and "Enlarging". Was asked to teach younger students when aged 16. Had first magazine cover aged 16/17.

Studied Biological Sciences became photographer/photochemist manufacturing B&W emulsion for an applied process, researched Monobaths, Toners etc.. Participated in a number of workshops in the late 1980's,, and lead a few workshops in the 1990's Have a Masters Degree in Photography.

Ian

A curiosity: did moving to eh more vocational aspect of the craft help or hinder your creativity?

Berkeley Mike · Sep 20, 2018

Who

Svenedin said:
I was taught basic photography and darkroom skills in the photographic club at school by a truly brilliant biology master (Mr Ted Bowen-Jones). We started with pinhole cameras and moved on to 35mm SLR's (OM2's). I learned to take photographs, develop film and print but nothing advanced. Then I went on to study medicine but shared a flat with another medical student who was a keen photographer (who has been my partner for 28 years!). We were lucky to have a kitchen in the middle of the flat that had no windows and made an excellent darkroom. We would go out to take photographs and I was much more creative and experimental in those days. I learned from books and numerous mistakes not aided by the fact that we would often get quite drunk in the kitchen darkroom.

I tend to take landscape photographs and sometimes architecture and animals. I am not at all good at photographs of people and will try to avoid having people in a photograph by visiting early or waiting until they have gone. I'd rate myself as technically reasonably competent at an intermediate level but not creative which would fit my personality and scientific mindset. So when I look at my photographs I often think yes well exposed, quite nicely printed but rather dull. Some of my friends comment that my photographs have an antique quality. Not the fact that the are black and white but the composition. This may be because I was influenced by old books and photographs from the Victorian and Edwardian era. I need some of that youthful playfulness back!

No matter how hard we try our own personal vision comes through.

Berkeley Mike · Sep 20, 2018

TonyB65 said:
Completely self-taught, just taught myself to develop film in the last couple of years when I started shooting it again, apart from a few basic mistakes it was all pretty painless. No claim to any awards or anything but I can take a pretty decent image judging by the feedback I get both online and off.

Why did you decide not to take classes?

jtk · Sep 20, 2018

Theo Sulphate said:
Self taught.

As a pre-teen I liked to photograph my neighborhood (Venice, California) with a 127 Brownie. I could hardly wait for the prints a week later. Only when I bought an 8mm movie camera in 1964 (by saving nickles and dimes for six months) did I learn about exposure.

I then continued to read photo magazines given to me by a lady who was friends with my grandmother and who was a good photographer (thanks, Floy!). I still have those magazines.

I was greatly influenced by the work of Andreas Feininger, which I loved.

Continuing my interest, I bought my first SLR in 1971. The greatest improvement in my skills came from doing my own developing and printing: I realized that if I were going to be printing from 9pm until 5am, I better have more than two negatives worth printing.

Amazingly insightful, unusual for a photographer!

Berkeley Mike · Sep 20, 2018

Pentode said:
Self taught in my mid 20s, circa 1993. A Minolta body, a couple of borrowed lenses and a book by John Hedgecoe.

After about a 7-year layoff I decided to take a course at a local community darkroom and see if there was anything important I missed the first time around. Verdict: nah, not really, but it was a good refresher.

The years off had no negative affects on my photography; My work is every bit as mediocre as it always was!

Like falling off a bicycle...

Berkeley Mike · Sep 20, 2018

jnanian said:
school taught ( highschool thru college, apprenticeships, assisting pros and book binding with a bookbinder )
self taught ( making photo emulsion, coating dry plates, view camera work, overcoming fear, using expired materials ... )

i learned a lot through the guidance of a teacher, mentor pro &c they only really set up the the foundation
everything else was through exploring and teaching myself stuff i had an interest in .. ( in addition to photography &c classes i took
studio art, art+architectural history, and science classes ...and classes in architecture, city planning and historic preservation planning.
currently been taking classes in human anatomy+physiology, math, writing and as i write this, physics ... you stop exploring + learning .. that's the end.

At some point, whether academically or self-taught, you take over and work the materials in the light on your own.

Berkeley Mike · Sep 20, 2018

Ian Grant said:
That's an interesting question. The workshops I went on in the1980;s were lead by academics, well all but one, an they were also known for their photographic output as exhibiting artists. The one none academic was the UK's leading landscape photographer, Fay Godwin, who'd had many exhibitions and books published.

So from academics it's been mostly approach, how to evolve my own, which was going in the right way for me anyway. So later when I did my MA it was really about contextualising work, that of others and my own, I'd already been back to University to study Industrial Archaeology as my work had gone in that direction.

It's being able to understand and more importantly articulate why you make certain bodies of work, in my case that was itself largely self taught or rather thought through. Having the Academic rigour helps as well.

Ian

Does industrial Archeology go back to stone knives and arrow heads or Industrial revolution stuff?

Berkeley Mike · Sep 20, 2018

guangong said:
J. Barzun noted that we are now living in a world of certification and not one of ability. Does anyone believe that Lincoln could be elected today, since he wasn’t certified Ivy League? He was also the first president that suffered total resistance by Democrat Party, both Northern and Southern branches.
From my own obsevations almost all really good artists are people of vast learning and don’t just zero in on “art”. Most of the basic principles and methods of any art can be learned in a very short time. It’s refinement that takes time. There is no shortcut.

I run into this at the college. People at the higher administrative levels have PhD's. My photographic, and business photographic experience, goes back to the early 70s and that of my closest colleagues earlier than that. These administrators will often shanghai our requests for equipment and pervert curriculum pathways.

It leaves me dumbfounded and we just shake our heads and make our case. What we want to say is "what the heck do you know about this and why are you making the decisions?" Our equipment expenditures have to go by a board who need to validate our decisions and send everything out to bid. We are business people; we do this far better than they do.

Nevermind...

Berkeley Mike · Sep 20, 2018

jim10219 said:
Looking back, the two most important things about the art world that you pick up in academics are the ability to communicate, and connections. I didn't realize the later until after I was done with school, and made the mistake of not pushing myself to be more extraverted. It's hurt me ever since, and I'm still not very outgoing.

As for the "ability to communicate" part, what I mean by that is artists, gallery owners, and museum curators all have a specific language. They like their artist's statements written a certain way. They have specific words for things that probably don't need specific words. Much like the business world and all of their buzz words, or the science world and their Latin. It's just a way to communicate that ensures everyone is on the same page, and (and this is my own personal belief) to eliminate outsiders from just waltzing on in and acting like they belong without doing the leg work to get accredited. Like a secret handshake or something.

The inherent value of formatting...and then there are Art Critics...and Editors...and my wife.

Berkeley Mike · Sep 20, 2018

Andrew O'Neill said:
Teaching art and photography to high school kids has been interesting.

a charming and generous way to put it.

Berkeley Mike · Sep 20, 2018

Theo Sulphate said:
Self taught.

As a pre-teen I liked to photograph my neighborhood (Venice, California) with a 127 Brownie. I could hardly wait for the prints a week later. Only when I bought an 8mm movie camera in 1964 (by saving nickles and dimes for six months) did I learn about exposure.

My mom shot Verichrome in a Brownie in Seaport; Richmond Shipyard housing in the late 40s. She really had vision but married, mommed.... Have you revisited you early Venice stuff?

Sirius Glass · Sep 20, 2018

After I bought several lenses for my Minolta SRT-101 I went to photograph a statue filling the frame with the normal lens. The depth of field was not deep enough so I switched to the 28mm lens. When I moved forward to fill the frame at the same exposure the depth of field was the same! I then tried the 21mm lens. Filling the frame at the same exposure the depth of field was the same again! I repeated this over a number of years always maintaining the same image size and for any focal length and aperture the depth of field was always the same. Many years later while I was studying optics on my own time, I asked my boss at Kodak about this question. He asked for my optics book, found two equations relating to depth of field, substituted one variable which its value in the other equation, the lens focal length dropped out of the equation. He proved mathematically that for a fixed image size the depth of field is independent of the focal length. I wish I could see the two equations, the substitution, and the result.

Berkeley Mike · Sep 20, 2018

No, actually, you needed a Leica lens which has much better depth of field built into it. They use special glass...
Great story. When I started I thought that if you bounced the camera, like dotting an "i", when firing the shutter it would pronounce the focus better....

scheimfluger_77 · Sep 20, 2018

Both.

From early on i was surrounded by photography. My dad was an avid slide shooter and we had a number of family friends who where into the same. We shared long slide shows of our vacations that we often took together. Dad gave me my first camera, a Brownie Starmite 127. Since he supplied the film it was 12 exposure rolls of Ektachrome on an irregular basis. I did black and white too. I don’t remember when i started processing my own film but it was probably pre-high school. Dad taught me basics about composition, exposure etc. It was just always there. I took a photo course in high school that really whetted my appetite. By the time i went off to college i was well involved in the world of film.

My undergrad degree is in motion picture production from Montana State university in Bozeman. I took enough course work in still photography too but failed to make it a part of my formal degree. Somewhere along that part of the journey i figured out i did not want to make my living with photography. Photography is a method of self-expression for me and I didn’t want to depend on it for my daily bread. If i’d Been smart i would have found a different field to study for a career. My college experience is where i really learned about black and white photography and it really stoked my desire to peruse it.

As a consequence of making a living elsewhere my photo production has been spotty over the years. Now that i’m Retired (ha ha) i’m ready to dive in now. It looks like i’ll Be using the downstairs powder room as my temporary darkroom. The room is 54” square so big prints won’t be happening in there, it will be contact prints only. I acquired a 2D 5x7 a couple of years ago and I”m ready to fire up the JOBO and shoot that format. I used a Crown Graphic for years and thoroughly enjoyed the 4x5 format. Forums like this one and the myriad of books on the processes have been invaluable.

Theo Sulphate · Sep 20, 2018

Berkeley Mike said:
...Have you revisited you early Venice stuff?

Fairly often, yes. What's interesting is that I was more inclined in my teens and 20's to photograph everything - whereas later in life I was more restrained. Looking back at those old photos, I see the value of making a photo of a common sight or everyday scene. It may not seem special at the time, but over the decades such a photo gains value. As a result of this, last year I deliberately made it a personal project to photograph everyday scenes and things I thought were too common.

MattKing · Sep 20, 2018

Andrew O'Neill said:
Teaching art and photography to high school kids has been interesting.

Berkeley Mike said:
a charming and generous way to put it.

I rather expect that Andrew can add some quite useful nuance to his comment.
But I would say that "teaching" photography to inexperienced people, even in the informal circumstances that I have done so, has energized, inspired and definitely interested me.
It can also be really satisfying.
And sometimes really entertaining too .

Sirius Glass · Sep 20, 2018

Sirius Glass said:
After I bought several lenses for my Minolta SRT-101 I went to photograph a statue filling the frame with the normal lens. The depth of field was not deep enough so I switched to the 28mm lens. When I moved forward to fill the frame at the same exposure the depth of field was the same! I then tried the 21mm lens. Filling the frame at the same exposure the depth of field was the same again! I repeated this over a number of years always maintaining the same image size and for any focal length and aperture the depth of field was always the same. Many years later while I was studying optics on my own time, I asked my boss at Kodak about this question. He asked for my optics book, found two equations relating to depth of field, substituted one variable which its value in the other equation, the lens focal length dropped out of the equation. He proved mathematically that for a fixed image size the depth of field is independent of the focal length. I wish I could see the two equations, the substitution, and the result.

Berkeley Mike said:
No, actually, you needed a Leica lens which has much better depth of field built into it. They use special glass...
Great story. When I started I thought that if you bounced the camera, like dotting an "i", when firing the shutter it would pronounce the focus better....

NOT POSSIBLE, even Zeiss lenses on Leicas have to follow the laws of physics.

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