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

[Kino]

I was largely self-taught up to entering college. At the age of 12, I became obsessed with owning a 35mm camera after an Uncle on my Mother's side showed me some of his wonderful Cibachrome prints and Ektachrome Infrared Slides of the Sonora Desert and Big Bend National Park in West Texas. (BTW, he's still active in that area, shooting digital and I"m trying to entice him back to film with the new Ektachrome)

For over a year, I obsessively poured-over everything I could find on cameras; endlessly perusing the microscopic ads in the back of Popular Photography; piecing together camera outfits I could never afford and weighing the pros and cons of my mythical systems.

Finally, at the age of 13, I got a job pouring concrete at our High School, building a new football field. Armed with my new job, I then had the chutzpa to walk into the local county bank and proceede to talk the President into loaning me $350 whole dollars to purchase my first SLR, based on the promise of my gainful employment.

Well, I did it; I went and bought a Minolta SRT MCII a KMart with 50mm lens and a 2x teleconverter, a bag and a flash, along with several "yards" of KMart film; big plastic sleeves of rebadged Ferannia color negative.

It took all Summer, but I paid that camera off and started shooting anything and everything that moved. An older neighbor saw my obsession and gave me an incomplete, decrepit Omega enlarger, several boxes of age fogged Velox and some old chipped-up ceramic trays, so I set up a darkroom in a outbuilding and started turning out dreadful "enlargements" of my "best" photos. It was pretty pathetic but I had a lot of fun...

Over the years up to college, I worked Summers in the oilfields of Oklahoma and slowly accumulated enough gear to have a reasonable outfilt; most money went to my family, but I managed to divert a bit here and there to add a lens or a tripod and to afford a few rolls of film to shoot.

In college, I started in Journalism, but was bitten by the motion picture bug, so I went down that trail, but not before being taught the fundamentals of the Zone System and much better darkroom techniques by Louis Parkhill, a very gifted Photo Journalist at Murray State Junior College in Tishomingo, Oklahoma. From there, I worked under Charles Nedwin Hockman at the University of Oklahoma as his moton picture equipment manager and assistant for 4 years in the H.H. Herbert School of Journalism where I learned extraordinary things about motion picture production from his incredibly practical courses.

I'll cut the rest down to the minimum: I worked Television for 7 years in Texas, Oklahoma an Arkansas as a EFP Photographer, several years as a Jumbotron and Slo-mo operator at a Horse Race track and 5 years as the Lab Supervisor of Ohio State University's Department of Photography and Cinema; supervising all motion picture and still photo labs. When OSU closed the Department in 1994, I lucked into a job with the Library of Congress Motion PIcture Lab where I have been since, other than a 5 year separation to form a Motion Picture Digital Restoration Company during the Great Recession (not the best move I ever made). I have worked there as a printer/operator, timer/grader and Lab Supervisor, mainly restoring 35mm nitrate films from 1894 to the 1970's.

All through this time, I have actively collected and used still film cameras; trying to learn all I can about photo chemistry and equipment. I have too many cameras, but I use the excuse that I am buying what I couldn't afford when I was young.

I still hold film as my first love, but I don't' neglect digital; either still or moving image. I love to learn; it keeps me alive.

Probably shouldn't be writing this now, as I am dead tired. so excuse the sloppiness. I should go to bed...

PS: While I don't have a lot currently to show for my personal work on Photrio, I am in the process of rebuilding my darkroom and hope to have it online in about a year or so. In the meantime, I do my part to keep film alive by exposing (or causing to be exposed) and developed about 30,000 feet of B&W film a week; Kodak and Orwo. Hopefully, that will count for something toward keeping our art form alive.

 

[Down Under]

DW Thomas said: "I developed my first roll of film circa 1950 at a Cub Scout meeting."

Like me, 12 years later in a school darkroom. Verichrome Pan from a 616 Kodak Brownie my parents bought for my baby photos, which I still have - both the camera and the film.The local drug store (the same one I bought my Rollei from) made passably good Velox contact prints from those negatives in 1961, but to this day I have never been able to get a decent enlargement from any of thoe original eight images. Que sera sera.

An excellent post, DW. I think you said as much in your one para than I did in my entire post.

DW also said: "But hey, it's a hobby!" This is a wonderful line - I've used it to get myself out of trouble (not only in photography) for the past 50+ years.

Like so many others here, in my time behind the lens I have used almost every sort of camera made. TLRs remain firmly in my blood. As well as the 3.5E2, I own two Rolleiflex Ts I picked up new in the 1990s but then had to have serviced (they had been 30+ years on a shop shelf and predictably the shutters were somewhat stiff) and about 18 months ago, a Rolleicord Vb acquired from a deceased estate for the princely sum of A$95. The 3.5E2 and the Ts have served me well and made me some money, but the Vb is purely a fun camera - my new (to me) "poor man's Rollei" is much simpler to use than a 'flex and a little lighter to carry around, but I've since acquired 16 and 24 exposure kits for it and an old (ca 1950) Rolleikin back I already had fits it perfectly. It's a ot of fun to use and I recently sent off 100 color negatives I took with it to a publisher in Europe for consideration in an architectural photo book.

As I've already written, time passes and everything changes, but as photographers, whatever our time and place, we are best when going with the flow of whatever the technology is, whether silver gelatin or pixels. So he says, while loading the Vb and cleaning his oft-used Nikon D700 for another photo walk...

 

[bunip]

Here is an iphone “selfie” I took of a family album’s print from 1971. It’s me with my dad. Guess who introduced me to photography at the age of 11, teaching how to print in a bathroom darkroom? My first camera at the time was my mother’s Zeiss Ikon Contessamatic, but sometime was allowed to fire the Rollei’s shutter. When I was 16 I received my real first camera, a Nikon FG. Photography for me and my dad has always been an hobby. During university years became member in a photoclub where I had a full darkroom and learned how to develop the negative. I learned from friends or Ilford’s publications but never felt the need to go further into the technique until few years ago when discovered APUG. Meantime discovered my grandfather’s voigtlander bessa and was fascinated by old cameras beginning to accumulate as much gear as i could in a severe GAS syndrome. Now that i have all cameras i desired when i was 20 rediscovered the pleasure of taking pictures and printing in a darkroom. And guess what’s my favourite camera over all?

 

[guangong]

The reason for going to school used to be so that education could provide the opportunity for being self taught.

 

[Ian Grant]

Curriculum really has its place. As a pro, to teach I had to deconstruct what I knew as a personal, sometimes even thoughtless, process. That done, my knowledge against the broad range of photographic understanding, found new gaps. In a Photo department, though, you can fill those if needed.Really like the trains, especially in the barn and the one in the back between two cars. Great subjects for BW.

I mentioned earlier intially really learning from Kurt (Curt) Jacobson's books Developing, andEnlarging.

I'd forgotten there were two pivotal books that made a big difference to my photography improving, they were Michael Langford's Basic Photography and then Advanced Photography. Langford was Head of Birmingham School of Photography before joining Michael langford at the Royal college of Art, and both thesebooks were used for decades as academic course work (at Degree level), so a key part of curriculum

To me they were extremely useful with questions to test understandinga t the end of each chapter.

Ian

 

[Berkeley Mike]

The reason for going to school used to be so that education could provide the opportunity for being self taught.

You goes to school to educate yourself, not to be educated.

From UC Berkeley: Fiat lux (let there be light.) The rest is up to you.

 

[guangong]

You goes to school to educate yourself, not to be educated.

From UC Berkeley: Fiat lux (let there be light.) The rest is up to you.

Yep! That’s the idea. My daughter’s high school’s motto is, “Not for school we learn”.

 

[Sirius Glass]

An education is learning to use a particular type of library. A great education allows you to learn to use any library and learn new fields. A college education should not be on the job training. I majored in Electrical Engineering and my education allowed me to learn other fields in Physics, Chemistry, Mechanics, Optics, Computer Science among others.

 

[Peter Schrager]

Learned by cutting high school class and going to new York to the museums
Books...lots of photo books
Galleries..go see what real photos look like
Zone VI WORKSHOP where I was shown how to make a proper negative and proof and finally a full tone print...for myself
Workshops with richard ritter anne jastrab
Fred picker several platinum teachers
Develop over 10000 negatives spend a lots of time in darkroom
Repeat and rinse twice

 

[Photo Engineer]

Peter, after seeing some of your photos, I can say - "you learned good"! Great stuff.

PE

 

[Berkeley Mike]

An education is learning to use a particular type of library. A great education allows you to learn to use any library and learn new fields. A college education should not be on the job training. I majored in Electrical Engineering and my education allowed me to learn other fields in Physics, Chemistry, Mechanics, Optics, Computer Science among others.

I recall upon leaving Cal realizing I could learn to do anything.

 

[jtk]

Upon leaving Cal I realized that life had barely begun and upon leaving San Francisco State (1967) l started to think that the fun might be a mystery and that I wasn't cut out to be anybody's employee...which has allowed a mostly free-lance, complex and rewarding life.

 

[Vaughn]

I recall upon leaving Cal realizing I could learn to do anything.

It took that long?

 

[GLS]

Self taught.

 

[Berkeley Mike]

It took that long?

Teen years were pretty strange. I emerged at Cal.

 

[Vaughn]

Teen years were pretty strange. I emerged at Cal.

The teens can be pretty strange. I 'came of age' in college -- high school years were books, basketball, and a job as a stockboy at a dept store.

 

[OptiKen]

Self-learning...
constantly

 

[pocketshaver]

As someone in the start of messing with photography...

I am going the self taught way. The influence for that is rather simplistic. Have been on a few other photo forums, and well before I left them over ethical and moral reasons, I discovered after perusing and discussing with people who had gone to college for photographic curriculum, that the things they had learned are actually better presented for FREE online with various how to websites, and many people who put endless videos on YouTube.

A lot of the online programs I can find, say SPECS in Detroit Michigan, or NYIP, are not anything beyond what you can find online for free. And if I can have the choice between watching a youtube video on something I have difficulty with, and then coming on here and posting a technical question and doing so for the mere monthly cost of internet access. Versus spending 2,000 on an internet learning course... ill take the free option.

 

[JWMster]

I think we're close to right here. You go to school to be challenged and measured for your achievement... which is most entirely attributable to individual initiative. Self taught (autodidact) would then mean someone who challenges him/her self. And for the most part, my education had little to do with my hobby of photography, but it did feed my curiosity and teach me how to learn from a variety of sources. So I am self-taught in photography and still learning. Same's true for everything else in my life. Mostly, we learn by doing. I think good teachers grab you by the collar and keep you from being complacent with mediocrity, or just stuck in a rut, and they can help you find your way out of a dead-end or a jam ...if they've been there or close by on their own journeys.

 

[pocketshaver]

I think we're close to right here. You go to school to be challenged and measured for your achievement... which is most entirely attributable to individual initiative. Self taught (autodidact) would then mean someone who challenges him/her self. And for the most part, my education had little to do with my hobby of photography, but it did feed my curiosity and teach me how to learn from a variety of sources. So I am self-taught in photography and still learning. Same's true for everything else in my life. Mostly, we learn by doing. I think good teachers grab you by the collar and keep you from being complacent with mediocrity, or just stuck in a rut, and they can help you find your way out of a dead-end or a jam ...if they've been there or close by on their own journeys.

Yet at the same time, the two so called institutions I referenced, simply take your money and give you a diploma at the end. Not much of anything going on, simply very expensive self taught work.

The idea of going to an actual building and learning photography is rather dead and done im afraid. There is little in the way of photo education in the state of Michigan. The only one that actually has detailed information on their photographic class, a single class mind you, is that to attend you need a digital camera with auto focus. Not much at all for someone who wants to learn the actual technology of photography

 

[warden]

. There is little in the way of photo education in the state of Michigan. The only one that actually has detailed information on their photographic class, a single class mind you, is that to attend you need a digital camera with auto focus. Not much at all for someone who wants to learn the actual technology of photography

https://www.collegeforcreativestudies.edu/academics/undergraduate-programs/photography


https://cranbrookart.edu/departments/photography/

https://art.wayne.edu/pdf/4yearplans2018aph.pdf

 

[ic-racer]

My older brother and I setup a darkroom in grade school. In Junior High and High School, I was a Yearbook Photographer. I went on to study art and photography in college. After graduation I went on to get an MFA in fine arts as a Graduate Teaching Associate that provided full tuition and a stipend. Although I was in the Fine Arts department, my concentration was photography, cinema, performance art and self photography. Cindy Sherman was a rising star at the time and somewhat influential in my work.

I was an internet user in the 1980s and used the newsgroups available in the pre-Web era. When web-based forums (like this) became popular I was not quick to join. Eventually the newsgroups dwindled and the very first Web-based forum I ever joined was one for racing internal combustion RC cars in the late 1990s. My internet software at the time made it easy to keep the same login information for all the Web-based forums. So when I joined APUG, I continued to use ic-racer. But as you see, the name has nothing to do with photography but because it is unusual, I can use it in every forum for convenience and have never encountered someone else with the same user name.

 

[fdonadio]

But as you see, the name has nothing to do with photography but because it is unusual, I can use it in every forum for convenience and have never encountered someone else with the same user name.

I c, racer...

 

[John Koehrer]

Most of my edification is self taught and when I did take a couple of courses I found that in several courses I knew more than
the instructor and could print better than any other student in the classes.
Decided not to give 'em any more $$.

 

[pocketshaver]

Most of my edification is self taught and when I did take a couple of courses I found that in several courses I knew more than
the instructor and could print better than any other student in the classes.
Decided not to give 'em any more $$.

Also brings up the other commentary on most professions, if you cant do it, become a janitor or a teacher.

Also will notice that most people who start out with an idea of being a photo journalist, whatever that means now, or being the next ansel adams, once reality sets in, and a need to pay bills they become a wedding photographer or do school photos.

Reminds me of the community college I went to for a while. Had a math teacher whos professional life was as a mathematics PHD doing Turbine Calculations for General Electric. Guy couldn't teach anyone how to do calculus