Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Hi guys,

I have been shooting for about a year and a half now and I love it. I have a serious passion which I know all of you share.

I have been thinking recently of taking photography at Humber or another school perhaps but I wanted to know what you guys think on the issue.

1st - For those of you who have attended a school for Photography what has your experience been? positive, negative? Do you feel like you got a lot out of it?

2nd - for those of you who attended Humber what was your thoughts on proffs, curriculum, etc?

Thanks guys,
you all rock

Ill tell you in two weeks lol .. I start on the 7th at Humber

Assume you mean for a multi-year course, and not just continuing education (otherwise these questions are moot).

Do you want a piece of paper (i.e. you want to go looking for a job in a photography field), or are you learning for personal reasons? The reason why I ask that is there are better ways to learn if you don't need the piece of paper.

Actually I remember seeing an ad for Ryerson's photography program showing a picture taken by a third year student that looked like a shapshot...I wasn't impressed thinking I would expect a better picture from a student halfway through their first year!

If your looking to earn the fundamentals of lighting and the technicalities of it .. school will teach you that . School can't teach you to be creative but it gives you the oppertunity of learning to use a studio .. learn colour management and how to market yourself ...It also puts you in an enviornment with a bunch of other photographers with different styles that yuo can learn from

Ahh.. I know, I'm constantly surprised by the quality of images some schools are promoting themselves with. I'm sort of shopping around for schools at the moment so I've been looking at quite a few. One would assume a school is promoting itself with the best of the best.. but when that feels like something below my current skill level, it certainly doesn't sell me on the school.

PS. If anyone has any recommendations for any schools anywhere (well, with relatively reasonable tuition.. people keep recommending to me schools in the US with $40,000/year tuition) that have good MFA (but still workshop style), postgrad, or even undergrad/diploma programs that cover a lot of bases (especially photojournalism) but aren't tooo commercially oriented let me know..

I've taken 2 courses as part of Humber's CE program, not the full-time courses. Personally, I was very impressed with my prof, the classes etc - took Digital Photography 1 and Lighting 1. A guy I work with recently took Portrait 1 and was very pleased with it. We learn well from courses, others don't - you go with your preference.

I've taken 2 courses through Ryerson's Con't Ed program and have been impressed so far. I'm taking a third in Sept. You can take 8 courses and end up with a certificate if it's a piece of paper you are after OR just take as many/little as you wish. Prices aren't that bad. Most are around $500 - $600 depending on the course.

I took Digital Capture 1&2 which were great. You can bypass Digital Capture one if you show the admin that you are at a certain level. The first course is very basic but it gets you comfortable showing your work and being critiqued, which I found really helpful.

The prof's I had were both really good. Rob Davidson was my favorite, he's a commercial photographer - so you get to go into his studio and expeirment which is loads of fun. It gets you out of the class room setting quite a bit.

With your comment about the 'snapshot' from a third year - I think I know which one you're talking about. But - again - it's an arts program which always leaves much open to interpretation. But why they used it for an ad is beyond me.

Excellent, these are all fantastic responses. I appreciate them.

the Part mentioned regarding the Ryerson add. I know what you mean and that is what makes me so hesitant and nervous about the whole thing.

My main priority in going to school for this is to learn, get better, and network. I'll admit that it would be great to have the piece of paper for resume purposes but its the experience that I am looking for more than anything.

But I also feel that the photography section at Chapter can teach me exactly the same things I might learn at school. The only advantage would be the hands on learning.

I also dabble in film (both 35mm and 120) and would like to find a school that teaches that as well. It seems like so many are focused on the digital side of things and photoshop.

anymore advice would be more than helpful.

I think it might be beneficial to just take specific courses at Ryerson part time than just to commit an entire two years on being a student again. Perhaps you should take a few classes, see how you learn in that environment first?

How about a continuing education (CE) program that leads to a certificate, but at the same time seeing if you can do assisting in a studio (or whatever field you're interested in), because if it's experience specifically you're interested in, unless the school has a co-op program I don't know if you'll get that in full time education.

Maybe you should also think about where you want it to take you, or what you want to do. There's a few books listed at the bottom of the following link that are all about photography careers, what schooling you need, etc:
http://tpmg.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12732

I have not taken any courses through Humber but I can offer a little insight as my daughter starts in 2 weeks as well.

We evaluated a number of schools since last September for her. In the process we met with instructors at the school and spoke to former and current students of the program.

The two schools that we felt offered the best program and experience were Humber and Sheridan. And she chose humber based on her feelings after meeting the instructors.

If you have any specific questions I would be happy to answer in a pm as in public I run the risk of offending someone who may be in one of the other programs

Back when I went to Seneca they used to sell boxer shorts that said, "Kiss my Humber!"

Personally though I don't hold any loyalties to the school having also gone to George Brown, and York U.

ANY school may be great on paper or when you talk to certain teachers there you probably won't even get, but it's the individual teachers you get that can make or break the experience. I had one teacher in an English class where you had to write a 500 word HAND WRITTEN essay during almost every hour long class, set the grade to 10% classwork and 90% exam, and you couldn't just skip the classwork either as you were expected to have a high attendance level to be allowed to take the exam. He was the only English teacher who had set the grading to 10:90.

Then there was the one who had written and published his own textbooks, and was quite full of himself.

The joys of higher education.

school can't teach you to be a better photographer it just teaches you the tools of photography its up to you to use them creativly ... Ive seen amazing Humber student pictures and I've seen horrible ones .... It depends on you

I've taken the first course at Ryerson as part of the CE program and have to say it was an amazing experience. I took the condensed version of Digital Capture I: 42 hours of class over a 3 week period - essentially when you aren't in class, you're either shooting or processing / printing.

I liked how our prof gave individual attention to each student. He took the time to understand where each person's strengths and weaknesses were and really tried to make everyone get something out of the course. I was also really impressed with the quality of the shots other students in my class were producing - some of them were quite good given the time constraints we had! (That being said, some of them weren't so great too...)

Main things I got out of the class were:
- specific feedback about my shots, post processing and prints
- experience critiquing other people's and my own photographs
- experience presenting my photographs (mounting, framing and talking about them - individual shots as well as series)
- going to numerous galleries and having them speak to us about various topics (how to get into galleries, what projects artists are working on, etc...)
- some time in the studio (I had never done studio photography before)

I'm starting Digital Capture II in a couple of weeks and can't wait to get back into it!