These days, everyone's a photographer, from the studio owner shooting weddings on the weekends, to your cousin with an iPhone. Cameras are more widely available now than ever before, and many people are discovering a love for photography. Some even choose to pursue it as a career, taking on photography courses or a full degree in the subject. Whether you're a serious student, an accomplished artist, or a hobbyist, there is much to learn from these icons of photography, both from today and years past. 1. Alfred Stieglitz: Alfred Stieglitz is known as the patron saint of straight photography, pioneering the idea that a photo should be about the subject, moment, and artist's vision rather than a contrived manipulation. In Stieglitz' time, photography was not considered much of an art form, but this artist worked passionately to ensure that his photographs had as much or more artistic expression as a traditional artist's work. In today's age of styled shoots and Photoshop, studying his approach to photography offers a refreshing look into photography as artistic expression.
Studying the theory with a tutor will help you to get the technical basics down and use your knowledge to improve your practical skills. We take photos from our own perspective, but the art of photography involves understanding and adopting perspectives other than our own, both physically and psychologically. Lie on the floor, stand on a table… see the world through another lens. Through studying photography you'll focus on considering other points of view until it comes as second nature. Studying photography often involves studying the works of other photographers, this helps you to reflect on what works and what doesn't so that you can develop your own style. Computer skills are becoming increasingly vital to photography; employers expect any professional photographers to be fluent in Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom. A photography course will teach you the basics in using the software, giving you the option to specialise further in the future. But where could photography studies take you?
Let me give you an example. In our third year, the tutor gave a single one hour class per week. After a few weeks he gave up on doing that because only five or six students (out of a total of around 30) were turning up. The reason for the low turnout? Most of the others were so worried about writing the required thesis that they couldn't concentrate on photography. And the reason they were so worried? The same tutor had spent weeks explaining how the thesis would be one of the most difficult things they had ever done, without giving any practical support or solutions to us. Another example (bear in mind that I took my course between 1996 and 1999). We had one computer between 90 students, with an out of date version of Photoshop installed on it. The college had identified digital photography as an important trend – yet didn't support the students enough to learn it. By GotCredit The truth is that degree courses are a tremendously inefficient way to learn. Whereas a typical working week is filled with 40 odd hours of work, a typical week in our course only had a few hours work.
These are also essential skills for a working life outside of photography in 2015. My experience is that very few undergraduate (or post graduate for that matter) potential students of photography have this depth of understanding of what being a photographer involves. Once you do, the answer to why you should study photography is both simple and exciting. Photography today provides the alphabet for an international language that informs all forms of global interaction. By understanding that alphabet you can create your own journey within the new media environment. That may be as a photographer but it may not. Studying photography is no longer about training to be a photographer it is about learning to speak a new language with confidence and understanding. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of the United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer in Editorial and Advertising Photography at the University of Gloucestershire, a working photographer, and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Focal Press 2014) and The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Focal Press 2015).