Reviewing two classes: FAS 226 Digital Photography and FAS 255 Lighting for Photography.
I know, I know. No posts since June of this year. I am behind the curve. But you know what they say. The best time to make a blog post was 6 months ago; the second best time is today. I don’t think that’s actually what they say, but for now I’m rolling with it.
This summer I signed up for two photography classes online at Southern New Hampshire University. SNHU runs 8 week online classes, and does 6 semesters a year, with a very open schedule and enrollment period. I used the remainder of my GI Bill to pay for the classes, and was working full time. I took two classes, FAS 226 Digital Photography and FAS 255 Lighting for Photography. Although I have been using DSLRs for 10+ years, I have had no formal training, and learned everything so far through some books, online resources, and very intermittent non-structured practice. I wanted some structure, a schedule, assignments, and professional resources such as a professor to ask questions. I also wanted to compare myself to others doing the same program, as this really gets my creative side firing on all cylinders.
The description of FAS226 felt more like Digital Photography 101, so even though I would know most of the concepts, I told myself I would treat this as re-visiting the fundamentals, and doing very structure practice. It’s one thing to understand aperture, or shutter speed, or depth of field, but it’s another to focus on one aspect and create photos exploring that topic.
FAS255 was a course focused on lighting using strobes and flashes. I had a flash years ago, but never really used it, and never explored its potential. I found the website www.strobist.com a fantastic resource for learning to use strobes, and used that website while I took this class to fill in any gaps. This course was much more challenging and covered new material for me that I didn’t know.
The general format for both of these online classes was week by week, 8 weeks total. Each Sunday, there would be a reading assignment, online material/videos to review, and then a photo shooting assignment due on Thursday by midnight. Friday through Sunday focused on peer reviewing other work in the class, and having your work reviewed by the teacher and classmates. The reviews themselves were not “…wow your work is great, I love it!”, they were very structured and technically focused, such as “Your side light is weaker than your natural source. The composition is interesting because of x, y, and z. You would try adjusting your camera settings to produce _______ effect”. No pats on the back here, but a lot of great info and constructive criticism.
“What gear do I need?!” – A DSLR or mirrorless camera with interchangeable lenses. If you take the lighting class, you will also need two strobes. That’s it! Notice I didn’t say the best, the latest, or the most expensive camera. We had students with 15 year old DSLR’s taking fantastic photos. These classes focus on technique, not raw quality output. All the images in this post were straight out of my camera, with no editing. Most assignments ask for this. FAS 226 does have editing courses in the second part of the term, but in general, the gear does not matter! You could find one of these 15 year old flagship Nikon’s for like $150 and have an incredible camera for the class.
https://petapixel.com/2023/12/26/revisiting-nikons-legendary-d700-dslr-15-years-after-its-release
You can’t use a cell phone or a point-and-shoot. Sorry.
Even though there was a good amount of work and material each week, in a way there was a reduced amount of pressure because the assignments were not “Go create art!” but instead “Go create a diffused natural light image”, or some variation of a new technique. It was about learning, and learning involves making mistakes! And it’s OK to make mistakes, that’s how you learn!
A side note for this post, and this blog in general. This is not a ‘How-To’ blog, or a guide, or a discussion of my techniques for readers to learn from. I am a rank amateur, and sometimes I start to think I almost know what I’m doing. Instead this blog represents my learning experience, and what resources I used and what it’s like to be a student trying to learn. The internet is full of resources, and I would honestly just be copying what I used if I were to make a post here. So what does that have to do with the image above?
I’m not really going to explain the how or why that aperture affects depth of field. Instead I’ll explain that I was looking to compose something that had visual interest close to the lens, and very far away, so as the depth of field increased both would start to vie for attention. I found this amazing spider on a web near a waterfall in my local park, and tried to overlay one composition onto another. The spider alone is interesting. The waterfall is also interesting. Lining one up over the other, bam. Composed.
Each week in each class covered a new topic. Playing with depth of field. Adjusting shutter speed to capture motion. Modifying natural light with diffusers. Using strobes and reflectors. Shooting reflective surfaces. Changing focal length to modify perspective. I would do a shoot focusing on one of these, post for my classmates to see, and would see my classmate’s work too. My instructors would give constructive criticism, and would ask to see how I used last week’s criticism to improve my work this week. Practice! Feedback! Structure! Totally worth it.
A side note on the bus photos above. I was riding my motorcycle in the Hill Country looking for things to shoot, and drove past this property full of antique, rusted tractors and vehicles. A wonderfully kind older woman was mowing the lawn, with a push mower! I stopped on the road, took off my helmet, and waved. She waved back, and then I mimed the action of taking photos with an invisible camera, and pointed to the vehicles in her yard. She laughed and nodded yes and gave me a thumbs up! Roughly 20 minutes later while I was shooting she strolled over and struck up a conversation with me.
She had been a widow for two years after losing her husband to dementia, and had taken over care of the property. Her husband ran a small engine repair company for decades, and had collected the array of older vehicles and set them as lawn ornaments. She constantly has people stopping for photographs, and was very thankful I had asked. She also shared that decades ago, Victory Motorcycles had asked if they could do a shoot on her property, and they brought a semi truck full of bikes and an entire staff of dozens of people to shoot their entire motorcycle calendar!
It was a great example of the interactions you can have through photography. I’m glad I turned around, stopped, asked her if I could shoot, and had this conversation with her.
I was very lucky that the GI Bill covered this course. I was also fortunate to be able to take it strictly to learn for my enjoyment, and not have the pressure of completing a Photography degree to find work in the field. Are these classes worth it? It depends on your perspective. If you want to complete a weekly assignment as fast as possible just to get a B or an A, that isn’t that difficult and doesn’t take that much time. However, if you want to create, and grow and learn from your instructor and classmates, and really try to produce the picture your imagine can see, that is much more difficult and much more worth it. I have no idea if earning a two or four year Photography degree will land you a job, but I do know regardless of earning the degree, you will need a portfolio. If you aren’t trying to make something portfolio worth every. single. week, I wouldn’t take these classes. You really do get out of them exactly what you put in.
I had some classmates that would do the bare minimum to meet the requirements of an assignment, and purely on technical review, their submissions weren’t very strong. I would struggle to see how someone would pay for wedding, event, or real estate photos for example when the photos themselves ignore general fundamentals that make a ‘good’ image. I had other classmates that went above and beyond, putting in a ton of effort and creating some truly amazing photographs. Seeing how different students would interpret an assignment, and asking them about their thought process, makes these courses completely worth it. You get out of these classes exactly what you put into them.
Part 1 covered the first four weeks of the term, tune in to Part 2 for the other four!