Back to school or not back to school?

dceire

I graduated from DCU with a first class media degree last year but have spent my time since then working in the same job I had during college. I'm off to Canada for a year in August but am already thinking about my future prospects when I return.

At the top of my list was moving to London to do an MA in Music & Entertainment Management or to Intern at Amnesty. Recently, I've been thinking more and more about the possibility of pursuing a career in photography. Sports, Music and Fashion photography hold some appeal but being a war photographer would be a dream of mine. I've always had a somewhat distant interest in photography but my Dad is a keen photography hobbyist and has done some evening classes.

I have been looking at the courses on the sticky and my question is, if I seriously wanted to pursue photography as a career should I go back to do a BA or could I achieve the same goal by doing some of the intensive courses on offer?

Ricky91t

The best thing is hands on experience.

dceire

Ricky91t wrote: »

The best thing is hands on experience.

Yea, I plan to start snapping this week. Heading to Cork for the Harmonic festival and will be bringing my new compact Samsung WB500 to take a few pictures. It's no DSLR but I really didn't have the money for one and didn't want to be dragging it with me backpacking. It seems decent enough for what it is, so hopefully its a start anyway. I might even persuade the old man to lend me his DSLR from time to time.

DubMedic

You have your media degree, shows interest.

What would be a good indicator of dedication and interest now would be hands on experience, and intent to follow photography as a career/hobby.

Above a lot of things in interviewing a potential employee, an employer would look at experience.

Having degrees and so on is great, but experience in using these degrees is just as, if not more important.

DotOrg

dceire wrote: »

if I seriously wanted to pursue photography as a career should I go back to do a BA or ....

if you want to do photography purely for the commercial gains you want out of it, go back to college. If you have any kind of artistic interest or any kind of dreams of doing photography whether you earn from it or not, your only real option is to pick up a camera (you can get a cheap old dSLR for not much more than €200) and start taking pictures, lots and lots of pictures

challengemaster

Someone can have 30 degrees in photography and still take shíte photos. If you want to do it as a career, start using the camera, improve, build a portfolio. Degrees mean next to nothing tbh.

charybdis

I think it's probably wildly unrealistic to aspire to being a war photographer when you don't seem to have been interested in photography until you happened upon the idea of doing a degree in it or pursuing it as a career. You could probably eke out a reasonable existence as a professional photographer doing wedding or portrait or sports or concert photography without having much of a passion for it, but I can't see anyone without a strong autonomous interest in photography sitting in a ditch somewhere, riddled with parasites and disease, being shot at, seeing children die, to submit photographs to a news agency that probably won't use them because you're in a war the outside world doesn't care about, and if you ever do get published, it's bound to piss someone off.

If you want to know quickly whether or not photography is for you, spend less than 100 Euro on a film camera and a fixed normal lens, shoot (in manual mode) and develop (at home) at least one roll of black & white film per week for at least a year using the same lens and same kind of film throughout. If you make it through a year and your last few rolls of film have had some pretty good shots, then consider going to college for photography or pursuing it as a career.

PCPhoto

I wouldnt do war photography .... 10-15yrs ago photographers were like aid workers .... neither side would attack them ..... nowadays, they are both a target.

its just not safe !!

dceire

Ok, thanks for all the advice thus far.

Putting aside the details, I am interested in a career in photography. I appreciate and understand that I need to spend a lot time getting out and taking pictures. Given that it is a career I am after, would there be a great benefit from doing a degree over the several short term courses on offer?

I would prefer if I didn't have to do another 4 years in college having spent 5 years in 3rd level education already.

magicbastarder

how do you know you want a career in photography when you tell us your interest in photography has been 'distant'? it implies you don't know much about photography?

charybdis

dceire wrote: »

Ok, thanks for all the advice thus far.

Putting aside the details, I am interested in a career in photography. I appreciate and understand that I need to spend a lot time getting out and taking pictures. Given that it is a career I am after, would there be a great benefit from doing a degree over the several short term courses on offer?

I would prefer if I didn't have to do another 4 years in college having spent 5 years in 3rd level education already.

You need to go and take lots of photographs before you can decide whether or not a degree in photography is worth pursuing for you.

Anyone can have a career in photography, but you're not in a position to make decisions about how you might go about it. Go and learn photography for a year and don't think about it as a career. When you're a competent photographer you can try and make an informed decision about a career in photography and how you might want to go about it.

Seriously, if you're not prepared to learn the fundamentals and refine them on your own time, I think you can probably write off doing a degree in photography or having a worthwhile career in it. You don't even have to do any courses to learn the fundamentals, the internet has all of the information you need for free; if you're of the mindset that participating in a course will make you a good photographer, I think you're very much mistaken.

Again, I think it's a little absurd that you are adamant that you're interested in a career in photography when you have an extremely limited understanding of it and you've previously made little effort to rectify that.

dceire

I'd be the first to admit that I do need to somewhat immerse myself in photography in the coming year or two if I am to seriously think about going to college never mind a career. However, I find some of the responses, regarding my knowledge of photography, very dismissive and somewhat snobbish. I have already stated that my experiences with photography in the past has been limited but this does not mean that it will remain that way in the future.

For instance, a few years ago I had an extremely passive relationship with music and zero musical ability. Now I am passionate in the extreme about my musical taste and play the guitar. Sure it has taken me years but you must respect the fact that it is possible. I never had any interest in music until one day something clicked and I said 'I like this' and it snowballed from there. I may or may not ever seriously get into photography but I think people shouldn't be so quick to dismiss this as a flight of fancy and at least entertain the possibility of it coming together for me. So any further constructive comments are most welcome. It's no skin off your nose if I do or do not pursue it further, I'm just looking for a small bit of direction if I do choose to.
Cheers.

charybdis

dceire wrote: »

I'd be the first to admit that I do need to somewhat immerse myself in photography in the coming year or two if I am to seriously think about going to college never mind a career. However, I find some of the responses, regarding my knowledge of photography, very dismissive and somewhat snobbish. I have already stated that my experiences with photography in the past has been limited but this does not mean that it will remain that way in the future.

For instance, a few years ago I had an extremely passive relationship with music and zero musical ability. Now I am passionate in the extreme about my musical taste and play the guitar. Sure it has taken me years but you must respect the fact that it is possible. I never had any interest in music until one day something clicked and I said 'I like this' and it snowballed from there. I may or may not ever seriously get into photography but I think people shouldn't be so quick to dismiss this as a flight of fancy and at least entertain the possibility of it coming together for me. So any further constructive comments are most welcome. It's no skin off your nose if I do or do not pursue it further, I'm just looking for a small bit of direction if I do choose to.
Cheers.

It's not snobbery, it's pragmatism. Every single reply to this thread has been constructive, although they may not have been the replies you'd hoped for.

Before you learned to play the guitar, did you give serious consideration to the idea that playing the guitar was something you might do professionally? Did you base your decisions of how you learned to play around that? At your current skill level, do you think you could be a successful professional guitarist? What do you think the response would've been in the musical instruments forum if you'd posted a thread there wondering about the specifics of becoming a professional musician when you can't play an instrument?

I'm not trying to dissuade you from taking up photography, I'm telling you that there is a huge difference between being a photographer and being a professional photographer. Admittedly, much of that difference isn't really about photography, but both practices demand an understanding of the medium. You must understand it's ridiculous to give serious thought to being a professional photographer (particularly a war photographer) when you have very little understanding of the mechanics & aesthetics of photography and have shied from learning how to use a proper camera because you didn't want to "drag" it with you on your travels.

For all I know, you could be the greatest photographer of your generation, but you're not at the moment. Go be a photographer before you think about being a professional photographer.

Also, when people are being generous with their time and expertise in an effort to help you, you could be a little more appreciative than disparaging their responses as "snobbish".

magicbastarder

to echo the above sentiments, if i appeared on the dance forum on boards (assuming there is one) saying i've never really had much interest in ballet, but was wondering how i went about becoming a professional ballet dancer, they'd laugh me off.

melekalikimaka

i study photography as a degree, you can tell who love photography and dont...and it reflects in the work, its a 40hour week studying photography.... at least... and alot of stuff aint all snapping and editing...