How did you learn

I've personally learnt from a number of different areas. I have friends who own cameras, so would get advise from them. I started doing quite a bit of motorsport photography to begin with (I did this in the 80's in truth with a disposable camera that got developed at Boots) and a friend would stand there and show me his techniques in how to keep as smooth as possible when panning. I've used books, forums, youtube and been on a couple of photography workshops.

I think one of the most useful learning techniques I had was a long way into my photography journey I started to critique my own photographs, looked at why some things worked and others didn't. I try and do this when I am out and about now, especially with landscapes.

I still do a lot of motorsport photography, and as there is only a limited number of tracks that I have been shooting at for the last 15 years or so I will try and challenge myself to come up with new shots, I think this falls into the get out there and do category of learning!

I hope you have fun and enjoy your journey and the learning involved.
 
Bodian said:
I never quite know what 'self-taught' means in some photography interviews. Because surely almost everyone has been on some sort of course (even if short), watched some youtube videos, read some books, or had some advice or guidance from a friend or someone? You don't just learn about the relationship between ISO / Speed / Aperture by guesswork.

How can anyone be purely 'self-taught' - or is there a specific meaning to those words in the photography world?
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I photographic terms self taught means with out any academic or professional training. Though it might well include minimal adult education courses and the like.. or club input.

Though I suppose that is true of most hobbies. Mine have included spinning and weaving and wood work including making looms and spinning wheels, to professional standards. And some furniture including an oak Church Altar still in regular use.
I made and sold four Spinning wheels at top prices for the time.
Like photography there is no reason why amateurs work should not be up to professional quality, as time is rarely a factor, whilst quality certainly is.
 
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I first got a camera to take pictures of my friends dancing Lindy hop. This wasn't easy (fast moving people in the dark with bad lighting). I learned through a mixture of trial and error and then YouTube, plus a few books. I got into taking pictures of other things after a while.

One concept I'd like to throw out there is separating craft and art (credit to a great dancer called Lana Williams for this). Great art takes both and generally, the craft is learnt first. Modern cameras can automate/de-skill some of the craft but they won't make art.
 
Erty said:
One concept I'd like to throw out there is separating craft and art (credit to a great dancer called Lana Williams for this). Great art takes both and generally, the craft is learnt first. Modern cameras can automate/de-skill some of the craft but they won't make art.
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Yeah - craft can be self-sufficient, but can also provide the means to produce something more.
 
Erty said:
I first got a camera to take pictures of my friends dancing Lindy hop. This wasn't easy (fast moving people in the dark with bad lighting). I learned through a mixture of trial and error and then YouTube, plus a few books. I got into taking pictures of other things after a while.

One concept I'd like to throw out there is separating craft and art (credit to a great dancer called Lana Williams for this). Great art takes both and generally, the craft is learnt first. Modern cameras can automate/de-skill some of the craft but they won't make art.
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For decades I've been saying "there is no art without craft", and in my head I think I knew what I meant. But, now, I'm not so sure it's as simple as I thought.

See my earlier post, which this one expands on https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/how-did-you-learn.762616/post-9533334

According to Getlein*, until the Renaissance, art and craft were more or less the same thing with (as a generalisation) "art" being created by "craftsmen" commissioned by the rich and powerful. Since the Renaissance, over time, some crafts became held in higher regard than others: painting, sculpture, architecture music and poetry, and by the 18th century these were formally labelled as "Fine arts". Separated from being only crafts, because they made things primarily designed to give pleasure, and required genius and imagination, not just the skills needed to craft "useful" objects.

By the 19th century the "Fine" had been dropped, but the Art capitalised. The craft part of art being the practical skills an artist needs to fully express their genius and imagination in their art/.

Probably because of my age, I took leaning your craft to mean "mastering" your craft, with a constant quest to fully control my chosen medium. Hoping that eventually I would develop the skills that would allow the pictures I make to match the way I saw the subject in my mind. So for me, learning the craft was an important part of my photography, I put tremendous effort into learning the craft (and still do) because I believed my saying of "there is no art without craft". I certainly believed that my lack of art was down to my lack of craft. Rather than the more likely, lack of talent, explanation.

The craft of photography has constantly been deskilled over time (though I would argue old skills have just been replaced with new ones). But, most of us I imagine are happy enough by some of the earlier deskilling e.g. no longer coating our own wet plates or carefully measuring out all the raw chemical to process film and paper (ie not prepacked, only add water processing chemicals), let alone things like automatic exposure or autofocus.

Arguably, one of the greatest things about modern photography is that its become deskilled to the level where almost anyone with 'genius and imagination " can get out there and start making art (picture making**).

As I said in my linked post the difficult bit of being a photographer is learning the "picture making" part, and getting bogged down in the technical "learning the craft" part can easily distract from the more important aspects of being a photographer.

So, I'm now thinking more in terms of learning minimal "fit for purpose" skills, and only needing to master a specific skill when your picture making "genius and imagination" is being held back by the lack of that skill. It's an approach I don't think is easily transferred to other arts, but one I believe has merit for photography, and contributes to the uniqueness of photography as a creative medium. I still belief in the need to learn your craft, I'm just reversing the priority

There of course risks from allowing the art to drive the craft because not everyone will realise their failures in picture making are down to their lack of craft, but avoiding this should be part of how we teach and learn photography.

*Getlein,M (2020) Living with Art.. McGraw-Hill.
** Hockney, D and Gayford, M (2016) A history of pictures. Thames and Hudson.
 
myotis said:
There of course risks from allowing the art to drive the craft because not everyone will realise their failures in picture making are down to their lack of craft, but avoiding this should be part of how we teach and learn photography.
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I think that this is pretty crucial! Craft is so basic. But can art ever be produced by accident? Indeed, an artist must embrace accident, and incorporate or reject it.
 
droj said:
I think that this is pretty crucial! Craft is so basic. But can art ever be produced by accident? Indeed, an artist must embrace accident, and incorporate or reject it.
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We get into the murky area of discussing the nature of art. But I would say the modern world has completely detached craft from art. And much art nowadays owes nothing to ‘craft’.
 
droj said:
I think that this is pretty crucial! Craft is so basic. But can art ever be produced by accident? Indeed, an artist must embrace accident, and incorporate or reject it.
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Some serious deconstruction needed with this.

I'm not so sure that craft is always "so basic", even if, at times it can be. I think it depends on what level of "fit for purpose" craft you want (need) and that varies with the type of pictures you want to make.

My photographs fall into three categories: "sort of" street, wildlife, and "sort of" landscape. Getting "competently" crafted pictures is indeed pretty basic, but the difficulties, and the nature of those difficulties, to get beyond competent and match my visualisation, varies greatly with category.

"Things" can be produced by accident, but I don't think they can be identified or appreciated as art, by accident., even if some, might suggest they have been identified as art in error.

Artists can create circumstances to direct and generate happy accidents e.g. ICM, but as you say, it's up to the artist to decide which accidents are embraced as art.

With "Found art" it's probably similar, as it's recognition of being art and its subsequent treatment that allows it to be labelled art.
 
Phil V said:
We get into the murky area of discussing the nature of art. But I would say the modern world has completely detached craft from art. And much art nowadays owes nothing to ‘craft’.
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I am currently wading through reading a chapter on pre-modern, modern and post-modern art, and it's tricky to know if the lack of craft in some current art (post-modern) is part of the message, or just a lack of skill.
 
droj said:
But can art ever be produced by accident?
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An infinite number of apes taking an infinite number of photographs (humans with phone cameras? :D) certainly could produce art by accident.

droj said:
Indeed, an artist must embrace accident, and incorporate or reject it.
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The photographer who stands in one place where they think something might pass by or an incident happen who gets a good shot as a result is lucky in to the extent that something did happen, but the result isn't pure luck.I prefer to think of this as using 'chance' rather than 'accident'. An artist will put them in a position, or set up a system, that is likely to create something 'interesting' - either as an end in itself or as a springboard. Luck is when you get a shot that you could never have planned - such as a weasel on the back of a woodpecker.

In various places Brian Eno said that the artist has to be ready to use accidents when they happen. e.g. "I don’t really believe in luck; things happen to everyone, but you have to be ready for them." https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...nt-get-much-of-a-thrill-out-of-spending-money
 
I think of craft as the skills that let you do what you want. This happens at all skill levels, from beginner to World class. Art is something else that turns it into something with a meaning. You can't consistently produce art without developing skills. But the most technically proficient picture can still say nothing.
 
Erty said:
I think of craft as the skills that let you do what you want. This happens at all skill levels, from beginner to World class. Art is something else that turns it into something with a meaning. You can't consistently produce art without developing skills. But the most technically proficient picture can still say nothing.
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That is so well put.
 
Erty said:
I think of craft as the skills that let you do what you want. This happens at all skill levels, from beginner to World class. Art is something else that turns it into something with a meaning. You can't consistently produce art without developing skills. But the most technically proficient picture can still say nothing.
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Yes, fully agree with this. There is a big difference between producing consistently good work, and achieving a "one off" success.
 
Wainb said:
How did you learn about photography?
Did you attend college course, YouTube or by trial and error.
I think I know the very basics,but want to learn more.
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I'm a deaf person. In 1985 I decided I want to do photography as a career. But back then, many people discriminated against me by telling me I can't be a photographer because of the need to communicate. The teachers, career advisers, social workers, and even my own family weren't very supportive.

I keep up the pressure on them that I want to get into college to study photography, but I ended up on a training course working for a professional photographer, instead of a proper college course.

So, for me, generally I learn in parts from college, from the professional photographer, and mostly by myself like self training. For my self-learning, it was done from books, magazines, and by trail and error.
 
When I was a boy my parents bought me a Kodak Instamatic 36 and I loved it. One day I took a picture of one of my sisters stroking a horse with the sun behind them and they came out almost in silhouette and when I saw the picture I realised that I could take pictures which weren't just a snap shot capture of reality. That was the moment it became more interesting for me.
 
I learned mostly by trial and error, way back a book called understanding exposure helped a lot.

Have been shooting for over 10 years professionally now.
 
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