College level Photography?

[Bill_1856]

The notice (below) of a LF conference, hosted by a Professor of Photography, suddenly gave me the dumb thought: How on earth can Photography possibly be taught on a college level? Okay -- a semester or two of courses. Maybe even a study of advanced photographic chemistry, and alternate processes, as well as a thorough survey of photographic history. But how in the world can they possibly dedicate a whole curriculum to something which, for all purposes, could be learned from an introductary high school course and a little experience? In fact, most people of my generation, were self-taught. Edward Weston seems to be the only one of the great masters who had any formal training, and that was in commercial portraiture.

[John Kasaian]

Bill,

I don't teach photography, and I've never taken a photography class in my life but if circumstances allowed I'd jump at the chance! FWIW, you probably can't learn "photography" any more than you can learn "art" or for that matter,"brain surgery"but you can learn technique and history and "seeing." While I'm futzing around under my home made dark cloth, I can appreciate the opportunity to be able to study under someone whos "been there, done that and bought the t-shirt." Would it make me a successful photographer? Probably not, but I'd bet it would help me achieve my goal of becoming a better photographer sooner than my current "self taught" route I've embarked on. This assuming you get an instructor who hasn't bought into the Dewey influenced school of education lock stock and barrel. IMHO, those guys (and gals) are a waste of anyone's time. Flee from those scalawags!

[Kirk Gittings]

In all honesty, I wonder sometimes myself and I am a college level professor with a bachelors and masters degree in photography and a cumulative record of 17 years teaching at the University of New Mexico and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

College level photography is not just about technical or professional expertise. It is about that and in the best schools much more. It is about history and aesthetic theory and criticism as well as teaching. It is about creating a critical environment for the developement of one's own way of seeing.

Is it necessary? Of course not-some of the greats had no formal schooling at all. But I loved that structure for learning, because it made me explore things like history in a thorough way that I would not of on my own. And I met some incredible people along the way that greatly influenced and supported me later on.

Does anyone need it? Some do some don't. In some circles it is the dues you have to pay to be a member of some exclusive (bullshit) club. My biggest concern is that I don't think you can legitimately give art grades. It is too subjective. You can give technique or effort grades, but not aesthetics and if you can't really grade it how can you quantify it and give degrees in it?

[mark blackman]

It all depends on your definition of 'college level', I studied for a Phd at a college. As for a Professor of Photography, I doubt if such a post exists anywhere in the UK, there are probably less than 200 professorships in the entire academic field.

[Graeme Hird]

Bill,



Never having done a university degree in Photography myself (or any other
photography course for that matter), I can't speak with authority about
such courses. But there is more to being a commercially successful
photographer than simply taking great pictures (ie technical mastery of the
process).



I would imagine a course in photography prepares the student for life in
the real world, where he or she has to make money from the craft. Things
like business studies and people management would be valuable pieces of
knowledge in the photographers' armoury.



Any fool can make photos: making a living from them is entirely a different
kettle of fish.



Graeme

[Frank Petronio]

Living near the Rochester Institute of Technology, I have many friends who teach photography, and have worked with many graduates of its respected photography program. The George Eastman House also educates interns in related fields like conservation and photo history. Once a year I teach at the Visual Studies Workshop (SUNY) and sometimes do workshops at other places. Even though these are "famous" programs, there is only a small percentage of graduates who actually have long term careers as photographers. The same percentage holds true for most of the other arts programs – painting, graphic design, sculpture, etc. – very few graduates – even of the best schools – go on to have careers in the field.

My opinion is that college arts programs mushroomed in the 1950s - 1960s with the general expansion of colleges due to the post-war baby boom. Many programs were created in order to "fill the colleges with bodies." Not that there isn't a need for high level art education and criticism, but with thousands of colleges offering photo majors, it is overkill. Still, these programs go on because students keep coming, perhaps mistakenly or unrealistic in their expectations. I am always telling my students this, and my advice to them is to get a good general education in the liberal arts or sciences - or to learn a highly-skilled, well paying craft (like plumbing) - if they want to be successful photographers. For example, my 20-year old daughter is studying art conservation in Florence - she'll be able to get a good paying job right out of school, and will have the opportunity to work around the world. It sure beats paying Yale $150K to be a painting major and then having to work at Starbucks.

I think that it is immoral for the professors and colleges to keep propogating the idea that if you come to their program you'll learn to be a successful photographer or artist. I know a lot of these professors and frankly, many of them are professors because they want a steady, secure job that allows them to do art part-time. The few that are passionate teachers are great - but I know for fact that many of them are "deadwood" or politically-correct minority appointees (it really helps to be a black woman so you can leapfrog hundreds of other well-qualified candidates.) I said this to a audience of RIT freshmen once (a "meet the professionals" lecture) and you should have seen their shocked expressions - it's a shame I wasn't invited back...

[Steve Williams_812]

Being a part-time instructor in a School of Visual Arts, a returning adult student in an MFA program, and having been a professional photographer for 20+ years, I have found that I wish I had entered a college program 30 years ago.

I learning photography in the apprentice/self-taught/dumb luck school. It worked, I became a capable professional and made a comfortable living. But it was focused on the technical craft, not by design, but by default because of the assignments I pursued, and the company I kept. I had missed an entire sphere of understanding and investigation that photography can embrace, and I found that when I went into an MFA program around my 46th birthday.

The first thing I discovered was a big chip on my shoulder. My reduction of photography to a perfect image and its commercial value, my death grip on the notion that my pictures "speak for themselves", my utter disdain for any academic utterances of Marxism, feminism, Derrida, Foucault, or the male gaze.... all of this kept me trapped in a safe, predicable, and eventually boring life.

Graduate school for me has been a revelation. I already knew how to run a camera, make a print, how to figure out how to do something. What I didn't know how to do was look at the world and use the camera to help me answer those questions that gnaw on me when I wake up in the middle of the night. It has been a gift.

I changed careers so I could keep my photography to myself. God, how I love to say no to an art director asking me to shoot something. I don't even have to think about it anymore---"NO, I don't do that anymore, I would rather have a sharp stick stuck in my eye..."

I tell my students here in the School of Visual Arts that the photography program is not a place to train to be the next generation of catalog photographers or fashion photographers, or commercial image makers. I tell them that this art program is a place to develp a foundation of craft skills on which they can explore, it is a place to learn where photography fits in the world, where they can begin to deconstruct how visual language works, what they are interested in, and ultimately begin learning to see.

Many graduates go on to work commercially, at magazines, as artists, professionals, etc. But that is never the goal. It just is not a technical school and the facilities reflect that.

Can they learn anything in a college photography program? Yes! David Bayles and Ted Orland's excellent book "Art & Fear" has a great chapter on the academic world of art and photography. It is a great and fun read for anyone, especially if you are wondering why you aren't working more.

thanks,

steve

[Frank Petronio]

Famed photographer (and RISD professor) Harry Callahan once said something along the lines of "you can learn any craft well enough to be a professional in less than a year but you can spend a lifetime perfecting it." I'm not saying that there isn't value in getting a MFA in photography, but, from direct personal experience I've seen a lot of good photographers actually "go backwards" and loose their vision from the influences of the program. Many people tend to "bend their work to fit the program" rather than finding good mentors that encourage independence and self-dicovery. Finding a good program is the hardest part - as well as identifying your learning style. (Good luck Steve - better to be doing it at 46 than 22 IMHO.)

I'm pretty much self-taught but I read nearly everything and did do a few basic classes, plus a lot of painting/drawing/art history/design stuff. The best "school" was Willie Osterman's three-week workshop on using large format. Ted Orland was once of my teachers in Oregon (nice guy) too. He struggles just like we all do though.

[Raymond Bleesz]

Bill et al,

Excellent question & fine answers. As a former high school educator (History & the Social Sciences), I taught an extra curricular class on "photography" in the '70's to my high school students. That experience eventually led me to terminate my being a "teacher" and become a "student" of photography through the school of hard knocks, self taught, & self realization, etc. with a few work shops, classes, conferences here & there over the years. In essence, instead of talking about photography, I determined I wanted to be a "photographer"-------I was listening to my inner self, and I still am--------a very difficult road to hoe & it has been costly in personal life.

I have been envious of those who were able to take academic classes with noteworthy instructors, professors & photographers, etc. In the late '70's, I started the paper work to be admited to ASU for a MFA program & study under Professor Bill Jay, an early mentor, however, I didn't go through with this decision because of circumstances. So I turned to the school of hard knocks,with a workshop now & then. Encouragment came, over the years, from Nathan Lyons, Ruth Orkin, Monsiour Jean Claude Lemangy in Arles, & Professor Ron Wolhauer, (perhaps one of Colorado/Denver's best known photographer/educator who just died of cancer at age 56 last month) to name a few.

I still would jump at the chance to enter a graduate program or go to school again, and I still am hosting that idea & will eventually. The idea of being a "student" has never left me----the Socratic idea of asking questions, seeking answers, of defining who one is. Atget took to the streets of Paris and "did his thing", defining who he was & what took his interest, a way of seeing without formal education.

At age 60, I'm still "searching, studying, reading & being a photographer". I think being a photographer is a way of life, and a way of seeing few people really posses in actuality. I think there is a place at the collegiate level & elsewhere for the study of photography, & to me, it's the academic aspect which is most important. I only wish the academic atmosphere was within a more reachable distance in my life.

up in the mountains of Colorado, Histographer/Photographer, Raymond A. Bleesz

[RichSBV]

As a non-photographer and non-college student, I have possibly other opinions.

There's far more to university/college photography than learning the art/craft from a teacher/professor. The teachers can be good or bad as can be the courses themselves. We can easily learn the craft on our own. We can develop our vision and styles on our own, and to do any good photography we would have to anyway...

What makes the courses valuable in my mind is the human interaction between people of like mind. The basic concept of the university in the first place! We learn more from the interaction of the other students than from the course proper.

I never had the benefit of college. Life just got in the way. If I ever had the chance, I would jump at it just to be among other people who enjoyed photography, and to hopefully learn something I didn't know. I continue to use cameras with the memory of the time I spent in my high school photo club 30+ years ago. I now live in a photographic wilderness. I can go to town or down the road and talk about ATV's, guns, windmills or beer, but I couldn't find someone to talk to about photography if I tried (and I have!). Any form of school or workshop gives us that chance to be among other people with the same interest. And that's where our minds learn and expand with the challenge of conversation and interaction with other people. The internet itself has become a global university in that regard as can be seen right here in these forums. What it lacks is the side by side personal interaction though. We can have the discussions here, but it doesn't help when it comes time to remember to pull the darkslide or figure out a difficult metering situation...

I never was a big fan of what colleges taught in a technical sense. But what they offer the students in spite of themselves is invaluable... People are social by nature. It's how we all live and learn and very few do well alone...

Just an 'uneducated opinion' ;-)