The Photo Student Handbook

Essential Advice on Learning Photography and Launching Your Career Path

Garin Horner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000418378
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Arte
• Subtopic: Técnicas fotográficas

The Photo Student Handbook is a collection of short, easy-to-read chapters filled with expert advice on enhancing image-making skills and launching a career as a professional photographer.

Designed to help students grow beyond the technical aspects of photography, this book presents a variety of methods and strategies proven to strengthen visual awareness, engage creative thinking, and deepen the conceptual aspects of image-making. Topics include how to:

- improve the ability to see actively

- understand light as a main character

- cultivate a creative mind

- make a standout portfolio

- unpack critical theory

- find and develop a creative voice.

Packed with valuable tips, insights, and advice from over a hundred instructors, professionals, senior students, and experts, this book is engineered to help instructors guide students step-by-step through the methods and strategies needed to achieve creative success both in the classroom and the real world.

This book is ideal for intermediate- and advanced-level photography students and instructors alike. Visit the accompanying website www.photostudent.net for extra chapters, exercises, quizzes, and more.

Part 1

Explore

1 This Book’s Audience

Students and Instructors

DOI: 10.4324/9781003106685-1

This book was written for two audiences: intermediate- to advanced-level photography students and their instructors. The Photo Student Handbook (TPSH) is designed as an essential guide for learners who want to take their photography practice to a level beyond a basic technical understanding. It is a collection of short, easy-to-read chapters filled with expert advice on how to enhance one’s image-making skills. TPSH takes a unique approach. It is meant to help students excel in their photography education by providing a variety of methods and strategies that have been proven to strengthen visual awareness, engage creative thinking, and deepen the conceptual aspects of image-making. Combined with the guidance of photo instructors, the approaches in this handbook will help students avoid pitfalls that can slow progress and drag down grades.

For Students

This book delivers valuable tips and insights from over a hundred instructors, professionals, senior students, and experts. In these chapters you will discover thousands of years of combined knowledge, experience, and advice. All this is compiled into a single book, designed to be your helpful companion as you encounter ideas that promote personal and conceptual growth in your photography practice. In every section there are opportunities to expand your understanding and appreciation for photography by exploring how your ideas fit within the continuum of the photo-historical timeline.

This book was written for any student that believes photography is an important part of their life and will continue to play an important role in their future. At the same time, TPSH will guide you toward your own unique approach that will become the foundation for an individual photographic style. With that style, you can capitalize on applying your skills, abilities, and knowledge as part of a future career.

TPSH is intended to support/enhance the course design and teaching methods of your instructor. For example, when instructors provide learning opportunities, this book offers strategies to help you take full advantage of those learning opportunities. In these chapters there are innovative solutions to the challenges that can arise in your photography practice. If you want to heighten your creative abilities, find a path in photography, and improve the quality of your portfolio, then continue reading.

This book is intended for students who want to learn how to:

1. Use photographic tools to translate creative ideas and perceptions into photographic images.
2. Prepare for a fulfilling career that includes photography.
3. Discover a personal, unique photographic style or creative voice.
4. Use proven methods to enhance perception and visual awareness.
5. Make steady progress toward achieving higher grades.
6. Develop the confidence needed to take creative risks, while understanding why risks are important for artistic growth.
7. Apply expert advice on how to achieve your creative and academic goals.
8. Produce a standout portfolio, and more.

In addition, this book can relieve stress and anxiety by helping learners feel more prepared for the expectations of a rigorous photo program. In every curriculum there is a lot of information that’s critical for success. TPSH was written to make sure readers receive the information needed to successfully integrate the advice of experts into an effective photography learning experience.

The first piece of advice is that, before reading, glance at each chapter title and ask, “Why should I care about this?” Ask, “What does this have to do with my life?” Keep these two questions at the forefront of your mind to prepare for learning. For instance, when an instructor says, “Today we are going to learn about proper exposure,” you should ask these two questions. If you are learning about RAW files, color management, contemporary photographers, or critical theory, start with these questions. The reason for this is that, if you understand why you’re learning something, the knowledge will become more meaningful. You will be more willing and motivated to retain what is learned and be able to integrate that knowledge into your understanding. Instructors should provide a little learning incentive by giving their perspective on why this information matters.

For Photo Instructors, Professors, and teachers

The Photo Student Handbook is designed as a personal teaching assistant. The purposes of its contents are to:

1. Introduce a series of intermediate and advanced concepts to students outside the classroom.
2. Help make time available in class to engage students with hands-on active learning.
3. Present instructors with topics for in-class and outside-of-class discussion.
4. Provide a conceptual framework that students can use to gauge their progress.

It doesn’t matter whether teaching happens in a classroom or online – this collection of valuable topics provides an opportunity to take student achievement to the next level. By delivering this learning material outside of class, instructors can spend more time with students interacting and actively engaging in course content. TPSH offers possibilities for instructors to select and integrate any or all of these ideas into their individual curriculums.

The number-one purpose of this book is to support student learning. It encourages students to thoughtfully respond and apply what they are learning. It encourages them to explore the depths of their own creative minds as they become more engaged with the class. With chapters on cultivating creativity, planning and executing assignments, tips for unpacking critical theory, and making a standout portfolio, students can use the book throughout several years of courses and academic levels. It also turns students’ attention toward thinking about the career potential of photography.

There is also a comprehensive www.photostudent.net website that offers students and instructors a wide variety of resources that includes an extensive list of historical and contemporary photographers, a photo reading list, learning exercises, printable study guides, quizzes, four extra chapters, and much more. The website’s Chapter 34 is a Level Up Guide, dedicated to providing a series of defined, scaffolded levels that help students recognize how every level of learning is important for future learning. Terms like “emerging” and “masterful” describe levels of experience that coincide with attaining a sequence of ascending stages of experiential knowledge that reach toward photographic mastery. This is one of the many learning tools designed to help students conceptualize where they are on a scale of hypothetical learning levels and what they have to look forward to when learning in higher levels.

TPSH works well as a companion to The Photography Teacher’s Handbook: Practical Methods for Engaging Students in the Flipped Classroom. The teaching methods in The Photography Teacher’s Handbook complement the learning practices in this book. TPSH is also an effective companion to most conventional textbooks or to online resources that deliver instruction on the technical aspects of photography. TPSH can also be used as a stand-alone resource in the classroom and when teaching courses online.

Photo educators, please note that the content in this text is based on key predictors for student success, such as motivation, engagement with course content, time management, preparation, participation, and the belief in one’s own ability to succeed.¹ Also included are methods for applying current research on how the brain learns and how it generates creative ideas. This text also incorporates Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick’s “Habits of Mind,”² along with learning methods that will complement the teaching strategies discussed in The Photography Teacher’s Handbook.

2 How to Use this Book

Advice on Taking Advice

DOI: 10.4324/9781003106685-2

This chapter is about how to get the most out of this book and provides tips on how to apply the advice you will find throughout these pages. For example, before you can unlock the valuable information contained here, decide how you will read this book. If the book is required for a class, then you will read pages as assigned by your instructor. They will choose which topics and reading sequence best support the course content. Or, if you are a proactive student, then you might want to start reading chapters that interest you most, so you can enhance your class learning experience right now!

You could study the book cover to cover and highlight the points you think will be most helpful in the near future. Then, as the semester goes on, it will be easy to refer to new topics as they come up. You could also read sections on demand, as the topics become more important. For instance, if you need to boost your creative concepts, you can read Chapters 14 to 18. If you aren’t focusing on your career at the moment, then save those topics for later. You will find that the book is designed for a long-term education. This means that there are tips and advice that you can refer back to and use, throughout your entire photography curriculum. How you read the book is based on your course, the advice of your instructor, and your purpose.

As you make your way through the book, you will gain a deeper, more critical understanding of photography. You will also see how being an image-maker can benefit your life. You will learn essential information about how your brain works during the creative image-making process and how to use that knowledge to your benefit. You will discover what kind of photographer you are and how that recognition can awaken your individual, unique photographic style. You will also learn what it means to be a successful student photographer. With this book, and the guidance of your instructors, you’ll go through a 10-step growth cycle, where you will:

1. Consider the purpose, direction, and benefits of your photography practice.
2. Develop your ability to intentionally see, with a sense of awareness and insight.
3. Use those newfound skills to look at and analyze photographs.
4. Make images based on new understandings.
5. Receive helpful feedback from your instructors, classmates, and people in your photographic community.
6. Reflect on what you learn from step 5.
7. Embrace new ways of thinking about photography, especially your own.
8. Contemplate where your photography fits into the conversation of all photography.
9. Apply realizations to revise/upgrade your approach.
10. Start the cycle again.

These 10 steps will help deliver success in your photo classes by supporting your photography practice. They will bring your attention to an ongoing cycle of creative growth, all while laying the foundation for a fulfilling career plan for after college.

To read and learn effectively, you need to see, record, remember, and restate what you learned. To help with that process, here are three useful tips:

1. Keep your phone close at hand, as you will need the Internet. There are two groups of names that appear in the book: those who offer words of advice for your learning; and photographers whose images are given as prime examples for the topics discussed. Go online and do a Google Images search for the names of each photographer you encounter. This will give you a visual reference (see) and a context for what you are learning.
2. Take notes. Either underline, highlight, and write in this book, or keep a notebook where you write down (record) any information you don’t want to forget. Think of recording as saving information as a back-up hard drive for your brain.
3. Try to remember what you just read, and write a few lines to help you remember and restate what you just learned.

It’s beneficial for your growth as an image-maker to look closely at a wide range of photographers’ work. To get the most out of the historical and contemporary image-makers incorporated throughout this book, go to www.photostudent.net > Resources > TPSH Photographers and download the check-off sheet. When you go online and look at a photographer’s work, put a check in the box next to their name. You can also make a brief note about the work to help you make an association between the photographer’s name and their photos.

Now that you have a basic understanding about what this book can offer, let’s consider how you can get the most out of your learning experience. Each chapter contains lots of advice.

To gain the most from any advice, do an experiment and try it out. Put it to the test. If you benefit from it, great – try another piece of advice. If that second recommendation produces positive results, try another. If you reach a point where you feel confident that by acting on the guidance in this book you will gain an advantage with your photography practice, then wonderful! When you feel convinced that what you read will help, this will motivate you to take the leap from reading the advice to actually applying it. Trust your intuition, but also watch for proven results.

The suggestions in this handbook are selected to help you in lots of ways to become a more knowledgeable, purposeful, thoughtful, and conscious student photographer. At the same time, the advice you read will support your path to becoming a masterful image-maker. This book is an invitation to be part of a dynamic collaboration with the people that provided recommendations and your photo instructors. Your instructors are the keys to your success, because they will help you understand, integrate, and internalize all the new things you’ll learn. As part of your learning experience, they will also provide their expertise, knowledge, and connections to the larger photography community.

Your instructors are in a unique position to guide you, because they are familiar with how your work has evolved over time. They know the struggles, stumbling blocks, and successes you have achieved throughout your photography curriculum. Because of this they are able to lead you through exercises that can result in artistic, technical, and even personal growth. Your instructors can offer guidance that is timely, helpful, usable, and specific to your needs because they understand your work and your goals.

Part of getting the most out of your college experience is taking the time to connect with your teachers, instructors, and professors so you can build strong professional relationships. Make it a point to cultivate these relationships. Find one or two trusted instructors that can serve as mentors. A mentor is someone who has achieved a great deal of success because of their level of experience and mastery. This person also sees your potential as an image-maker and is willing to help you achieve the heights of that potential.

Mentors come in all shapes, sizes, and qualities, but a true mentor will feel personally invested in your educational experience and growth. They will provide expert guidance when you need it, open doors when you are ready to walk through, encourage you, and even challenge you to take creative risks that can move you beyond your creative comfort zone and to the next level.

Start now by taking advantage of office hours. Look for instructors you connect with and feel most comfortable with. Find someone who is interested in your work and seems to understand who you are and what you want out of life. Have some face-to-face conversations. Begin a dialogue by stopping by with some questions about a topic you are learning in class, like an assignment or a reading. Find their office, step through the doorway, and say, “Hey, I n...