Posting a few photographs, wondering whether I should pursue a photography degree

Ken and Tasha, you both impress me.

Such a simple thing to share ideas and learned lessons and so valuable.

Asher

I think you still need to ask yourself what you think a degree in photography is going to achieve for yourself. Job? probably not. Learning how to photograph? I could teach you in a single week of workshops more technical stuff than you could ever need. Learning how to see? I'd say an art school would be more valuable for that to be honest. A camera is only just a new type of brush after all.

I think you have to consider your career at this point in life otherwise, like me, you will turn round at 30 years old, married with a kid and have nowhere to turn when your photography career, all you've ever done, is falling in tatters around your feet. I have zero other qualifications and it hurts that approaching middle age I have nowhere to go. It's not fun to have to dedicate the 'fun' years of your life to learning and building a career but those 3 years of college at your age could mean a decade of easier and more fulfilling life just a few years later. Especially when the choice is flipping burgers at McDonalds when your kids want to go to college or even pay for decent dentistry.

Unless you believe that you can make a career out of photography in which case a lot of thought needs to be made into investigating avenues of education (tip: video is the big one for the future and business studies will always trump photography school if you want to make money from photography), you have to treat photography as what it is, a hobby. You don't go to university to learn about your hobby. You do it in parallel to your career as a rewarding distraction.

My father is the Student Chaplain for all the universities in the North of England. I've been around students my entire life, have been one and watched my wife do two degrees. Non vocational degrees are almost always followed by a 'real' degree or for the more comfortable families so that the kids can say they 'did' university before being given a place in the family, or friends of the families business or set up in their own business.

Just something to think about...

And me, I refused to work for a degree in psychology when I was in college because it was not "employable." I started as an English major with some idea of teaching. I then switched to criminalistics. I quit college, spent five years in the work force, and returned part time. My intent was only to finish the BA because it was something I had started and not to launch a career, so I signed up as a psych major.

I wound up with a Ph.D. and 20 plus years in as a professor of psychology. Hence, my advice: Do what you love.

Hardly good advice for a young person seeking a career choice. Do what you love, but be sensible and love something that there is a career in. A vague idea of 'photography' is not enough. The people who make it, really make it, the ones with vision who will weather the collapse of the photographic industry in this economy are very talented, very very good at business skills and very hungry. The employment figures for people out of photography schools in photography is appalling. You can't do what you love if it puts you in the gutter and I forsee from within the industry that only a few will have what it takes in the next decade to survive. A very very talented and lucky few.

If you want to make it in the photography industry as a life career, decide now what genre you want to specialise in, apprentice, do a business studies or marketing degree part time. In the fashion world if you haven't made it by 25 years old, made it big, you're going nowhere. Wedding photography as a full time career is hanging by a thread, an unwinding thread. Medical or police photography requires an MA in photography just to get in on the ladder and the latter is also dying as the equipment gets good enough to train regular officers to do the job. Architectural photography was always a very small niche. Studio photography is also dying as the quality requirements drop and the equipment becomes cheaper and much better. Landscape photography makes money for very few people, usually people who spend much more than they earn. Photojournalism, dying if not already dead. Music photography is as alive as the budgets of the bands and there are very few who can pay enough to support a full time career (my partner works in the music industry)

I can only predict the coming decade, not the decade after which I assume will be even worse. The big guys are saying that students should learn video not photo for their future careers. I can see what they mean. My mentor is a 56 year old PJ, his work is published every week in two of the biggest UK daily newspapers and he's now looking for workshops and buying a video DSLR, oh he's also looking for another job..

There was a big high tech crash here when the dot com bubble burst. I was in Uni at the time doing computer science. I was about to take out some loans to see me through as the money had run out. I asked myself, when the crash is over, who are the companies going to employ, me. a raw rookie or the people they laid off with 20 years experience. I didn't take the loans, left Uni and took a job as manager of a photo lab which took me to where I am today. I was right but with a difference, they didn't hire anyone when the crash ended, they made the people who stayed work much harder for less pay. There were those who left with that degree and made it big, the super talented with most importantly a vision and the business acumen to have it realised. Oh and let's be honest, the financial backing.

Same in photography, heck of a lot of very talented people out there quitting now. The young people with a vision will replace them but 10 years from now the industry will be much much smaller and far more specialised.

Do what you love but if you loved horses in 1935 then there were only so many jobs left and far too many people who wanted them.

If you love photography then do photography but study art or business so you have a wider field to your knowledge base and skill set should photography not work out or should it turn, as it is already, into something rather different.

1. Commercial photography, in all its various incarnations, is a business.

2. The vast majority of the photography business is the provision of a service, not a product. That's a fundamentally important point to realize. You're in the same class as a plumber, an electrician, a carpenter, a cement mason to the real world.

3. Failure to properly plan, forecast, and effectively diversify you business means that you're just waiting to be destroyed in any marketplace. This is core 101-level business sense that requires a realistic and keen perspective on investment and use of capital. That's why I raised the earlier point about whether or not someone comes from a background of employment versus self-employment and business ownership. Young people who have been raised in business-owning families often have a fundamentally different perspective on money with a better orientation toward investment rather than simply spending.

4. Artistic talent is nice, but it ain't business. Even the art photo world is very much a business. Smart artists hook-up with the best agents and galleries to help manage their business affairs.

5. Most photographers don't fail for lack of talent. Like most other small businesses, they fail for lack of realistic planning, lack of accurate or realistic financial accounting, and under-capitalization. People have a tendency to walk straight into the headlamp of an oncoming train.

But you all missed my point. I don't expect Tasha to necessarily become a pro photographer. How many students do you know that go on to have a career specifically in their major field? Who knows where Tasha might take her knowledge and her degree?

Anyway, that's my advice and Tasha is welcome to take it or disregard it as she will. I wish her good luck whatever route she takes.

Ken Tanaka said:

1. Commercial photography, in all its various incarnations, is a business.

2. The vast majority of the photography business is the provision of a service, not a product. That's a fundamentally important point to realize. You're in the same class as a plumber, an electrician, a carpenter, a cement mason to the real world.

3. Failure to properly plan, forecast, and effectively diversify you business means that you're just waiting to be destroyed in any marketplace. This is core 101-level business sense that requires a realistic and keen perspective on investment and use of capital. That's why I raised the earlier point about whether or not someone comes from a background of employment versus self-employment and business ownership. Young people who have been raised in business-owning families often have a fundamentally different perspective on money with a better orientation toward investment rather than simply spending.

4. Artistic talent is nice, but it ain't business. Even the art photo world is very much a business. Smart artists hook-up with the best agents and galleries to help manage their business affairs.

5. Most photographers don't fail for lack of talent. Like most other small businesses, they fail for lack of realistic planning, lack of accurate or realistic financial accounting, and under-capitalization. People have a tendency to walk straight into the headlamp of an oncoming train.

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You can say that again, every single word. Da man speaks the truth!