St. John's (Cork) Photography Night Courses

Buceph

Anyone ever do any of these night courses? I've been thinking of doing a proper course. Less because of the actual technical details and teaching and more because I find I work better when I have a purpose and something to achieve.

They offer two courses that seem interesting, one called Digital Photography and one called Photographic Techniques. I tracked down their course outlines and you can look at them here if you want;
Photographic Techniques - http://www.corkvec.ie/upskilling/documents/N22809-Photographictechniques.pdf
Digital Photography - http://www.ofi.ie/course_modules/L22565.pdf
These may not be from the St. Johns' site but they have the same course name and code and I figure they're the national syllabus for that particular course.

The Digital Photography one goes into manipulating the photo using Photoshop and the like. I talked to the instructor and he said the course starts out with the basics, and I figure I'd be pretty bored with that, but he said it picks up quite quickly and gets into what makes good images and talking about what people have taken.

The Photographic Techniques one seem to be more about getting the image in the first place and having a good image come straight out of the camera. I'm leaning towards that one myself as I think the discipline needed in achieving that task would put a little extra pressure on me, and have me work harder.

As I said, I'm not planning on doing these purely because of the learning involved. I've read plenty on the theory of photography. I'm more doing them because when I have a project to work on and a portfolio to build being under direct tutelage means I have more get up and go.

If anyone has experience with St. Johns (full time or night courses) I'd appreciate hearing it.

colblimp

Ah now, I find it hard to believe you need to take the second course after seeing your stuff after the Photowalk!

The Photoshop course, however, looks interesting...

Buceph

Cheers for the compliment Colblimp.

Like I said, it's more for having a reason to go out and take the shnaps. Even if I know all about ISO to aperture to shutter speed, this will have me putting together photographs for a project book and on a theme. And I figure that the continued weekly feedback on that kind of stuff is good. Plus I'll actually go out hail, rain or shine to get the photos for it if I'm doing them for a purpose.

I'm sitting at home doing nothing anyway. I'm going to be doing a course on something to have a reason to go out other than drinking (and games.) I figure this could be decent.

colblimp

You make a good point. Go for it, then!

Buceph

Just signed up to the Photographic Techniques one. It includes darkroom work.

I'll have to get the aul fella to lend me his old SLR or buy an old manual system.

I'm so excited.

Buceph

The course I signed up to, involving dark room work was cancelled. Only three people signed up to it.


It really is the death of film.

Necronomicon

Check out this brochure for photography courses in the College of Commerce:

http://www.corkcollegeofcommerce.ie/UserFiles/file/Evening/Courses2011/page47.pdf

I did the last one on that page: "Improvers-Advanced Film/Digital Artistic Photography Course". I wouldn't say it gave me any eureka moments or that I improved tenfold, but I did learn a few things. The best thing was being in that collaborative setting with other photography enthusiasts, and being forced to undertake assignments every week. That sounds like something you're looking for yourself.

At €100 you can't go too far wrong to give it a chance anyway. It starts on October 3rd.