Photography course for beginners in Dublin?

ahnow

Hi there, I'm looking for recommendations for a decent part time photography course for total beginners in the Dublin area?

jaansu

Did a couple of courses with the Institute of Photography. Really good for beginners and improvers.


http://www.iop.ie/

ahnow

Great! Thank you!

Kevin_Lucan

I've heard awful things about this course... No direct experience knowing people who've been on the courses i'd steer clear of these guys.

MarkN

Strange that you'd register to post a negative reply. If you want to help the OP perhaps give a bit more information regarding why you have that opinion...

Kevin_Lucan

I was being deliberately vague as there is a big legal case going on and I don't want to get anyone in trouble. They have a one year course currently running which has resulted in at least 17 of the 24 students who started the course, dropping out.

Just trying to be helpful and I stand-over my original advice. Happy to PM the op if they want more info.

Tiriel

Mod note: posts unapproved. Kevin_Lucan, please PM if you wish to discuss.

Dades

Admin note: After consultation with Cork_girl we're going to reinstate Kevin_Lucan's posts as they do represent feedback of interest to the OP.

Caveat:

ahnow - the negative posts on the course in question are obviously based on hearsay. A bit of digging elsewhere and you should be able to verify the veracity of what has been suggested. PM the poster for more information if you haven't already.

Thanks.

ahnow

If anyone has any more recommendations that would be great!

Laneyh

Hi,

Do you have a digital SLR?
I did a short course in Ballsbridge college of further education which was very good.
This wasn't specific to DSLR though this was just for digital photography
The tutor was very good and encouraged us to bring in photos we weren't happy with for us to review.

So, if it is just general tips and tricks an evening course like that at one of the VEC places could be good.

I also did a weekend workshop in The Joinery in Arbour Hill. This cost around €80 and was very good. The curator of The Joinery Miranda Driscoll is a photographer.
Even though it was only 2 days I gained a lot from it.
We went through the theory in the morning and then went out to apply what we'd learned in the afternoon.

The IOP are probably ok for shorter courses as they've run a lot of them at this point. However, I personally didn't have a great experience on the course I took with them. Aside from anything else I don't think it's conducive to bonding with your classmates and developing skills or relationships with like minded people beyond the scope of the class itself.
Honestly, I think a correspondence course would be better.


My personal recommendation would be to think about a camera club in your area.
Unless the joining fee is extortionate I think this would be a good way to go.

There are also meetup and facebook groups for photographers in Dublin.
They run workshops, talks and outings on a regular basis.

So, if you were getting the basics from an evening course or camera club you could top-up that knowledge through those other groups which are by in large free to join.

If you find any courses or clubs and want an opinion on it feel free to PM me or reply here and if I know about it I'll offer my opinion

Best of luck

Kevin_Lucan

Just thought I'd give an update on this as it seems to be escalating and I mentioned earlier that I would.

The IOP's Facebook page seemed to have been very active, over the past few days, with complaints from current and ex-students. The owner and page manage has now disabled all reviews and you can no longer see them. They are still visible on mobile versions of his site, but I'm not sure for how long they'll remain there. Not sure the rules on posting links, so I won't.

The reviews are (or were) scathing, to put it nicely.