Should this be about school or photography?

“School was the big thing for a long time. School is tests and credits and notetaking and meeting standards. Learning, on the other hand, is ‘getting it’. It’s the conceptual breakthrough that permits the student to understand it then move on to something else. Learning doesn’t care about workbooks or long checklists.”

This is a direct quote from a blog post over at Seth Godin’s site titled: Should this be about school or about learning?

Let’s take this quote and replace ‘learning’ with the word ‘photography’.

School was the big thing for a long time. School is tests and credits and notetaking and meeting standards. Photography, on the other hand, is ‘getting it’. It’s the conceptual breakthrough that permits the student to understand it then move on to something else. Photography doesn’t care about workbooks or long checklists.

When I was studying photography at college, all every one seemed to worry about was getting good grades for their subjects. The rationale being that if you produced good photography, then you would receive a good grade as a result.

The problem though is this: some times as a student you can play it safe, meet the requirements of the brief and still get a good grade.

This is a problem because a big part of studying photography should be taking risks and trying new techniques and new ways of shooting things. Photography courses are the ideal place to do this, because there is no client that you are producing the work for. It is essentially risk free.

Getting great marks is one thing. Experimenting, making mistakes and learning more about photography and technique is something else. It is the ‘getting it’ part of the quote above.

While passing your subjects is important, remember that no client will ever ask for your report card.

A client will ask you for your portfolio.

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