Are you self taught or did you formal training?

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Originally Posted by Sirius Glass

Exactly my first response. I answered "Yes and no", but I only took one class. Is being told or shown how to do something count as a class? :confused:

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and that is the correct box you selected. But I see the point you are making.... Was it a one class deal, or did you just take the one class and didn't do the rest?

What option "A" means is NO INSTRUCTION BY A PHYSICAL PERSON, written word, trial and error ON YOUR OWN.

but like I said earlier, we are all still learning,whether we are, formally educated, on your own with books, or somewhere in between (via short courses, workshops, assisting a professional, belonging to a camera club etc.) to claim one is fully learned is a lie (or you are some super genius or something), wouldn't you agree?

I do apologize if I worded it badly.

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Originally Posted by Ricus.stormfire

and that is the correct box you selected. But I see the point you are making.... Was it a one class deal, or did you just take the one class and didn't do the rest?

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One one day class

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Originally Posted by Sirius Glass

One one day class

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Yes that would count as a "workshop" to use a loose term, so "Yes ans No" is correct

I took a rec program class when I was home from college during the summer years ago but I don't really consider that formal training. Pretty much everything I've learned recently is from the internet (youtube and a lot of help from apug), books and DVD's.

I'm a sexual deviant.... Definitely yes.. Hehe


~Stone

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Originally Posted by Ricus.stormfire

What option "A" means is NO INSTRUCTION BY A PHYSICAL PERSON, written word, trial and error ON YOUR OWN.

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Most people I think would consider self-directed book-learning to be "self taught". Obviously none of us has rediscovered the whole of photographic history and technology, we had to learn it from someone else.

I would expect the majority "self taught" responses would probably indicate this interpretation - it just means they've been to no classes or workshops.

Self taught is a meaningless term.

The only way to be self taught is to live on another planet with no instruction available from any source, no books, no DVDs, no friends, no mentors, no other photographers work to examine .....nothing.

The minute you receive instruction from any source you are no longer "self taught".

The difference between going to a school for a few years, and doing what I did, is that I controlled the curriculum. I made the decision who to see, who to train with and what instruction I wanted to receive.

I'm not knocking the original posts interest in how the members here learned, but there are many answers to this kind of question. People that attended formal schools still very often have self directed learning after they graduate. People who didn't have formal schooling still can learn a lot more in self directed learning by choosing their own avenues for learning and their own teachers from various workshops. A person "self taught" can still read all the text books that a formal school students learns from. A person can apprentice with a working photographer and learn more that any person in a formal school will learn.

I think it is counter productive to bicker about the finer meaning of the term "self-taught". I'm pretty sure that we all understand what is meant by "self taught" and that we all have pretty much the same understanding. Give the guy a break...let's not degenerate into a group of grumpy old men engaging in one long, multi-episode pissing contest.

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Originally Posted by blansky

A person can apprentice with a working photographer and learn more that any person in a formal school will learn.

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I don't know you could say "more" - certainly different. What someone who attends Brooks Institute will learn is very different from what someone who attends RISD will learn, and both are different from an apprenticeship, because the apprenticeship will show you how ONE photographer who makes a living from it works, complete with good AND bad habits. Some things you'll get much faster, studying under the working pro, others, maybe not at all, and yet others you'll get non-standard approaches because they're what works for that individual, but you may never know WHY he/she did it that way because they either never thought about it or they don't know how to articulate it.

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Originally Posted by lancekingphoto

As others have pointed out, I think "self-taught" is a bit of an oxymoron. You can't teach yourself what you don't know

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It's called experimentation. Most of what I know professionally I learned that way. Nobody taught me.