With dismal success taking online photography courses lately, I have discovered a few better (maybe obvious) ways of improving my photography skills.  If you’re in the market for an online course from Betterphoto or PPSOP, I would seriously consider the following as a cheaper and perhaps more effective way of learning. 

First, take time out and participate in some of the many great photography forums around the internet.  I like to check out Dpreview and Nikoncafe since I am a Nikon user, but any photo forum will work well.  Many people who frequent these forums seem to talk mostly about camera gear or lenses however, I recommend to look beyond this and try participating in the “photo challenges”.  Or at the very least upload your photos and ask for feedback.  Believe me!!  You will get much better feedback from doing this than spending lots of money with these online courses.  I really expect much more from online courses, but it’s simply not there.  I found I received much better quality in both good and bad critiques from photo challenges and forums.  Of course, some of the feedback is coming from amateur photographers, but quite frankly their comments cover more range and depth than any of the online courses I have taken from either PPSOP or Betterphoto.  Plus, some amateur photographers are very talented and bright.  Experience may only be the difference and that’s all!

Second, you need to get out and shoot, shoot, shoot!!!  I really believe you need to be out almost everyday shooting your camera.  I make it a point to go out as often as I can.  Then in the evening I sort through my photos and send them to family, friends, upload to my online galleries, or submit them for feedback at photography forums.  I’ve been playing guitar for over 20 years, and what I know in music didn’t come overnight.  I had to practice until my fingers would literally bleed sometimes in order to improve and get to where I wanted to be.  So practice is probably the most important thing you can do.  I took classes from PPSOP and Betterphoto primarily to motivate me to get up and practice shooting my camera.  Both online courses were extremely successful in some form or another in doing this.  Unfortunately they didn’t provide much more than that to want to keep going with the courses.  Perhaps I’ve gained some confidence to the point where I can now start uploading photos to forums and know that they aren’t that bad.  If you are afraid of showing your photos, I can’t recommend taking an online course enough.  They will help you to overcome your shyness or fear of displaying your pictures.  After that, take control and save yourself a ton of money.

Third, I recommend to read, read, and read even more!!  Photography books and picture books are actually very helpful and quite good.  Now that I know that online courses are literally taught word for word from most of these books, I am now confident that I will not miss a thing if I just stick to the photography books or DVDs.  If you don’t believe me, take “Understanding Exposure” at PPSOP and you’ll see what I mean.  I felt I bought a $395 book in that class.  In any event, some fabulous books are coming out and I have snapped up quite a few.  Later I hope to start writing my thoughts on some of the ones I felt have helped me the most.  I have also found the DVDs from both Betterphoto and PPSOP to be quite good as well.  Much better than the $300 plus courses for sure, so definitely save some money and go for the videos first.  Wow!  The DVD should be priced at $395 and the classes at $19.95!!  That is exactly how I feel about the value sometimes.

Participating in forum discussions, creating a gallery, reading photography books, and practicing with your camera are about the best I think one can do to achieve great photographs.  If you need a kick in the pants from someone to get you out shooting, then an online course might be the best thing to try as well.  Or you could simply tell your husband or wife how much all of your camera gear and lenses cost in total.  If either doesn’t give you a swift kick in the pants to get out and photograph, then you may just be in the wrong hobby or profession.    Enjoy and happy hunting!

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Betterphoto.com Review – It’s only fair that if I talk about my PPSOP (Picture Perfect School of Photography) experience, I should also share my Betterphoto experience as well.  With this online school, like PPSOP I had a split experience.  I liked one course very much and another course I took was horrible in my opinion.

The two courses I took were “Intro to Macro: Details & Close-ups” and “Street Photography”.  The main lesson I learned from Betterphoto, much like with PPSOP is that an instructor can really make or break the course.  At Betterphoto the instrutor Kerry Drager who taught “Intro to Macro: Details & Close-ups” was outstanding!!!  His assignments were very clear and his critiques were detailed.  In addition, if you asked questions, he was always eager and very happy to give a thorough answer personally.  In this class you really felt appreciated and Kerry really wanted you to learn.  At PPSOP they say “Failure is not an option”.  Of all my courses, I felt that Kerry at Betterphoto understood this phrase the best.  I really believe ( coming from a large family of teachers ), that a great photographer doesn’t necessarily mean they are great instructors.  Kerry is definitely both and I’m sure all of his students felt that way after the class.  I learned so much from the “Intro to Macro: Details & Close-ups” at Betterphoto especially about myself and my style of photography.  Unfortunately I couldn’t finish the final week of this course due to a business trip, but I still gained a wealth of “new” information from this week.  A lot of other instructors are obviously out to make an extra buck by pushing their books, dvds, workshops, and seminars.  It’s amazing.  What about this class I always ask.

While “Intro to Macro: Details & Close-ups” was fabulous, “Street Photography” for $297 left a lot to be desired.  In fact, after the first few lessons, I just stopped this class.  There were little comments at all to the photos and I felt I was simply uploading images to a gallery.  The instructors were rarely visible and I just felt that “Street Photography” was all about collecting the fee and that’s all.  The course was then left on autopilot.  Another interesting point about this class was the idea of what constitutes a Street Lense.  I asked this question and the answer the instructors gave was a 50mm.  This seemed to make sense, but when using a digital camera, I thought a 35mm or even a 28mm might be better.  This is all subjective I understand, but when asking about whether the crop factor in some digital cameras was a factor the instructors said no.  I beg to differ in that a 50mm with my Nikon D200 left little room for me to shoot in many situations in Japan.  After putting on my 35mm, I felt much better.  Why the instructors didn’t pick up on this I don’t know.  Another thing was that one assignment required the changing of three lenses to accomplish.  You had to have a telephoto, normal, and wide angle lense.  Most students simply used a zoom, walked, or ignored the lesson.  Why?  They didn’t have the three required lenses.  The instructors should have seen this coming and offered alternatives, but again the course seemed to be on autopilot and thus nothing was ever mentioned.  I was so excited about this class in the beginning, but the lack of a fuzzy warm feeling with the instructors left a lot to be desired.  On the internet it is paramount that communication exists.  With “Street Photography” at Betterphoto, communication and visibility with the instructors was greatly lacking.  Great photographers perhaps, but teachers not quite.

Betterphoto is a very clean and well operated website.  I thoroughly enjoyed working with my gallery, navigating around the site, and taking part in some of the public forum discussions.  The website is put together much better than PPSOP in my opinion however PPSOP hasn’t been around that long yet.  Again though, it doesn’t take that long for proper website design to kick in so I do feel that PPSOP is a bit slow in it’s development.  Betterphoto also has a great collection of courses and reputable photographers participating indeed.  The only thing one has to watch out for is “instructor quality”.  The two classes I took at Betterphoto varied greatly with “instructor quality”.  I heard this also from several other students, so I know it’s not just me having issues with the quality of instructors with these online courses.  In fact, I’m only looking for the very basics which includes more thoughtful and detailed critiques about photographs.  Students need postive inspirational feedback no doubt, but they also need valuable information on composition, correct aperture, ISO, shutterspeed, and several other key areas.  This information did not exist in many courses I took online classes from both PPSOP and Betterphoto.  Plus I would beware of courses taught by people with books.  They usually will take the information straight out of the book.  Also beware if the photographer is a professional or has many classes.  They WILL be too busy to adequately look at your photographs.  This was clearly the case with my “Street Photography” at Betterphoto and both “Understanding Exposure” and “My Electronic Flash – The ‘MYSTERY’ Revealed!” at PPSOP (Picture Perfect School of Photography).  One great thing about PPSOP though is that they have quality assistants who actually spend more time with you.  Although I paid for more attention from the main instructor, I didn’t mind if I’m getting good quality feedback from the assistants.  They can be pretty good actually if not downright outstanding.

One final critical point about online courses from both PPSOP and Betterphoto.  The number of students in the class is very important.  Betterphoto has a limit which is essential to getting better attention.  With my “Intro to Macro: Details & Close-ups” class this was very evident.  With “Street Photography” there were fewer students, but the instructors still couldn’t handle this.  I was shocked!!  PPSOP has no limit that I am aware of.  There was a boat load of students in the “Understanding Exposure” course which may have contributed to the lack of detailed feedback and lack of presence from the main instructor.  Lots of money, little product, but thats good for the school I’ll bet.  Sarcasm aside, student numbers is crucial to the effectiveness of any class.  That’s why you don’t see “unlimited” students in our public school systems.   Can you imagine that?  Thumbs up for Betterphoto for at least trying to control the class size and offer better opportunities for both the instructors and students to communicate.  With that said, some classes like “Street Photography” are better left as a private lesson.  Even five students is too much for this set of instructors.  There were actually two instructors in “Street Photography” even.  Terrible!!

Overall I would recommend Betterphoto for sure, but which classes that is difficult.  I wish there were more people writing public feedback about the courses so we could at least get a little information even though we are reading opinions.  Only positive feedback is displayed at Betterphoto of course and you can’t find a lot of info around the Internet.  I really don’t think this is because people love these courses, rather people are just not writing about their experiences enough.  You will not be disappointed with “Intro to Macro: Details & Close-ups”.  I highly recommend that course.

What did I gain?  I tried two popular schools and two classes with each.  I got one great class, one mediocre class, and two terrible classes (one in each).  Both PPSOP and Betterphoto are even in my opinion, but since the best class I took was at Betterphoto, I’m giving them the edge for now.  Good Luck and happy shooting!

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