On Tuesday, August 19, 2003, at 07:23 pm, Tony Sleep wrote:
I'm trying to think if any of the pro photog's I know did photography at
college, or even went to college.
I did !! Colchester School of Art , as it was then , did photography , for a year , then was the first person for 27 years to be thrown out !!
Because : I Argued about a big rollocking I got in a crit , the only reason for which was that I didnt spend 4 weeks on a project , I started 2 days before due date ( I worked in Van Cols dark room for the rest of the month ) and produced (in their/colleges opinion) a perfectly adequate result , but in two days not four weeks , this was always the case that we were given far to long to do 'projects' . The afore mentioned project would be done from start to finish in 1/2 a day by most on this list in the real world.
I now interview about ten to twenty ex college photography students per year , and am still staggered to find the same sort of stuff goes on , they come out of college with very unreal expectations of the photography work' arena' . They are the ones who are interested in working in the game as they have applied for jobs .
They are often slightly arrogent about their own abilities and certainly very ill informed about real jobbing photography , expecting to become fully fledged fashion/car/travel/advertising/space photographers overnight . I do understand that there are people who study for the 'love' of it , and some are very capable 'art' photographers or hobbyists .
I am talking about students who have either been told they should work in the field or have decided for themselves.
Sadly we usually end up taking on people who have had no formal training in photography as they have a much more realistic attitude to the profession , and often , life .
I realise that I am making some generalisations , but this is what I see on the whole , year after year.
Janus
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