what are your thoughts about majoring in photography/Art?

Toua80 said:

Worth it? A waste?

A few friends asked me this and I told them it would be a complete waste of time and $$$. Photography/Art can be self taught quite easily. Speaking of waste, I wish I had majored in mechanical engineering or something in the Information Technology field instead of graphic arts. arrgg. A buddy and I both attended the same school. He majored in Network engineering. Yeah, he's probably making well over $60/yr now. :/

My sister is currently a graphic arts major and couldn't talk her out of it. She will regret it later when she's only making $12-13/hr with a BA vs a registered nurse making $20/hr+ out of college.

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I forgot to mention it in my much longer reply, but two graphic design majors who worked for me landed jobs with very good pay after graduation.

A modern graphic design program includes art and design classes, photography, sometimes video, computer aided drafting (CAD), Web design and more. One of these students got a job with a local marketing firm doing Web design. The other got a job as a CAD drafter at an engineering firm (a job he may be too creative for, but he understands paying your dues to get some experience).

So if your sister shares your concern, why suggest nursing if she is passionate about art? Does her school have a graphic design program? She could still minor (or double major) in fine arts... Pretty easily since the programs will have some courses in common.

I had a lot of friends who were fine arts majors in college and graduated about 20 years ago. Some of them are quite successful as artists or art teachers , but they were okay with the fact that it probably wouldn't be very stable and that there would be very lean times. One was from a family with enough money that it didn't matter. One chose to pursue crafting wood furniture and built a successful business there. Some art majors choose to go back to school for advanced fine arts degrees or for something different: Architecture, culinary school, Web and software development, and yes...probably nursing school.

Higher education gives you a unique opportunity to follow your passion in an accelerated and intense way that you never really get back until you retire. I sure wish I had majored or minored in photography. I majored in English and later switched to Communications because even in the mid 1990's that included some technology. I ended up in the tech industry because the opportunities were there when I graduated and employers didn't care what you majored in as long as you could set up a computer and make it talk to the network. It has been a stable career with good pay and benefits. I do enjoy it, but I'm definitely not passionate about it. Having a job you are passionate about is a luxury most can't afford, but I still envy and admire those who have made it happen.

Sean

Toua80 said:

Worth it? A waste?

A few friends asked me this and I told them it would be a complete waste of time and $$$. Photography/Art can be self taught quite easily. Speaking of waste, I wish I had majored in mechanical engineering or something in the Information Technology field instead of graphic arts. arrgg. A buddy and I both attended the same school. He majored in Network engineering. Yeah, he's probably making well over $60/yr now. :/

My sister is currently a graphic arts major and couldn't talk her out of it. She will regret it later when she's only making $12-13/hr with a BA vs a registered nurse making $20/hr+ out of college.

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Yes, let's all be nurses. We'll all treat each other and we'll all be successful. Huzzah! You fixed the economy!

Photography seems like a pretty good major. There are actually jobs in photography, many of them. There are even more jobs in graphic design. But you have to be good. You can't just get the degree and be gauranteed a job, like you can with nursing (until there's a glut of nurses due to everybody following your advice).

A huge amount of our culture and artifacts and products are created by artists. Every TV show you watch, every advertisement you see, every website you view, every device, every vehicle, every appliance you buy, every building... All made by artists.

M43 Dude said:

Perhaps the worst photographer I know of in my local area is the head of design at my local university. They won an award once and then they rested on their laurels, a lot of people who have studied under them understand this to be true.

People I know who have studied under them have said they learned more collectively about design principles between themselves than what they ever did learn studying design principles under this particular lecturer.

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The main reason to go on a university course in art or design is that you can learn from and be inspired by the other students. If you get a good lecturer, that is a bonus.

M43 Dude said:

You can learn a lot about design principles and how to take a good photo in university and the theory behind it, but most of it is irrelevant to what you actually do in terms of practical photography as others have said.

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Design principles are perhaps more useful for graphic designers than for photographers. The most useful thing photography students can learn is studio techniques. It is difficult, for instance, to get experience of shooting a car in a studio to a professional standard if you are self-taught.

M43 Dude said:

Sometimes lecture theaters are for people who can't make it anywhere else, but not always. There are great lecture theater orators like Feynman who I could listen to for hours despite not having a mind that is built for doing physics.

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Formal lectures are perhaps the least useful part of most courses, except (as you say) for the few excellent lecturers. Studio and laboratory sessions and small-group or solo tutorials are the core of a good course.

M43 Dude said:

In the end it might be a case of going to an open day and getting an idea of the type of staff at your local universities, not just one, but all of them in your area and then deciding whether/which school is actually any good in your area and whether its worth your time and money investing in further tertiary study in the Photography/Art.

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Loving what you do is worth more in the long run than wishing you were somewhere else 8 hours away for 30-40 years.

Toua80 said:

Worth it? A waste?

A few friends asked me this and I told them it would be a complete waste of time and $$$. Photography/Art can be self taught quite easily. Speaking of waste, I wish I had majored in mechanical engineering or something in the Information Technology field instead of graphic arts. arrgg. A buddy and I both attended the same school. He majored in Network engineering. Yeah, he's probably making well over $60/yr now. :/

My sister is currently a graphic arts major and couldn't talk her out of it. She will regret it later when she's only making $12-13/hr with a BA vs a registered nurse making $20/hr+ out of college.

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I'm a rarity in that I've both a bachelors and masters in photojournalism. I took classes in photographic art, studio, history, ethics and law, layout and design, photojournalism, advertising, audio/visual and more in college. I've been shooting professionally for 30+ years. For me, it was worth it.

The broad base of education was vital for my long-term career. It would take freaking forever to learn this stuff piecemeal on your own. And, back when I started out, newspapers usually did not hire you unless you had a college degree.

Not saying you can't make a living--even a good living--with a camera by learning on your own. But a solid education can help you make the most of your skills and talent over the long term.

Here's a shot I asked a photography student with a Canon DSLR to take so I could show my landlord the tulips I planted in the backyard.

Below it is a shot of the same tulips taken with a 2MP Sony point and shoot by someone without a lick of training in photography.

If you want a piece of paper, go to school. If you want to do photography, get a camera.

Study cosmetic dentistry! Or invest in lawn gear and become a garden landscaper.

If school and rent were free, and the job market did not mind whether you were 20 or 60, or whether you tried and abandoned one discipline after another, it would not matter.

Specific academic degress are an obligatory path to only a few professions, such as medicine. Public accounting prescribes certain courses, but no particular degree. Law without a law degree is difficult, but a law degree does not guarantee a job. Everything else is OTJ or DIY. An academic degree is nothing more than a way for recruiters to screen whom can finish a four-year task and not screw up. Wal-Mart prefers unpretentious HS grads.

See any of want-ads for photographers? Mainly scams. Someone is poaching for free photographic samples or perhaps wants you to sell something to third parties on commission.

The median pay of people who actually do work as photographers is about $13 / hour , but likely to be highly seasonal. That is below the $17 / median for all occupations, skilled or unskilled.

It is simply untrue that people who studied "art" are happier than others. What they end up doing probably had nothing to do with what they studied, likely at a time when the costs were lower and job prospects more generous.

On the other hand, there is an art to doing anything well enough to earn a living.

Toua80 said:

Worth it? A waste?

A few friends asked me this and I told them it would be a complete waste of time and $$$.

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If you friends are living on a trust fund from daddy & mommy then they might find it fun, intellectually rewarding, and possibly even a bit useful in the real world. If their goal is to earn a living as a photographer there are better paths to take.

I suggest asking this question in the Pro Forum.

M43 Dude said:

I have an Arts degree and I value what I've learned, but as a direct pathway, majoring in political science and history leads you exactly to a point where you have to consider yourself. Are you actually broadly employable?

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Hey,

Majoring in Political Science and History, that's what I did (see gear list).

Toua80 said:

Worth it? A waste?

A few friends asked me this and I told them it would be a complete waste of time and $$$. Photography/Art can be self taught quite easily. Speaking of waste, I wish I had majored in mechanical engineering or something in the Information Technology field instead of graphic arts. arrgg. A buddy and I both attended the same school. He majored in Network engineering. Yeah, he's probably making well over $60/yr now. :/

My sister is currently a graphic arts major and couldn't talk her out of it. She will regret it later when she's only making $12-13/hr with a BA vs a registered nurse making $20/hr+ out of college.

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I think your pretty much on the money. I'm not saying that study in the art won't give you a better eye then many of us have. If your out to make a great living then forget it, unless your the best of the best. If your doing it for the pure love of the art, then it might be your deal. Lets face it, there have been some great artist that lived at poverty level to full fill their artistic needs. Most were never discovered until after their death. A shame but it is what it is.

The chances of making a career of photography are slim. Being pragmatic and learning to be an engineer or math teacher would be a much smarter path.

Midwest said:

The chances of making a career of photography are slim. Being pragmatic and learning to be an engineer or math teacher would be a much smarter path.

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On the resume, it may help when the last line reads

Hobby: Photography.

I am a photographer and have been since before I went to college aged 19.

It has a downside the is not financial, but social. Your life is not lived normally because it is a life spent observing others living their lives.

You will make fewer friends, you will have many fewer individual unique experiences. Because you cease to live without the camera. going somewhere for its own sake, becomes odd. You go travelling BECAUSE you can record the world and make pictures of its amazingterribless.

There you have the downside: the occupational hazards attached also include the highest mortality rate of any profession, and the failure of relationships because you are not there, for very good reasons, when you should be.

There are MANY further downsides if you engage in advertizing or fashion, but they stem from the same roots.

Now, on the other hand, you meet loads of people you would not even have access to at all.

They accept your presence in your function of recording them though, no more than that!

You can also work in EVERY SINGLE AREA of human activity, as well as all non-human areas (the plant and animal kingdoms, and the sea) And you can DO THEM ALL.

Few jobs are that varied or that cool.

Women have also the advantage of being able to photograph kids playing etc without being arrested as a paedophile (don't blame the policeman, blame the "newspapers and the Media for all this).

Women can also access more easily women-centred activities because they are women, so they have in fact many more opportunities than men to work .

And if they do not make much money out of it their chances of finding or of being discovered by a rich partner are greater than average (think Linda McCartney etc)

Now you DO know....

I can comment on this from a background of 50 years working with words and images. First in ad agencies, then as a technical writer/illustrator, then as a Fortune 500 multimedia designer -- webpages, websites, and engineering e-learning projects.

For skills, a 2-year junior college. As I see it, the only value to a 4-year degree would be to position you for another year to get a master's degree and then become a teacher. Whether this would be worth the cost is a moot point, as there are a scarcity of art-teacher jobs.

As for making a good income -- that is certainly possible. Very, very important to take writing and English composition courses along with your art or photography skills courses. Because, let's say in an ad agency, if you can write copy as well as do art and take photos, you will go up the ladder -- fast. In many instances, you'll save your agency money as they just won't have to hire a 'real' pro photographer, for simple product shots.

Following the 'value-added' theme... practical art and photography skills will get you rapid raises in many professions. Marketing communicator. Technical writer. It's simple -- just follow the money. The F-35 fighter jet program will last for at least 20 years and is funded for billions of dollars. Within that, there is all kinds of very highly paid work for artists-photographers-writers. Sweet spot? Making PowerPoint presentations for Pentagon brass.

Highest income? Jobs with tight deadlines. Example -- making brochure art and PowerPoint presentations for IPO financial roadshows. Making ads for print publications with drop-dead press deadlines, which is why ads make you much more money than brochures. Jobs where the artwork is essential to a sale... like a PowerPoint presentation for Boeing, competing with Airbus for a huge jet tanker contract. You get the idea.

Most opportunity? Wherever there is uncertainty and chaos. New technologies without developed rules. Get a job doing art for a 3D printing company. Or a drone company. Or a personal-genetics-modification company. Or, right now, for Google Glass... right now, when the project's on hold... you can ride it right up to the top once it gets going again.

Caution -- watch out for motion graphics and video. Hollywood special-effects, all that wireframy stuff, is a price-whore game... the studios always pounding on the creatives for new effects at less cost. And video can be a can of worms, because of the extreme difficulty of making edits to a finalized product. Clients always want to make last-minute edits, but they don't want to pay for difficult edits at the same rate charged for the initial development.

Photography as a career in itself? I wouldn't go near it. Always project ahead 3 to 5 years, and what do you see? Inexpensive smartphones with decent lenses, able to take pix more than good enough for web display or Xerox Docucolor digital printing. With many Lightroom-lite apps dirt cheap. So you'll see EVERYBODY saying they are a pro photographer, even worse than today. But.. photography as a key part of your skill set? Invaluable!

Brad Bohland said:

Here's a shot I asked a photography student with a Canon DSLR to take so I could show my landlord the tulips I planted in the backyard.

Below it is a shot of the same tulips taken with a 2MP Sony point and shoot by someone without a lick of training in photography.

If you want a piece of paper, go to school. If you want to do photography, get a camera.

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May I suggest to you that the first shot is a better photograph and also meets the specification better?

FingerPainter said:

Brad Bohland said:

Here's a shot I asked a photography student with a Canon DSLR to take so I could show my landlord the tulips I planted in the backyard.

Below it is a shot of the same tulips taken with a 2MP Sony point and shoot by someone without a lick of training in photography.

If you want a piece of paper, go to school. If you want to do photography, get a camera.

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May I suggest to you that the first shot is a better photograph and also meets the specification better?

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I'm not crazy about either shot, but at least the first photo provides some context while the flowers in the second photo could be anywhere. I wish the rootbeer can wasn't in that first shot, but perhaps it has some significance I am not aware of.

Unfortunately being a student of something doesn't mean you have learned all you can learn. Someone who has the desire may learn more self-teaching and through experience than a student who is just coasting through their classes. A degree should represent a certain level of competency, but not necisarrily talent or passion. Perhaps Brad needed to find a better student ;-)

Sean

Toua80 said:

Worth it? A waste?

A few friends asked me this and I told them it would be a complete waste of time and $$$. Photography/Art can be self taught quite easily. Speaking of waste, I wish I had majored in mechanical engineering or something in the Information Technology field instead of graphic arts. arrgg. A buddy and I both attended the same school. He majored in Network engineering. Yeah, he's probably making well over $60/yr now. :/

My sister is currently a graphic arts major and couldn't talk her out of it. She will regret it later when she's only making $12-13/hr with a BA vs a registered nurse making $20/hr+ out of college.

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A nurse has the autonomy to leave a job, take a break, live anywhere and easily find well paid
employment, even study for a BA in photography. A struggling photographing will have to take
whatever is offered, where and when. Would you really like to live like that.

Some people are exceptional photographers and do well. This problem is the kids studying this
think their exceptional. You would constantly be de-skilled by new technology eg 5K 60fps raw
video cams so everyone can capture the decisive moment, iso 50K etc

Get a meal ticket first and then do the fun stuff.

tags said:

Becoming a "pro" photographer is like becoming a pro musician. Most successful people in the field didn't go to professional school to learn their craft.. they just practiced and practiced and made the changes necessary (and the risks too) to earn a living with their passion. Any aspiring professional photographer should have, at the very least, a solid back up career that they actively pursue

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This is not true for classical music--most professionals get a masters degree. However, I would (as a professional musician) advise someone to borrow money to go into classical music.

People interested in art should research the average debt loads carried by graduates, and the costs for the art schools. I believe one of the highest was an art school, either in Chicago or Cleveland.

Having to pay $500-1000 a month back for 10-20 years is absolutely crippling and depressing. Forget a house, decent car, saving for retirement, or many other things.

And one more thing: don't ruin a perfectly good hobby, especially when said hobby involves a fully saturated market.

If you want to make photography your profession, I'd highly recommend that you take courses DIRECTLY related to photography from taking the image, processing the image, and probably as important or more so, how to do it as a business. Doing it as a business makes you look through the viewfinder with a different perspective.

My son got his degree in International Studies and is now a pro shooter....real tie in there. He had some classes in photography, but nothing in the business side of it and that's been the most difficult part for him. He has 21 weddings booked for this year already, so he's up to his hips in busy and proof that it can be done. But it's HARD work and very time consuming. His next step is to hire a full time assistant. He has a part timer now, but because it's part time, he can't be sure that she'll be there.

Anyway, do your research and you'll be successful.

David