The start of a career- Highschool photography classes.

I myself began my photography career in high school. Although my first time with the cameras had nothing to do with school, the two would very quickly collide.

As stated in my previous blog which explains my history as a photographer, It began with cars. I then took a class that focuses on business- and quickly brought my photography with me, creating a brand around the work I was creating.

This class did not help with my photography, although it did give me some experience in making websites and graphic design. This would help in my photography career, although this is not most high-schoolers experience with photography in school.

Many will get their start in their school’s photography classes. Here they will learn the fundamentals of exposure, composition, and learn many of the basic techniques of photography. This leads students to learn how to manipulate settings to achieve the desired result, whether it be a multiple/double exposure, long exposure, or simply manipulating the depth of field in a photo.

This is great. Understanding how to capture and image and manipulate the camera and subject to achieve the desired result is absolutely key in producing quality photographs, regardless of the discipline of photography they choose to do.

However, I feel that most photography classes have a major flaw in what they teach- a flaw that almost makes the class useless long-term for the student.

Many of these classes fail to teach photography as it relates to a career- which debatably goes against the point of the class to be a CTE (Career Technical Education) class.

To clarify, I should explain generally what occurs in these classes. Generally, at the beginning of the semester, students will learn the absolute fundamentals of photography- exposure, composition, DOF, etc… As I mentioned, this is fantastic. Understanding these concepts is the first step to growing as a photographer, and opens up the world of photography for the students. However, I think where the class begins to go the wrong way is the application of these concepts.

Students are tasked with creating projects to show the concepts they learn. Often, this is done on small items, such as toys and small objects. I have seen this done many, many times in high school by photography students to demonstrate the basic concepts- but I always wondered- why not just task the students with something that relates to the actual career of photography?

While that example isn’t exactly perfect to show the flaws, it does get the point across. Other projects such as stage, artistic shots of a constructed scene, or a carefully-planned arrangement of people and objects. I understand how this skill can be useful in regards to professional photography- if a student was to move into a professional career, they could utilize photo-planning skills to put subjects in place for group photos for corporate, wedding, and school situations. I myself have had to do this. And placing objects in a posed scene is absolutely a good skill for those who will be doing product photos.

But I have to ask myself- why not just ask students to perform these tasks instead?

Often the answer is creativity. Allowing the student to take photos of things they like versus what is applicable to the real world allows a creative, artistic environment to be created. This is true, and creativity is such a key part of photography in both an artistic and professional sense.

However, this is also the biggest issue I have with photography classes- they are overly artistic and fail to teach students the potential for a career in photography. As far as I have been able to tell, besides creating a portfolio from the projects they create, very little of the necessary skills and knowledge are communicated in the classroom.

And while this may seem unnecessary to tell these teenage students how to make a business out of photography- in a time where such large emphasis is put on Career Technical Education (CTE) and we are pushing students to persuade careers outside of college- teaching students this skill that could potentially lead to a well-paying full-time job (or even just a side gig throughout college or other work!) can be so incredibly influential, or as it was in my case, lifechanging.

But all is not lost. I just mentioned that it was life-changing for me- yet I’ve never taken a high school photography class. There is another class in nearly every high school that does prepare students for a career in photography- Yearbook.

Yearbook, while not entirely about photography, is a perfect class for those who want to be professional photographers. This is because, as just mentioned, it is not entirely about photography. It’s also about meeting deadlines, designing pages, collaborating with others, and then implementing the photos into this. In other words- it’s actually representative of real professional photography, especially in regards to shooting sports, portraiture, candid photojournalism, and even landscape work.

Yes, it is in the yearbook where I learned the fundamentals not of photography- but of everything else surrounding it that allowed me to be a professional photographer. I work mostly in the field of sports and photojournalism- but I still have to take landscapes, portraits, and more in my regular work. Looking back and comparing past to present, I find that the work I did in for the yearbook emulates the paid work I do now.

Below is just some of my saved work from high-school and yearbook. While much of the work I produced is no longer readily accessible, it was mostly of sports, events, and portraits.

Below are some of the photos I’ve taken while working - shooting various sports, performances, and portraits are all regular in my line of work in Marketing (for Peru State College) and photo-work for various local newspapers. The amazing part? I shot the same sports and events in the same lighting conditions while “working” for the yearbook. That’s an experience you won’t find in a general photography class.

As my yearbook teacher put it “Yearbook is like a long internship for photojournalism”, a statement which couldn’t be more true. Shooting sports in the yearbook established what I needed to do for when I began shooting sports in college- and designing layout helped me understand how I currently publish my work in several newspapers. Working in Yearbook’s portrait studio taught me everything I need to know about lighting.

In other words, I learned how to be a professional photographer in yearbook, and If I didn’t take that class, I likely wouldn’t be the professional photographer I am today.

So what should we do? Send all the students to yearbook instead of photography? Absolutely not. Rather, I think the photography classes should teach the fundamentals just as they do, but with an emphasis on the practicality and income-generating skills in the world of photography.

Then, students who show interest/skill at the end of that class should be recommended to join the yearbook class to gain further experience and develop their skills as a photographer or join a second photography class with an emphasis on the artistic aspects if that is what they are interested in.