
One of my final images in lighting.
This class was a disappointment.
I have some more about that in another post here.
The review here isn’t going to discuss the person that was supposed to teach this course. I’m going to stick to the curriculum.
I’ve also been told this class is being revised so I can only speak to the course I took in Spring ’10. This course seems to take an in-person studio class and turns it online without much consideration to the differences between on-site and online courses.
The videos are very boring and do a barely adequate job in demonstrating most of the concepts that want to be taught. The videos and the bulk of the course material and the course assignments are targeted towards studio photographers and the generally larger and more expensive lights and light modifying tools that studio photographers use.
The course requires studio strobes, light modifiers, gels, and an incident light meter. However, the bulk of the assignments can be done with small hotshoe strobes. The exception here would be a large softbox but there are rigs that can use 2,3 or more hotshoe flashes to light a large softbox. True, you lose the modeling light capabilities but the use of LCD screens on DSLRs and computer to camera tethered solutions make more sense and would be very helpful in teaching the building up of lighting for a scene.
The incident light meter is fine and useful, yet most students are using DSLRs and learning how to read histograms for high and low-key lighting and how to use the in-camera reflective meter in difficult lighting situations seems more useful than the 250 bucks spent on an infrequently used Sekonic.
The basics of lighting apply from small desktop sets to large staged productions. Only a fraction of photographers become F/T studio-only photographers and this course would greatly benefit from covering a much wider gamut of shooting situations.
I can and did get more value out of a $45 Scott Kelby book/DVD on lighting and I could see teaching a class using that as a course supplement. I also recommend Joe McNally’s “Hot Shoe Diaries” to those with a bit of lighting experience. If you are interested in lighting I can also suggest the free courses on Strobist.
Again, the online version of this course as I took it in Spring ’10 is not recommended…Strongly not recommended.




No Summer School
July 21st, 2010 by David Weaver No comments »A tilled bean field shot while I was NOT enrolled in Summer classes.
I’m so happy I didn’t take Summer courses. I may take some next year and I may still do one of those wacky 15-day intersession courses.
There are few things I’m happy about.
Being able to travel and shoot for myself. This included starting up a workshop and scouting locations in the beautiful Northern Nevada high plains.
Saving up money for Fall tuition is important.
Not having to constantly switch between being a student and being a pro-photographer as I do when I’m working and attending classes.
I have to go back to my days in grade school where my friends and I would look forward to starting the next year of school. The break makes me a bit nostalgic for going back to school. If I had taken Summer courses I would still be excited about the classes I’m heading for this Fall semester but it might also be some continuation of the grind of schoolwork.
There is some unneeded rationalization here that follows the line of taking it slower makes me learn more and learn it deeper – that may be true, or not.
I will not be qualified as soon as I originally planned, but for me, plans are just that and subject to change.
Overall, it’s a good thing to take a little more time for me, save up a little cash, spend a little more time with friends (which actually means spending more time working as most of my friends are out of town on vacations) and get excited about Fall courses at AAU.
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