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.
The Demotivating Bad Class
June 15th, 2010The lowest grade in my lighting class went to this image. : -)
It was bound to happen.
I took a class and the experience was abysmal, dreadful, and appallingly bad. It would be easy enough to pan a course and an instructor but that won’t do a good job explaining my perceptions during the semester.
Lighting is an elective course. It was my first elective course at AAU and I can’t recommend it. My experience here gives it a solid D-minus. Tamara Hubbard , Associate Director of Online photography MFA, and I had a dialog concerning issues surrounding both the course and the person assigned to teach it. Three points stood out from this discussion:
For the first point: I don’t agree. I am an experienced photographer but I only do a little studio work and I really wanted to take something that I knew I was good at but would greatly improved my skills and knowledge of the subject by taking this elective. Other classes I’ve taken had students with a huge range of abilities from poor to excellent yet it seemed that most students that applied themselves did really good work and improved personally over the duration of the term. The director did encourage me to contact her directly about future course suggestions which I find to be very commendable.
Second: So the course is being revised. This means that I do not recommend the PH608: Lighting class I took in Spring 2010. It also means I cannot make any judgments on any revised course until I see the new course material.
Third: The MFA-Photography AAU folks do occasional online town hall meetings. I haven’t attended one but one of my fellow students did and her takeaway was that if you have particular issues with a class then contact a director. I didn’t want to be a whiny student so I contact a couple other students in my class, and I discovered that the issues I had were also held by some other students as well. One of the students actually met face-to-face with one of the directors and did voice concerns about the course and instructor. This made my follow up easier as all I had to do was validate how I and the other student felt and I could be contacted for additional information.
Being able to document and criticize (both positively and negatively) is very important when praising a course/instructor. Being able to easily communicate that to the directors of the program speaks highly to the department’s desire to build and maintain a strong program.
This is my second Master’s. I draw on my experience as an MBA student where I went into a class and didn’t like the instructor or the material and I would change my courses to reflect that. As an online student I have to remind myself that I am the master of my schedule and education, therefore I need to be informed about my classes and take action when I feel there are serious problems with a class.
The worst thing about the lighting class wasn’t the waste of money, nor the waste of time – the worst aspect of that class was the incredible de-motivation felt by this student which drove me to do mediocre work in a class I was initially very excited about taking.
The best thing that came out of this class was learning that the department appears to really care about the program, the course, and the quality of the instructors.
[UPDATE 6/17/10 : I've learned that the person that taught my section is also teaching at least one Summer section - email me if you want to know the instructor (or go find another post). I have (for better or worse) suggested to a former classmate to drop that class or find another instructor that is teaching it. It is that bad a class in my personal opinion]
[UPDATE 8/29/10 : I believe this instructor is still teaching the lighting class at AAU. My recommendation is that you do not take this class. If you want to take it I would suggest contacting the Director and ask for a complete course listing for this class which will allow you to decide if if you REALLY want to take it.
No comments »
Posted in Courses, General Comments, PH 608: Lighting
Tags: AAU attened class course course material course suggestions Director elective course image caption instructor lighting student Tamara Hubbard town hall meetings