Online Professional Courses?

[keladawy]

Guys,
I'm thinking about turning professional. Any suggestions for good online courses?
Thanks

[russellsnr]

Hi, There are hundreds if not thousands of web sites offering courses for a FEE but there are also many ofering information for nothing.
Depending on what kind of photography you are intending to become a pro in.
You have this site along with Youtube where you can find hour long tutorials on most any subject in photography.
Think you would maybe better letting us no what pro photography you are going into.
Russ

[Manfred M]

Khaled - I think the first question you must answer is what you hope to get out of the courses.

Online courses are much like reading a book on photography; information is pushed at you, but there is no way of telling whether or not you understood, nor is there an instructor to answer any questions. The biggest gap is probably putting the information that is presented into practice, and here again, only you or someone you show your work to can give you feedback on your work.

The second issue is setting yourself up in business, and again, there is fairly limited information out there on how to run a business. The stuff that is out there is very much designed for the developed world (Western(?)) business models and processes, but not all of it may apply to your own environment. Much of the target audience for these courses seems to be the portrait or wedding business; which are probably the biggest markets.

When I look at your 500px.com gallery, you seem to be more the Fine Art genre, which I suspect has an entirely different business model; here you are competing to get your work into an art gallery that handles or specializes in photography. There is not a lot of information on this market niche out there.

That being said, you have to figure out where you want to go with your photographic business. Let me direct you at two or three of the better known general sites:

1. http://www.lynda.com/ This site covers off a lot more than photography, but does have some excellent material from some well established, but perhaps lesser known photographers. This is probably someplace that someone who is at an intermediate level will get a lot of material. There are also some fairly good courses if you are looking at setting up your own website (not specifically for photography, though). This is a montly / yearly subscription based site.

2. http://kelbyone.com/ is probably the "best" general site and the materials are really aimed at the intermediate to advanced photographer. Some of the instructors are amongst the best known names in their field and other material is put together by in-house staff. This is a montly / yearly subscription based site.

3. https://fstoppers.com/ is more of a specialist site (head shots, architectural photography, etc.). The material is much more in depth (and much more expensive) than the first two that I listed. Here one pays for and downloads individual courses that one then owns for life. Some of the instructors are definitely the top names in their respective fields and they are not shy about sharing their "secrets".

As was mentioned, there are lots of other sites too.

[Mike Buckley]

Consider taking business courses if you don't already have the required business skills. If you know how to make the best photographs the world has ever seen but aren't successful at starting and growing a business, you'll completely fail as a pro photographer.