online photography courses

[RichTbiscuit]

Every time I come to work I begin to question my career choices. I currently work offshore and spend half my life away from home and family. However this does leave me with an enviable position of having a good amount of free time to do whatever the hell i want (within reason!) while she's at work.

So, from my perspective this gives me the chance to not only waste time with things that I'm interested in as hobbies but possibly the chance to retrain should the oil industry go tits up and I'm out of a job. Every string to my bow is benificial to me in the long run.

From those of you who are photographers professionally or just experienced hobbyists, how much stock would you place in the online courses that are available to us? I've been looking about for some distance learning stuff that I not only feel I would really enjoy, but could possibly even move into as a sideline if I found a real passion for it. I've been looking at places like;

http://www.thephotographyinstitute.co.uk/index.cfm...

And there's a lot of courses that offer lower qualifications like CertHE through university distance learning.

Are they worth it?

I also have some friends of friends who do professional wedding stuff. I'll be seeing them in action in two weeks time at my sister in laws wedding so might ask if I could tag along as a third man and offer services for free in return for advice and learning on the job.

[forty-two]

This is the course I am looking to do. I think it is based at amateur level which will suit me fine!

http://www3.open.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/course/...

[andy-xr]

I've seen many "professional" photographers who I'd class as complete ste in terms of their output. I've also seen many of them tout letters after their name - hanging off the coat tails of known establishments, yet their ability is less than average.

I'm not big on qualifications. I want a CORGI plumber, but I dont care if my mechanic is self taught as long as he does what is needed at a price thats affordable.

I think reputation, marketing and a decent business plan should be up there as well

Edited by andy-xr on Monday 12th April 20:11

[RichTbiscuit]

Well i'm not aiming to do it to put letters after my name. I already have a degree and it's not like I sign my name using those letters. It's more for how much value they actually give to your photography.

[itsnotarace]

I think you could learn all that yourself with a couple of books and taking your camera out of Auto/Program mode.