Image taken by Okko Pyykkö on flickr

As a hobby photographer, I did a little research recently into photography courses in London. There are loads of courses available out there, from lots of different institutions and colleges. Choosing a photography course to take in London is a little bit like saying ‘how long is a piece of string’!

With literally hundreds of courses on offer and lots of places to take courses, I think choosing the right course boils down to your requirements and aims in terms of what you want to get out of it. Also, this depends on your experience with photography and the type of photography and cameras you are most interested in.

I studied photography at college with manual and analogue cameras, which taught me a lot about the technical aspects of taking pictures. I was therefore looking for digital photography courses as I recently picked up my first digital SLR camera.

During the course of my research I created the list of websites below, all offering differing types of courses running at different times of the year and times in the day. As most people have work, school or university/college commitments, the course providers offer courses which run in the evening on weekends or during the day for prospective students.

As I mentioned before, you should consider what you would like to gain from the course, whether it is getting to understand your camera more, improving a certain style and discipline of photography, or polishing off some existing skills. It can depend on what you already know and what you are expected to know for each course, but this will become obvious when reading through the course details. A few points you should know a little about before attempting a more advanced course should be:

• Manual camera settings

• Aperture

• Shutter speeds

• ISO levels

• Manual focusing

• Rule of thirds

• f-stops

• Exposure and exposure compensation

• Depth of field

• Light meters

• White balance

The below institutions cover the following aspects and disciplines of photography, and all offer digital or manual photography courses in London:

• Fashion photography

• Street photography

• Documentary photography

• Studio photography

• Portrait photography

• Night time photography

• Macro photography

• Creative/Abstract photography

Check out their websites for more information. Some courses are run by individuals offering one to one tuition and others are run in larger classes or tours, so you can pick which you prefer:

Price Range - £75-£150 depends on course and duration
Course Length – 3-7 hours
Style and notes – These guys are quite flexible with course times and could be a good place to look into if you want to take a course in the evening or at the weekend. They offer one and one tuition which definitely helps to develop your photography skills. They also boast a studio and creative photography classes, so this would also be a good place to study if you are interested in learning more about studio work.

www.londonschoolofphotography.co.uk
Price Range - £295-£595 depends on course and duration
Course Length - 1-4 days
Style and notes – Offers workshops which are peer guided and evaluated, courses cover street, creative, travel and photojournalism. The introduction course will teach you a lot about your camera and what aspects will affect your pictures such as white balance, ISO and shutter speeds.

www.londonphototours.co.uk
Price Range - £85-£150 depends on course and duration
Course Length – 4-5 hours
Style and notes – These courses seem more focused on beginners and focus on outdoor and street photography which is an obvious idea really considering how many markets and interesting people there are in London. If you have just got a digital SLR and are not sure about some of the settings, this could be a good place to learn more and build confidence in taking pictures of people.

www.takebetterpictures.co.uk
Price Range - £135-£140 depends on course and duration
Course Length – 1-4 days
Style and notes – They offer longer courses for beginners and cover some more unusual aspects of photography such as macro photography (which is a firm favourite of mine) and flash photography in studio settings. This could be a good place to book a course if you are tempted to branch out into more technical areas of photography. They also supply a range of courses for getting to know your digital SLR.

www.cameratrails.com
Price Range – around £70
Course Length – 3-5 hours
Style and notes – Camera Trails seems to be more tourist focused and offers courses and workshops that trail around London’s sites and markets. This would be a good place to look if you want to get some good photos of the usual London tourist spots but wouldn’t suit more advanced photographers trying to learn new studio techniques. They also run night trails for taking photos of London landscapes at night, which is definitely best to do in a group.

www.photographycourses.org.uk
Price Range – around £60-£275 depends on course and duration
Course Length – 1-2 days
Style and notes – These courses are run by Nigel Wilson and seem to be more of refresher courses for aspiring photographers than people new to the medium. There are also plenty of night time workshops available and other disciplines include travel, landscape and studio work. This would be an ideal place to take a course if you are looking for hands on advice and one to one teaching.

www.photofusion.org
Price Range – around £95-£245 depends on course and duration
Course Length – 1-3 days
Style and notes – Photofusion offers a unique range of courses which would appeal to a wide range of people. You can start from scratch and learn the basics of using your digital camera or you can focus on the brand of your camera to get the most out of your equipment. They also run a number of darkroom and analogue courses which would be ideal for the more advanced budding photographers out there.

www.zoom-in.org
Price Range – around £75-£180 depends on course and duration
Course Length – 3 hours to 3 days
Style and notes – Zoom in have a fantastic range of courses which can be completed in the evening or weekends. The prices are reasonable enough and you can learn how to use a darkroom and develop your own film (which is a well worthwhile experience). Also, they run exhibitions of students work so this in an ideal place for aspiring photographers to start out. This is definitely where I would pick if I was going to take a photography course in my spare time!

www.citylit.ac.uk
Price Range – around £120-£250 depends on course and duration
Course Length – various ranging from hours to days
Style and notes – City Lit have a solid reputation for offering a wide range of courses which are flexible enough to suit any time schedule. You can complete courses in the evening or weekends, and they offer a wide range of photography courses so there is plenty to choose from depending on what you would like to learn and explore. These courses are quite cheap compared to other higher education institutes and are short enough to act as a good introduction to longer learning.

www.arts.ac.uk
Price Range – in the thousands
Course Length – weeks to years depends on course and duration
Style and notes – University of the Arts in London is a network of several art institutions who offer a large range of photography courses include full time and part time BA(Hons) and MA(Hons) courses in various disciplines including fashion, styling, studio and portrait photography. Obviously these courses are a lot more expensive and take a longer time to complete but they must be pretty amazing - if only I could afford to go back to Uni!

All of the above courses are based on using a digital single lens reflex camera or SLR and most expect you to own a digital SLR and have a good understanding of its settings and operation points. It is worth checking what equipment you are expected to have before signing up for a course as most will expect a DSLR, some batteries and some imagination!

If you have taken and completed any courses at the above mentioned places, let other people know what you thought in the comments below…