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“Photography education can teach you where to look, what to change, and why it matters.  But only time behind the camera teaches you when to press the shutter.” – MJ Martin

Education Shortens the Road

Photography is one of those disciplines in which knowledge can be transferred quickly, but judgement must be earned slowly.  A good course can explain exposure, depth of field, autofocus, composition, lighting, colour, workflow, and printing in weeks rather than leaving a photographer to rediscover those principles over years.  In Canada, institutions such as Toronto Metropolitan University and Sheridan College deliberately combine theory with production, studio work, internships, and practical assignments.  That structure matters because education can prevent photographers from spending years repeating mistakes that an experienced instructor could identify in minutes. (Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU)⁠)

Learning Comes in Many Forms

Formal education is only one route.  YouTube, online courses, camera clubs, workshops, books, mentorship, and self-directed projects can all become legitimate classrooms.  The important distinction is not whether learning occurs inside a university, but whether it is structured.  Good education provides sequence, explanation, criticism, and feedback.  It teaches the photographer why an image failed, rather than simply confirming that it failed.

This is where instruction becomes a shortcut.  Imagine trying to learn aviation by experimenting with every control until the aircraft behaved correctly.  Photography is far less dangerous, but the inefficiency is similar.  An instructor can explain the relationship between shutter speed, aperture, ISO, focal length, subject movement, and light before the photographer wastes thousands of frames trying to discover those relationships independently.

The Camera Must Leave the House

Education, however, cannot replace experience.  You cannot become a photographer by watching photography any more than you can become a swimmer by studying hydrodynamics.  Eventually, you must enter the water.

Research on deliberate practice supports this principle.  Psychologist K. Anders Ericsson emphasized focused practice, informative feedback, problem-solving, evaluation, and repeated performance as important ingredients in developing expertise. (DOI⁠)  Later research has challenged the stronger claim that practice alone explains expert performance, suggesting that expertise is more complex.  Practice remains important, but it is one contributor among several. (Frontiers⁠)

For photographers, practical experience develops skills that are difficult to teach in a lecture.  You learn to recognize changing light, anticipate gestures, approach strangers, work in bad weather, compensate for equipment limitations, recover from mistakes, and make decisions quickly.  A Canadian winter provides lessons about batteries, condensation, exposure, gloves, and rapidly disappearing daylight that no YouTube tutorial can fully reproduce.

Practice With Purpose

The most productive photographer therefore combines education with deliberate fieldwork.  Take a course, watch the video, read the manual, and study the masters.  Then choose one skill and practise it intentionally.  Photograph moving subjects until panning becomes instinctive.  Work at sunrise until you understand changing colour temperature.  Use one prime lens for a month until composition becomes less about zooming and more about seeing.

The objective is not simply to take more photographs.  It is to become more observant while taking them.  Education gives you the map.  Practice teaches you the terrain.

Questions Worth Asking

* Are you collecting photography knowledge, or are you converting that knowledge into photographs? 

* When you practise, are you deliberately challenging a weakness, or repeatedly photographing what you already do well? 

* Most importantly, when was the last time you went outside with your camera for the sole purpose of learning something new?

About the Author:

Michael Martin is the Vice President of Technology with Metercor Inc., a Smart Meter, IoT, and Smart City systems integrator based in Canada. He has more than 40 years of experience in systems design for applications that use broadband networks, optical fibre, wireless, and digital communications technologies. He is a business and technology consultant. He was a senior executive consultant for 15 years with IBM, where he worked in the GBS Global Center of Competency for Energy and Utilities and the GTS Global Center of Excellence for Energy and Utilities. He is a founding partner and President of MICAN Communications and before that was President of Comlink Systems Limited and Ensat Broadcast Services, Inc., both divisions of Cygnal Technologies Corporation (CYN: TSX).

Martin served on the Board of Directors for TeraGo Inc (TGO: TSX) and on the Board of Directors for Avante Logixx Inc. (XX: TSX.V).  He has served as a Member, SCC ISO-IEC JTC 1/SC-41 – Internet of Things and related technologies, ISO – International Organization for Standardization, and as a member of the NIST SP 500-325 Fog Computing Conceptual Model, National Institute of Standards and Technology. He served on the Board of Governors of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) [now Ontario Tech University] and on the Board of Advisers of five different Colleges in Ontario – Centennial College, Humber College, George Brown College, Durham College, Ryerson Polytechnic University [now Toronto Metropolitan University].  For 16 years he served on the Board of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), Toronto Section. 

He holds three master’s degrees – in business (MBA), communication (MA), and education (MEd). As well, he has three undergraduate diplomas and seven major certifications in business, computer programming, internetworking, project management, media, photography, and communication technology. He has completed over 80 next generation MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) [aka Micro Learning] continuous education programs in a wide variety of topics, including: Economics, Python Programming, Internet of Things, Cloud, Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive systems, Blockchain, Agile, Power BI, Big Data, Design Thinking, Security, Indigenous Canada awareness, and more.

Martin is a volunteer, a photographer, a learner, a technologist, a philosophizer, and a romantic optimist.