All About Fashion Photography Schools

[Mr.GeeYeah]

Dear Sir/Madame,

I am looking for information on the best schools for fashion photography courses in the UK, Europe, and the US. Does any one have any information relating to this subject. I am particulary interested if anyone has information about the course at London College of Fashiion re: industry connections, quality of training, eqiupment ect. I am also very interested in getting infrmation on other good courses. Any posts would be very apriciated. Thanks Again,

Mr. Gee Yeah

[Owen Bruce]

Hey there,

I'm currently in the same boat.

Generally most schools offer photography training with electives in fashion, portraiture, commercialism, but I haven't found any that focus on fashion photography. Right now, I am looking at:

Brooks - http://www.brooks.edu/ (the #1, highly film based, expensive)
School of Visual Arts - http://www.schoolofvisualarts.edu/ (NY!)
Parsons - http://www.parsons.edu/ (NY as well)
Speos - http://www.speos.fr/ (7 month course, fashion photographer Paolo Roversi (Vogue, Elle, etc) is incharge of studio education, digital or traditional)

Hope that helps some. Depending on where you're located, I am looking at schools in Canada, including Langara College, Northern Alberta Technical Education (NATE), Emily Carr.

[solomonsdevalois]

^^ Just out of curiosity, what specification do you require to enter into a program like speos? Do you have to have done some previous extra credit projects?

p.s: don't mean to sound like a complete idiot, i just don't know how photography schools work.

[Mr.GeeYeah]

Owen...

Thanks for your reply. I dont know if you would consider courses in the uk; if so the london college of fashion has a prograhm that focuses completly on fashion photogrphy. I dont much about it but check out the web site www.lcf.ac.uk. I dont think you need any special requirements for speos. Any more info would be great.

Than

[BetteT]

The Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California offers a photography degree ... although not specialized in fashion. They have a commercial track that does include some fashion and editorial shooting. My first tests were with a really great student photographer here who's since gone on to a sucessful career. They are actually best known for automobile design ... some of the best in the world graduated from here.

http://www.artcenter.edu/accd/progra...hotography.jsp

[pamelaz]

I go to SVA and would recommend it. It has good teachers and some classes that specifically focus on fashion photography. Also if you pick your classes wisely, you get alot of business information out of it which is crucial.. I have a class now with Guy Aroch that I learned so much from someone who I respect. Besides that - it's NYC.. enough said.

[ALaFramboise]

Ha! i've searched and searched, and have YET to get a realistic answer. Where int he world could i go to get a decent education that would possibly help me create a name for myself in fashion photography?! i mean, i know about SVA, Pratt, RISD, RIT, FIT, Parsons, (and my personal fave, that crazy 32 week program thing in paris). But any other opinions out there?!

xoxo-

Michael..

[Sun_Goddess01]

I am really fascinated with photography and is really interested in how you get started in that field. Do you need to take classes at a certain school? I've never worked with the camera before besides taking pics of myself and family and friends but I really like to get into it. How does this career work? do you just take pictures and show it to certain people so they can put it in a book, magazine? Do you get paid? I have no idea how photography careers work and I would like to know if any of you are in this profession or know somebody who is in it can give me some pointers.

Thanks!

[BetteT]

I've just merged 3 threads ... to combine some of the previous information about fashion photography training and schools.

Sun Goddess01 ... I'll breifly tell you a bit about getting into it as a career:

You don't have to have formal training, but it really helps because photography is very technical so a good school is a great start. So check into the schools listed above and see what their costs and curriculum are all about.

After you master the technical stuff ... you will probably work for yourself and will have to build your own business. Occasionally companies/magazines etc. hire staff photographers ... but the majority work for themselves and have to build a client base.

If you wish to have your work published in magazines, you will have put together a good team ... photographer's assistant, fashion stylist, makeup and hair artists plus post production people (photoshop) and start to create beautiful editorial layouts and submit them to some magazines that take submissions ... but probably only one in a thousand ever gets published. Sometimes smaller magazines will actually commission you to do an editorial layout and that's great because you have the best chance of getting published.. But magazines usually don't pay much or anything at all for these. (Well, Vogue and other big mags will pay high dollar for the top photographers, but that's only probably about 10-20 shooters.) Everyone does magazine layouts for publicity, to build a resume and to attract clients, not for the pay. The goal is to eventually get paying clients ... designers, retailers ... any one who advertises ... that is what pays and even top fashion photographers do advertising work.

How much and what a photographer gets paid is extremely complex and depends on his talent, experience and his negotiating skills ... so I won't go into it here. But you will put a lot of money into it before you ever see a penny back.

It takes years of developing your skills, buying expensive equipment, building and updating your portfolio and getting out there an marketing your services to find clients before you can expect to make a living at photography. It can pay very well if you become a "super star" but most are happy if they can actually support themselves. Most don't make it ...it's a very, very competitive field.

[ele]

Does anyone know any schools were you can study fashion photography as its own course ??

Thanx

[kissmesweet]

Oooh, nice thread. I'm looking forward to what tFSers comes up with!

[ialmrnt5]

How about a good one around upstate new york/new england?

[finch]

International Academy of Design & Technology - Toronto: http://www.iadt.ca/digital_photography.asp

[BetteT]

^ Merging again. Please do a search (see top of page ... advanced search of thread titles is best) before starting a new thread, so we can keep all the information together. Thanks!

[Dylan Moss]

Hello Everyone! This is my first post here. I am currently living in California and I am in the process of finishing my last year in High School. I am going to attend a College/University in either France, Switzerland, Italy, The Netherlands, Denmark or Sweden. I have much more familiarity with the French language than Italian, German, Dutch or Danish, so I am leaning towards France if possible, even though I will have to receive language instruction before I commence classes in any of these countries. I am trying to find out which degrees/Universities in these countries I should be most interested in if I want to pursue a career having to do with Fashion/Editorial Photography. Are degrees like Art History prevalent in any field having to do with Art? Any advice you think might be useful to me is greatly appreciated!