AP Diploma in Photography
Simon Watkins
Simon
John Halliwell
<siwa...@iee.org> writes
>Anyone here considering splashing out on the subject course?
>
I considered it briefly, but it doesn't seem to be recognised by anybody
in particular. I believe you can do the City & Guilds by correspondence
with at least one organisation, it's recognised and if I were to do one,
I'd go for the C&G.
Of course you might have more fun attending a course at a local college.
--
John
Preston, Lancs, UK.
Lee Bohan
> Of course you might have more fun attending a course at a local college.
I've decided to apply. Although I'd love to take the course at my local
college work commitments leave no time for evening classes, or any part time
study which requires regular hours.
Best option available I thought, especially as cost seems relatively low
compared to places like NYIP.
Lee.
Mike Chirnside
through the likes of ICS by distance learning - as correspondence courses
are now called!), but am seriously considering the AP course.
I was lucky enough to qualify for £150 worth of Individual Learning Account
(ila) vouchers from my local Training and Enterprise Council and, after
approaching AP, they have agreed to accept them towards the cost of the
course. This brings it down to around £100 - which, as an unemployed
pauper, is much more affordable (especially with the goodies they are
including in the price!).
Most diploma courses allow you to attach letters after your name (e.g. NDipM
for the National Diploma in Management), but I suspect this "diploma" course
will not attract such a cachet. Still, if it helps me learn more about my
hobby - and possible second career - so much the better; my tutor, however,
says I should aim for an LRPS!
Simon Watkins
I have the same problems with work commitments that preclude me attending a
regular course. It certainly seems an attractive package, and at around the
cost of 25 rolls of film and processing is good value if it results in a
photographic improvement. I may well join you in applying, but I will check
out John's suggestion of the C&G option as well (though I'm not bothered
about the qualification at the end of it).
Simon
Lee Bohan <lee....@iname.com> wrote in message
news:8aojg2$uqc$1...@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk...
Simon Watkins
Thanks for your reply. I should have mentioned in my original post, but I'm
not particularly that bothered that the course isn't a recognised
qualification. I had just considered it as a means to an end in that I'd
hope to improve my photography from my current level. Technically, I am
happy with my work, but I'd like some new ideas, and something to provide
"focus" and fresh impetus; new ideas, with guidance and critique thrown in.
I liked the idea of a personal tutor, and set assignments/projects as well.
Once the value of the film/accessories/opportunity for a half-price
subscription is knocked off the cost, the course itself is under £100, which
seems like good value, albeit the initial outlay is reasonably hefty, though
still represents only about the cost of 25 films with processing.
Do you have any idea how long the C&G courses are, or an idea of their cost?
The college option isn't really viable for me, as I travel too much in my
work unfortunately.
Simon
John Halliwell <jo...@photopia.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:KetyfIA6...@photopia.demon.co.uk...
> In article <sctk184...@corp.supernews.com>, Simon Watkins
> <siwa...@iee.org> writes
> >Anyone here considering splashing out on the subject course?
> >
>
> I considered it briefly, but it doesn't seem to be recognised by anybody
> in particular. I believe you can do the City & Guilds by correspondence
> with at least one organisation, it's recognised and if I were to do one,
> I'd go for the C&G.
>
> Of course you might have more fun attending a course at a local college.
>
Simon Watkins
cachet of letters after my name, just the course benefits (and cost! :)
Sounds like you have a good deal from AP and your TEC council. With the
goodies, you'll be doing the course basically free! I've been reading the
advert again, and it certainly is attractive, even at full price for me! At
least they are offering a 3 month spread for the payments. If what they
teach you allows you to make one saleable print, or perhaps get your work
published in a Reader Portfolio, it will become effectively free. I wonder
if they pay for the AP Diploma pictures they say they will be publishing in
the magazine!?
Simon
Mike Chirnside <michael....@dtn.ntl.com> wrote in message
news:gvUz4.927$u17....@news2-win.server.ntlworld.com...
John Halliwell
<siwa...@iee.org> writes
>Do you have any idea how long the C&G courses are, or an idea of their cost?
>The college option isn't really viable for me, as I travel too much in my
>work unfortunately.
I haven't looked into it in detail, but I am considering it.
Realistically I don't think I have the time to do a college based one
(even if I do find a local college running one). I think the C&G
requires a number of modules (I think it's five) to be completed from a
fairly wide selection.
John Halliwell
<siwa...@iee.org> writes
>Thanks Mike. What does the C&G course cost? I'm not so worried about the
>cachet of letters after my name, just the course benefits (and cost! :)
>Sounds like you have a good deal from AP and your TEC council. With the
>goodies, you'll be doing the course basically free! I've been reading the
>advert again, and it certainly is attractive, even at full price for me! At
>least they are offering a 3 month spread for the payments. If what they
>teach you allows you to make one saleable print, or perhaps get your work
>published in a Reader Portfolio, it will become effectively free. I wonder
>if they pay for the AP Diploma pictures they say they will be publishing in
>the magazine!?
I doubt they'll cough up, the usual rule that the organisers and
sponsors can use the image for promotional purposes will presumably crop
up somewhere.
If your interested in dabbling with freelance work, the Bureau of
Freelance Photographers (BFP) also run their own correspondence course
which maybe of more use (it's basically designed around producing
saleable shots). I've only seen the glossy brochure so can't really
comment further. I seem to remember something about a guarantee that if
you don't make the course fees back with sales by the end of the course,
you get the fee back (or am I getting mixed up with the NYIP course?).
John Halliwell
<p...@pchaney.demon.co.uk> writes
>John Halliwell <jo...@photopia.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>In article <sctk184...@corp.supernews.com>, Simon Watkins
>><siwa...@iee.org> writes
>>>Anyone here considering splashing out on the subject course?
>>>
>>
>>I considered it briefly, but it doesn't seem to be recognised by anybody
>>in particular. I believe you can do the City & Guilds by correspondence
>>with at least one organisation, it's recognised and if I were to do one,
>>I'd go for the C&G.
>
>
It's a qualification many people understand (or one they are at least
familiar with). In certain circumstances I think it might just open a
few more doors than the AP course. I'm thinking along the lines of a
photo job interview, I suspect the C&G course is fairly well known in
the industry (at least it's existence), which can only help. The AP
course is new and much less well known, indeed it may never achieve the
same status. It might be difficult explaining how challenging the AP
course is (i.e. persuading someone it's not just a rubber stamp
process).
As someone who's thinking of going for a job in photography, I just feel
I'd get more mileage from a C&G course.
Mike Chirnside
> In article <sd097i...@corp.supernews.com>, Simon Watkins
siwa...@iee.org writes
> >Thanks Mike. What does the C&G course cost?
About the £150 mark - but just for Part 1; I am not sure how many modules
there are to complete the entire C&G course.
>I wonder if they pay for the AP Diploma pictures they say they will be
publishing in the magazine!?
I suspect this was an almost rhetorical question, if not well tongue in
cheek; you know the answer - they'll publish for free as they're "educating
you" in the process!
I tend to agree with John's sentiments throughout (perhaps you are thinking
about the NYIP course, John!).
I'll be calling the RPS, later, to find out more from them!
nos...@nospam.com
I am in the middle of C&G correspondence course and I believe I paid
£260 for it. I still decided to enrol on the AP course since it does
sound like a good offer considering a number of freebies you get -
which I would have bought anyway. Plus a student discount at Jessops
always helps.
Tyler
Steve Sharples
>
That's one hell of a rip off
My students pay about that for pt 1 and 3 modules of part 2
>I am not sure how many modules
>there are to complete the entire C&G course.
2 in part 1
5 in part 2
5 in part 3
each part is stand alone
>
>I'll be calling the RPS, later, to find out more from them!
>
>
go to their web site www.rps.org
--
Steve Sharples
Steve Sharples
>familiar with).
Its a nationally recognised photographic qualification. that is
recognised throughout the industry.
Its also the starting block to many other photographic qualifications
HND Degree C & G 747 and others
> In certain circumstances I think it might just open a
>few more doors than the AP course.
It will do
> I'm thinking along the lines of a
>photo job interview,
>I suspect the C&G course is fairly well known in
>the industry (at least it's existence),
it is
> which can only help. The AP
>course is new and much less well known, indeed it may never achieve the
>same status.
it wont - there are several other distant learning and static courses
there are all lesser known and in many cases total ignored
as
> someone who's thinking of going for a job in photography, I just feel
>I'd get more mileage from a C&G course.
>
depends on how hard you work and how good you are
--
Steve Sharples
Simon Watkins
news:ri56QJA3...@photopia.demon.co.uk...
> In article <sd097i...@corp.supernews.com>, Simon Watkins
> <siwa...@iee.org> writes
>I wonder
> >if they pay for the AP Diploma pictures they say they will be publishing
in
> >the magazine!?
>
> I doubt they'll cough up, the usual rule that the organisers and
> sponsors can use the image for promotional purposes will presumably crop
> up somewhere.
I thought so :-) Still, the fame could be nice! ;!)
> If your interested in dabbling with freelance work, the Bureau of
> Freelance Photographers (BFP) also run their own correspondence course
> which maybe of more use (it's basically designed around producing
> saleable shots). I've only seen the glossy brochure so can't really
> comment further. I seem to remember something about a guarantee that if
> you don't make the course fees back with sales by the end of the course,
> you get the fee back (or am I getting mixed up with the NYIP course?).
I think that is the NYIP course. I am a member of the BFP - I thought their
newsletters would have been useful -- I haven't actually tried to sell any
stuff myself.
Thanks for the response,
Simon
Simon Watkins
>
> About the £150 mark - but just for Part 1; I am not sure how many modules
> there are to complete the entire C&G course.
>
> publishing in the magazine!?
> I suspect this was an almost rhetorical question, if not well tongue in
> cheek; you know the answer - they'll publish for free as they're
"educating
> you" in the process!
It was somewhat TIC, I have to admit!
> I tend to agree with John's sentiments throughout (perhaps you are
thinking
> about the NYIP course, John!).
>
> I'll be calling the RPS, later, to find out more from them!
Interested in how you get on!
Simon
Simon Watkins
Steve Sharples <steve.s...@fotobrew.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:zZYFrRAv...@fotobrew.demon.co.uk...
> >It's a qualification many people understand (or one they are at least
> >familiar with).
>
> Its a nationally recognised photographic qualification. that is
> recognised throughout the industry.
How well though? At the end of the day, isn't it going to be the quality of
the photographer's work that is going to get him the job? Qualifications or
otherwise?
Simon
Simon Watkins
news:38d0b325...@news.dial.pipex.com...
> > What does the C&G course cost?
>
> Tyler
Hi Tyler,
I'm coming to the conclusion that for my needs, the AP, or a C&G course may
well be a good idea, but perhaps combined with some involvement in a local
club as well. As you say, once you have stripped the cost of the Freebies,
a half-price AP subscription (a mag I buy at high street prices anyway), it
looks quite reasonable. As I've said already, I'm not bothered at all about
the qualification aspect, as the AP diploma will no doubt be worth the paper
it is written on - especially to me with engineering as a chosen career.
How much is a student discount at Jessops worth? And can you get it if you
make them price match!? :-)
Simon
David Kilpatrick
vanish in the wind, despite the financial backing to make them work. The AP
Club is one example - and so is their past attempt to hook into the early
RPS-City and Guilds course which 'led' to an LRPS - can't remember the
number, C&G 923 or something.
In 1981, as editor of Creative Photography, I arranged translation and
publication rights for the official Swiss/German photographic science course
which was produced by Ilford (Fribourg) in conjunction with a German
university, and published month by month as a series of eight page tutorials
with prepunched ring binder inserts. We could not afford to have the paper
punched so we just had to print marks. The quality was exceptional - latent
image theory at electronic (atoms and molecules, electrons etc) level,
chemistry and optics with similar emphasis. Previous years had already been
recompiled into two paperback books, in use throughout German language photo
teaching establishments, and we started with the first book.
When EMAP bought Creative and turned it into a huge extravagant art magazine
which was impossible to put in a bookcase, the first they did was axe the
Photo Course. Verlag Photographie in Schaffhausen were happy to negotiate
the English language rights to any other publisher. No-one has since taken
it up, and I have neither the funds nor the vehicle to use it. It ran
alongside articles on studio exercises (quite excellent - one of the best
was based on photographing an egg, but of course you could break it and cook
it if you wanted to...) and a 'seeing and composing' series by Dr Harald
Mante, plus a further tutorial on 'fotografik' - the techniques of lith,
posterization, solarization, texture screens and related methods.
It was, incidentally, in Creative Photography in 1981 that we published the
first digital photographic print ever - it was greatly reduced from a giant
dot matrix print out. In 1982 we acquired an Apple Europlus and an
Imagewriter, and attempted DTP using cut and pasted print-outs which we
reduced on a copy camera. Design was done with Robographix, a strange
joystick device. In 1984 we acquired a Mac 128K and Thunderscan - and the
rest is history. Along with a few dozen other pioneer publishers we
successfully destroyed the fee structure, profitability and status of an
entire industry.
Creative Photography was produced using full-page photocomposition on a
Linotype system run by Briarwood Graphics in Mansfield, resetting the German
translations from Photographie and adding new UK material. We were sent the
original seps and line films from Switzerland, and re-assembled them. The
Swiss scans and indeed the articles were of a standard far higher than the
UK press, and written with the reverse of the Eaglemoss/Marshall Cavendish
philosophy. The Germans wrote how ever many words were needed to explain
something; if it fell short, they left blank space; if it ran over, they
added a single column on the next page.
You and Your Camera, which contained many 'tutorials', was still a major
project for me when Creative started and overlapped with it. For Y & YC, the
spreads were designed by art direction, and it did not matter if showing
film development needed 10 steps or 13 steps - it HAD to need 12 steps, and
each step HAD to have a 60-word caption. Layout ruled everything. Pictures
were selected not because they illustrated a point, but because they showed
various parts of the world which would help with overseas rights, or had
certain dominant colours. I was told to stop taking so many green pictures
as the primary markets do not have as much grass as Britain, and to travel
to the Med and USA to secure alternatives if I wanted to sell them. The
'Photo' project of Marshall Cavendish took a similar approach.
This approach, very different to the European one, seems to have many
origins in the Dorling Kindersley concept. I wrote the Darkroom sections for
Hedgecoe's original Book of Photography - all the text was written by ghost
writers following his brief, and edited by staff editors. This was, again, a
matter of being given a layout and told exactly how many words each picture
or process was to be described in. The Fountain or Focal Press publishing
concepts - write how ever many words it takes and position relevant pictures
near but not necessarily with the passages they belong to - became outdated.
This was sad, because the anecdotal interludes and ramblings of photographic
writers actually provided much know-how, folklore and insight. Modern
British publishing, post-Dorling Kindersley, has little place for narrative
writing. Recently I was talking to Isaac Guillory, the guitarist - he had
exactly the same experience as a 'thanked person' at the end of Dorling
Kindersley's Book of the Guitar at the same date - along with other 'thanked
people' he actually wrote it, but an 'author' (really a consultant editor)
got the cover credit. I'm not knocking Hedgecoe as he dictated what should
be covered and in what order, and also picked which associate writers should
do this, and got his students to do many of the pictures he didn't have time
to create personally, and passed work to ex-students whom he knew could
produce commissioned stuff to his requirements.
The AP course remains an unknown quantity, but I am very sceptical about the
ability of journalists (myself included) to produce learning material. Most
of the current photo press writers are not 'even' journalists and some are
not photographers. I wrote stacks of instructional material in the period
1978-1984 on processes which I had to learn in order to write about, often
with just a week to produce the goods. This can't have been a good thing.
When I started out, around 1970, most photo magazine editors were in their
40s to 60s - Reg Mason, Dick Gee, John Sanders, and of course Geoffrey
Crawley who looked the part but was actually younger. George Zygmung's Photo
Technique sort of broke that pattern, though EMAP were tending to employ
younger editors (Martin Hodder). Most contributors or writers were either
the same age or young - like myself and Ed Buziak, in the early 20s.
Consequently the editors knew a lot more than the writers, generally, and
had seen enough to be able to pick the right stuff.
Today, editors tend to be in their 20s or 30s (six years ago I found myself
as the senior member of a party of journalists on one press trip - and
barely in me forties!). Many writers are ex-editors are double the age of
the staff subs editing their copy! Stewart Bell and Ivor Matanle for AP are
examples - Les McLean (ex-us!) for Practical now, and our own regular
columnists like Ron Spillman, John Hannavy, Bob Smithies, John
Chillingworth. Icon's 'younger' discoveries have all grown whiskers and gone
to work for the London press - Darron Hartas, Jon Tarrant, Steve Newman,
Neil Whitford and one or two more - but they're still all fairly sprightly.
Now these guys will stay the course - Jon, for example, is likely to be a
fixture on the British photo scene for however long he remains in Britain.
AP staff are entirely different, with the notable exception of Joel Lacey
who should really be running a magazine (he'd be a bastard to work for, but
it would be an extremely good read). They might disappear tomorrow and work
on a home interiors magazine and never give a backward glance to
photography. And that's what happens; with a change of editor, a change of
staff or the ultimate shift produced by a change of publisher the policies,
promotions and ideas are all suddenly rewritten and complete ventures can be
buried overnight.
Generally, an evening class in photography at a college of further education
will provide a better bet - perhaps a module which once achieved counts
towards a National Vocational Qualification, perhaps just for recreational
interest. Evening classes help keep lecturers in employment, keep colleges
and facilities open, and actually provide a social environment which can
overlap into photographic societies or co-operatives.
I am not knocking AP's initiative or doubting Gary Coward-Williams' sincere
intent to succeed, but these commercial publishing group editorships are not
the securely pensionable lifetime appointments they were fifty years ago,
and along with personnel the 'promotions' of a publication can disappear as
quickly as they arrive, and along with them any possible value their
'certificates' might possess.
David Kilpatrick
--
Read about our photo magazines: http://www.freelancephotographer.co.uk/
Personal website: http://www.maxwellplace.demon.co.uk/pandemonium/