Whether you’re interested in mastering the basics of shooting black and white or on film, setting up your own darkroom, getting an academic understanding of the medium, or learning from some of the most celebrated photographers working today, we’ve put together a list of the best online photography classes you can take at home. After all, picking up a camera is just the first step in showing others how you see the world. This is a course that attracts students with a wide range of photography experience. If you’re new to photography or have used a camera before, you’ll find something worthwhile here because the objectives of the course are to explore the scientific foundations and techniques of digital photography while allowing you to learn about photography as an art form, improve your technique, and get comfortable with editing software. Along with a recommended list of reading and projects, there are 12 video lessons, ranging in length from approximately 45 minutes to 2 hours, that break down the technical aspects of photography such as exposure, optics, digital cameras, and color. While the focus of this class is on photography, other disciplines related to the medium like film and video are also explored. Price: Free In addition to managing their robust archive and day-to-day operations, Magnum Photos also has its own online learning platform called Magnum Learn, which strives to provide education through the lens of the agency’s photographers. While the courses are more of an investment, starting at $99, the price is worth it thanks to the expertise of the instructors. For example, Alec Soth, a photographer famous for his representations of Midwestern America and who has shown his work at the Whitney Museum and SFMOMA, recently led his own course on photographic storytelling. According to Magnum, the courses include personal advice through “in-depth interviews, on-location shoots, and off-line workbooks with expanded interviews.” For example, The Art of Street Photography has 10 on-demand videos, featuring seven photographers—including the world-renowned Bruce Gilden and Martin Parr—who walk you through their own idiosyncratic philosophies and approaches to street photography. Price: $99 and up Led by a variety of professional photographers and content creators, the tutorials can be streamed on all of your devices. The class offering starts with the building blocks: Getting Started with Your Nikon DSLR, Fundamentals of Photography, and Beyond Fundamentals of Photography. Depending on your interests and skill level, you can also stream Exploring Dynamic Landscape Photography with photographer Taylor Glenn, Photographing Children and Pets with renowned lifestyle photographer Tamara Lackey, or an environmental portraiture class with Joey Terrill. Classes are offered for a limited time and availbility of classes may change. The Nikon School also offers The Art of Making Music Videos, a crash course in how to bring your DSLR video productions to the next level. Price: $14.95 and up ILFORD offers a variety of information on its website, such as an accessible beginner’s guide, and has an array of instructional how-tos available for free on its YouTube channel. It’s best to start with the Introduction to Film Photography playlist, which features 11 short and simple animations to introduce not only the terminology but also basic techniques used in film photography and darkroom printing. This playlist includes How a Film SLR Camera Works, a Darkroom Essentials Checklist, as well as beginner’s guides to film ISO, aperture, shutter speed, and processing your first film—all essential skills to getting the highest quality image. Once you’re ready to move on, the How To playlist series focuses on darkroom processes. Browse from videos including Setting Up the Darkroom, Processing Black and White Film, Processing Traditional Darkroom Paper, Making a Basic Contact Sheet, and more classes designed to teach you the basics and then push you to the next level. Price: Free Both programs have a staggering amount of functions that are sure to overwhelm new users, but you can access free demonstrations from the brains behind the programs themselves to flatten the learning curve on the Adobe website. While Photoshop is a springboard to create and edit your photos, Lightroom, at its most fundamental, is a program you can use for organizing, post-processing, and exporting them. Both feature a powerful array of photo editing tools. Adobe breaks down a variety of topics into bite-sized tutorials, most of them ranging from five to 20 minutes. For Photoshop, the introductory Get Started section will demonstrate how to change image sizes, work with layers, retouch images, and apply filters. Then you can move on to more specific courses about photo editing, selections, layer masking, and compositing. The Lightroom tutorials also start with an introductory course, after which you can learn about photo editing, using presets to enhance your photos, and more. There also are projects for beginners and some inspirational content that you can use to inspire your next photo shoot. Price: Free More than 100 lectures are available to watch for free on SVA’s YouTube channel, and some are posted in Apple Podcasts for listening. The program itself, according to SVA, “addresses the technical, conceptual, and creative needs of professional photographers, photographic educators, and visual arts professionals who are looking to advance their skills in digital image capture, asset management, and high-quality output.” That means you’ll get a rundown of all the problems a photographer might encounter, in-depth education on cameras, and a background in photography theory. Browse through the options and start with a lecture that piques your interest. Guest lecturers bring their own expertise and unique point-of-view of photography to the table, whether it’s from a perspective of fine art, commercial, fashion, documentary, curation, or filmmaking. The program truly offers something for every style. Price: Free The course’s goal is to bridge the gap between just simply seeing and truly understanding photographs and photography’s role in art and our culture over its 200-year history. Using works from the MoMA’s photography collection, this class will dive deep into photography as a means of artistic expression, a tool for science, a method of documentation, and as a way to communicate, tell stories, and bear witness to history. The course Seeing Through Photographs is divided into six distinct components, covering such topics as Documentary Photography, Pictures of People, and Constructing Narratives & Challenging Histories. You’ll gain academic insight into the medium and will come away with a new perspective of your own photography practice, thanks to a new understanding of the medium’s history and classic works. Price: Free
Explore foundations and techniques of photographyMay focus on a type of photography such as digital photographyExplore other related media such as filmLearn about the technical aspects of photographyLearn about lighting Study the parts of a camera and how they work
You’re interested in photography as a hobbyYou want to learn about the history of photographyYou want to master the basics of photographyYou’re studying photography and want to take an additional class on the subjectYou work in the photography field
