Best Online Photography Courses 2022

Our selection on how to find these courses

Often the decision to become a photographer is followed immediately by the purchase of a camera. It’s impossible, of course, to become a photographer without one! But experienced photographers recommend that you first study photography theory, the basics of composition, color theory, perspective, and other basic disciplines.

In this article, you will find everything you need to learn photography from scratch: the best online photography courses, video tutorials for novice photographers, the most popular photography books and photography training apps.

Online Photography Courses

Photography doesn’t just have to be a pleasant hobby, but also a serious activity. The ability to create high-quality pictures will not only help you capture the best moments of your life as a memory, but also show your products in a high-quality way. However, all of this is only possible if you are fully skilled as a photographer, which means you need to learn.

Fortunately, you can now take advantage of online courses, allowing you to improve at your own convenience and under the guidance of true professionals in the field. The courses offered allow you to save time and learn the skills you need from the comfort of your own home.

Introduction to photography for beginners

This training pack is designed for people who want to free themselves from the automatic mode of their camera! This is the first essential step for those who want to progress in photography and take pictures that meet their expectations. By the end, you will understand the workings of your camera, the lens, and the various shooting functions.

Here are the main skills that will be acquired at the end of the 4 courses:

• The ability to choose the appropriate image format (Jpeg or RAW)
• Understanding the specific terms of the technical language of photography
• Adjusting the white balance (correct colorimetry of the image)
• Understanding the nature and function of the 3 exposure factors (sensitivity, aperture, shutter speed)
• Use of semi-automatic shooting modes (speed and aperture priority)
• Use of the manual shooting mode
• Fine-tuning the autofocus (focusing system)
• Adjusting the light metering (to control the exposure of your image)

Photography course - Review the essentials of the photo technique

The session, lasting 3h30, is for anyone who wants to review technical notions previously learned, but partially forgotten or misunderstood. The objective of the course will be to give you a deeper understanding of your camera, and a more fluid technical practice; something necessary before you can fully engage in creative photography.

During 3h30, a professional photographer will fill in the gaps through these steps:

• Firstly, your technical shortcomings will be detected in order to configure the course according to your needs.
• Secondly, the fundamental technical notions, and the ones you are having problems with, will be (re)explained theoretically.
• Then, the teacher will propose a series of exercises; each one allowing the practical application of a crucial technical point and/or source of lack of understanding. These practical exercises will be designed to be carried out in the space of the house or apartment.
• Finally, the teacher will give advice on how to continue practicing.

Online Private Photography Course

By opting for an individual session, you get personalization and exclusivity; your teacher will be eager to respond to your request, solve your problems and sharpen your photographic skills, all thanks to a learning process adapted to your rhythm.

In order for this course to be as efficient as possible, and for you to get the most out of it, it is important that you specify the following when you make your reservation request:

• The subject you wish to cover during this 2.5-hour session. Tell us everything: what you wish to develop, the problem you would like to solve. It could be a technical problem on your camera, a theme to explore such as portraiture, or retouching your images.
• The number of participants. You can be accompanied by 2 other people of your choice.
• Choose a niche among those proposed; however, you can refine your choice when you send your reservation email to [email protected].

Lightroom level 1: Organise and select your images and Lightroom level 2: Starting to retouch images

These courses will be useful for photographers of any level. Even absolute beginners will easily understand Lightroom CC and learn to work with it effectively, quickly and professionally.

The course is a practical guide to action. During the course, you will learn how to process photos in a wide variety of genres.

During the first level of learning, you will be taught:

• The fundamentals of the program and how it works
• The different methods of importing images into Lightroom
• Sorting and selecting images within the software

During the second level of learning, you will be taught:

• The different tools for image processing
• Adequate retouching formulas (practical phase of the workshop)
• The different methods of exporting images from Lightroom

Photoshop level 1: Introduction to digital photo acquisition, development and editing

The first level of our Photoshop training course will familiarise you with the software. This course will be essential for you to understand how to use the program. This course is perfect to go beyond Lightroom and is dedicated to pure photo retouching. It will teach you the techniques necessary to obtain professional-looking images through post-production.

Your level of photography does not need to be extremely advanced but you should already be familiar with Lightroom as Photoshop is not very accessible for beginners in software, computer manipulation or photography in general. For complete beginners in these areas, you should first familiarise yourself with the Lightroom Level 1 course.

Photoshop is an essential tool for photographers in the digital age. It has infinite potential and, as such, it is important to be able to distinguish its most efficient functions in order to achieve the desired result. Through this software, you have the possibility to interpret and realize your vision as well as finalize images and prepare them for printing. This course will enable you to completely utilize your photos to their full potential and shows you the multitude of possibilities that Photoshop has to offer for improving and optimizing your shots. You will quickly become familiar with Photoshop's interface, tools and functions, and learn how to solve the most common problems encountered in photography.

The teacher will help you discover their own workflow, from the development of the digital negative (raw file) to the basics of photo retouching, through image processing with a non-destructive approach. In order to allow students to better understand Photoshop's functions and techniques, the explanations are based on real examples of digital photo retouching.

At the end of this training, you will be able to:

• Understand and master the Photoshop interface
• Analyze image problems and implement the necessary tools and functions to correct them
• Correct and improve your images
• Adapt the knowledge acquired to your digital workflow
• Work with text and images
• Carry out elementary photographic montages
• Prepare an image for printing

First Steps in Smartphone Photography: Equipment, Applications, Settings

The online course Course #1 - First Steps in Smartphone Photography: Equipment, Applications, Settings will be useful for PR specialists, SMM specialists, owners of showrooms, restaurants, online stores, managers and administrators, and bloggers. Everyone who wants to create attractive visual content with a cell phone will find a lot of useful information here. The main values of the course are practice, detailed step-by-step instructions, and direct and fast communication with the instructor.

Your smartphone, regardless of its model, range or age, has enormous potential for photography! In fact, nowadays it is not uncommon to confuse a shot taken with a phone for an image captured by a professional reflex camera. These beautiful images, created with equipment as minimal as a smartphone, are at your fingertips thanks to our complete suite of smartphone photography courses, designed to bring you quick results and created specifically for video-conferencing sessions.

In this first course, the basics will be established:

• We will discuss the phone itself and the real differences between certain models
• We will also talk about the accessories and their impact on the quality of your pictures
• We will review the available software for shooting, retouching, and sharing
• We will determine which are the essential and most efficient tools
• Last but not least, you will understand the different shooting settings, which are crucial for controlling the aesthetics of your pictures This session, lasting 2.5 hours, will provide you with a solid foundation for developing your smartphone photography and will allow you to tackle the rest of our series of courses on this subject without any problem!

Instagram Online Photo Course

Your smartphone, regardless of its model, range or age, has enormous potential for photography! Nowadays it is not uncommon to confuse a shot taken with a phone for an image captured by a professional reflex camera. These beautiful images, created with equipment as minimal as a smartphone, are at your fingertips thanks to our complete suite of smartphone photography courses, designed to bring you quick results and created specifically for video-conferencing sessions.

This fifth workshop will focus on the famous social network; a place that is loved by photographers and is absolutely essential for those who photograph with their smartphones.

• You will discover many tips, inspiration and some photographic routines to harmonize your page, make it more dynamic and give it a real visual identity!
• We will learn the best strategy for sharing and communicating on the network so that your pictures can get the success they deserve!
• You will leave this session ready to (re)invent your Instagram page, to shape it to your liking and to give it the attributes of success!

The photo review

It's time to talk about your pictures! During this videoconference session, the trained eye of a professional photographer will look at your images as well as those of your "classmates"; they will discover your strengths and any improvements that can be applied (both technical and aesthetic).

This will teach you to analyze your photography from another perspective, to draw from precious advice and gain some new inspiration (author references, books) that will allow you to progress in your practice.

But don't worry! Your images will be shown in an anonymous way, unless you wish to appear as an author; it is up to you.

So, practically how does it work? At least three days before the session, you will need to send a maximum of 30 images to the photographer in charge of the course (the email address will be given to you after the purchase). During the session, your images will be shown according to the photographer's choices, without mentioning your name, and you will also explore the images of other participants, as well as the comments made about them.

Food photography

Your smartphone, regardless of its model, range or age has enormous photographic potential! In fact, nowadays it is not uncommon to confuse a picture taken with a phone for an image captured by a professional reflex camera. These beautiful images, created with equipment as minimal as a smartphone, are at your fingertips thanks to our complete suite of smartphone photography courses, designed to bring you quick results and created specifically for video-conferencing sessions.

Do you like gastronomy, do you love to cook, or are you a lover of beautiful and tasty dishes? If this is the case, you probably use photography to immortalise your creations. This workshop will give you the keys to making a success of your culinary images and presenting a successful dish in style!

Here is what is planned during these 2.5 hours:

• First of all, we will discover what (theoretically) makes a culinary photo a successful image
• We will see how to choose and manage the light in order to magnify a culinary creation
• You will learn how to stage your compositions, in order to add "storytelling" and depth to your images
• We will talk about composition and see what are the means to make a culinary image aesthetic
• A few exercises will be proposed, using very common subjects (no need to have ready-made meals at your disposal; a few slices of bread, for example, or apples will do just fine)
• Finally, we will discuss how to retouch images (via a free mobile application)

Masterclasses from Nikon (Youtube channel)

This channel has several hundred videos with masterclasses from professional photographers. The average length of a video is 15 minutes. The masterclasses include sports photography, reportage photography, fashion photography, newborn photography, and nature photography. Here you can find videos that introduce you to the Nikon technique and give tips on choosing a camera for beginners. There are also short and useful video tutorials from the NiconSchool series, where you can learn to adjust white balance, exposure, depth of field, and much more in 1 minute.

Video - What is focus stacking and what are the benefits? Nikon School's Neil Freeman explains

Books

“Learning to See Creatively”, Third Edition: Design, Color, and Composition in Photography. Bryan Peterson This is a new edition of “Learning to See Creatively” by Brian Peterson, which has been completely revised and updated exclusively with new images by the author. This book shows how important a thorough approach to creativity is, and that creativity is simply a skill that can be cultivated and developed.

With the help of original photographic works from your own portfolio, you will be able to really look at the world through the lens, learn about the basic elements and techniques, you will be able to avoid visual and technical pitfalls and boring. banal shots. The author has made it his goal to break the habit of looking at things traditionally and taking boring, dull pictures.

“The Photograph as Contemporary Art”. Charlotte Cotton Photography was invented almost two hundred years ago. Since then it has evolved from a documentary tool to an artistic medium and now occupies its place in art on a par with painting and sculpture.

The author of the book "Photography as Contemporary Art" Charlotte Cotton tells us about the most important characteristics of modern art photography, using the works of 250 famous photographers as an example. Among them are photos by recognized masters such as Isa Genzken, Jeff Wall, Sophie Kall, and such rising stars as Beshti, Jason Evans, Lucas Blalock and others.

“The Digital Photography Book”. Scott Kelby "The Digital Photography Book” is the absolute bestseller on digital photography in the world, a true multi-award-winning hit. The book has been translated into many languages and has become popular in many countries because it really tells you how to use the techniques of today's leading photographers to get professional-quality images. The author, Scott Kelby, has created not a handbook overloaded with terms and arcane arguments, but a working handbook for anyone wishing to master the technique of photography.

In the book, you will learn more than 200 professional techniques, and learn how to get high-quality, sharp, and beautiful pictures in different genres. Literally, every page of this book contains a simple tip for improving the quality of your photos. Scott Kelby is one of the most distinguished authors of digital photography books in the world and for many years has been the editor and publisher of the popular magazine for professionals, Photoshop User. Kelby's company, KelbyOne, also prepares and distributes online courses for photographers. “Portrait photography”. Franz Fiedler This rare, forgotten and little-known book has been considered a true canon of photography since its publication in 1960. Fortunately, you can now find a high-resolution electronic copy of the book.

In this book, “Portrait Photography”, you won't find many ready-made recipes for getting great portraits. Franz Fiedler had tremendous practical experience, which he generously shares in his book. The author analyzes photographic portraits and details the process of creating them, seeking only to encourage the photographer to be creative and thoughtful when creating a portrait.

“Photography foundations for art & design”. Mark Galer The book covers almost all aspects of photography: from the artistic value of images to the processing of finished photographs. The main advantage of the publication is a large number of exercises for photographers after each section. By doing them, you can increase your professionalism as you read the book and bring many skills to automatism.

“The Photographer's Eye”. Michael Freeman Despite the rather unfortunate translation of the title, the book is great - the material is presented in accessible language, with lots of author's examples. This is literally the ABC of modern photography, which is worth starting to get into the art. It teaches how you how to be technical, develop your artist's eye and take pictures with meaning and emotion.

“Expressive Photography”. Co-Author Tracey Clark This book contains more than 230 photos with a detailed analysis of technical and compositional techniques. It gives an overview of the techniques and tools used by the world's best photographers. The reader will be able to learn to see interesting subjects for taking pictures, build a convincing composition, shoot excellently even with a "point-and-shoot" camera, and edit photos qualitatively.

“The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes (Voices That Matter)”. Joe McNally The author of the book is an internationally renowned photographer from the United States. His main talent is the ability to work with light. He knows how to describe it, what shape to give it, and how to control lighting. The master can create optimal lighting conditions, even using a standard hot shoe flash. The book is full of personal reasoning and examples that will be useful to all photographers.

“Digital Landscape Photography: In the Footsteps of Ansel Adams and the Great Masters”. Michael Frye With the help of this book, you can learn to create landscape photos that take your breath away. The author teaches how to work with composition, lighting, and color, describes in detail all modern landscape photography techniques and gives more than 300 photo examples with detailed analysis. A bonus is the most complete collection of professional secrets from contemporary photographers.

“Top Digital Photography Tips”. Michael Freeman This book is a godsend for the beginner photographer. It gives you tips on exposure and composition in an accessible language, defines basic terms, and tells you how to properly handle your technique.

“On Photography”. Susan Sontag "On Photography" is the book that made American writer Susan Sontag famous. In her essays, she reflects on the meaning and development of photography. The collection of interconnected works appeared thanks to an article in which the researcher spoke of "some of the aesthetic and moral problems” posed by the ubiquity of photographic images.

It is this ubiquity that Sontag dissects in her book: "By duplicating our already cluttered world with its images, photography allows us to believe that the world is more prehensile than it really is. The desire to confirm reality and expand experience through photography is an aesthetic consumerism that infects everyone today. Industrial societies are putting their citizens hooked on pictures." Sontag's ideas make it possible to understand the role of photography in today's information society.

The researcher also draws attention to the conceptual and aesthetic side of photography: "The acute need for beauty, the reluctance to explore what is beneath the surface, the intoxication with the corporeal world - all these components of the erotic feeling are manifested in the pleasure we get from photography. But this pleasure has a flip side that is foreign to freedom. It is no exaggeration to say that people develop a photodependency: a need to turn the experience into a way of seeing.”

Apps for learning photography

7 Awesome Photography Apps you need

Photography Tips & Tutorials

The Photography Tips & Tutorials app contains the best articles on photography from renowned photographers. GuruShots — Photography Game This app brings together and inspires photo enthusiasts from all over the world to share their photos here. GuruShots is considered one of the best photo apps for showcasing your work, here you will get instant feedback, comments, and votes from millions of photographers. Constructive criticism and support from professionals will help you take your work to the next level. Photographer’s companion The Photographer's companion app helps you get rid of the automatic mode in your camera forever. It is designed for professional or amateur photographers who want to gain basic knowledge and skills.

With this app, you can correctly calculate exposure, depth of field, and field of view, set the shutter speed, know the position of the sun, the time of sunrise and sunset in your area, monitor the position of the moon, make the best settings according to the light of the place and much more. Canon Photo Companion Canon Photo Companion is a personalized, handheld assistant, electronic tutor, and teacher, your guide to the world of photography. This app contains information about all Canon EOS cameras. By downloading the app, you will have access to clear tutorials and video tutorials on Canon cameras and photography techniques in general.

Some of the benefits of this app include the personalization of exercises, video lessons, and tips according to your camera model, entry-level skills, and your interests. There's also a wealth of inspirational content from renowned professionals.