A couple days ago I started reading a book by photographer Dane Sanders called Fast Track Photographer. The book attempts to help photographers better grasp the current climate of the photography industry.
While discussing education, especially as it applies to photography, he had this to say:
“In the era that’s quickly vanishing in our rear-view mirror, most of us defined professionalism based largely on time—how much time you spent paying your dues (historical time) and how much time you currently spend working [as a professional] (present time). Time was the defining element, and time used to be a reasonable measuring stick. But it isn’t anymore. Again, learning curves have flattened, due to new [technology] new software and new learning opportunities, among other things. It doesn’t take as long to go pro as it used to.”
Of course, Sanders is talking about going from amateur to professional photographer. As he describes, what it takes to become a professional is not what it used to be. Not necessarily less, just different.
But photography is based heavily on technology. It becomes an industry right on the edge of change. Among industries that change dramatically with technology, photography is high on that list. But as history has shown us, there is virtually no industry that is untouched by the technological advances of the last 30-40 years.
This has all gotten me thinking about the state of education and employment in general.
Photography, an industry that remains close to the cutting edge, has already almost completed an important shift: a photography degree doesn’t do too much for you as a pro. Many pros have no formal education at all. Learning mostly from the wealth of information on the internet, and their own hands-on experience.
The shift is starting to happen in other industries also. Hollywood has more “untrained” people than ever before. It’s also more more common for people to get hired as computer techs with no degree than it ever was before. Marketing, politics, sales, even religion, have an uncanny number of folk-professionals working in them.
It makes me wonder if the same shift that has happened in the photographic industry will happen in most other industries. In order to be hired, will mechanics need to go to trade school, or simply demonstrate the competency they gained from private learning? And, if things do pan out that way, what will that mean for our higher learning institutions? After all, with discipline and hard work, there’s virtually nothing to learn in a university that can’t be learned from lots of intuitive Google searches.
We live in an exciting time. It seems plausible to me that if technology keeps moving as fast as it has, there might be some folks with some very expensive, yet ultimately useless, degrees.
