Air Force Still Photo? College?

I'm joining the Air Force. Before I even knew I was going to, I had plans of

majoring in Photography in an art school. Some people tell me to just go to

college for photo, and learn a different job in the Air Force.

 

I am thinking of majoring in photo in college AND working in still photography

in the Air Force. However, I don't know if this is a good choice. In the Air

Force the colleges come to wherever you are whether it's in California or Italy.

 

I'd appreciate some help from anyone who took the Photo job in the Air Force,

or did both for school. But if anyone Air Force or not, has some info to help

me please do.

 

http://usmilitary.about.com/od/airforceenlistedjobs/a/afjob3v0x2.htm

 

has some info about the job.

I'm doing a lot of research into the same thing right now - except that I'm about a year from finishing my BFA in photography.

 

Here's some of what I've come away with:

1. AF photogs seem to win the most awards.

2. Officers don't get to do any photographing - so you've got to get enlisted to do any real shooting.

A. Problem - you have to do a lot of boring stuff before you get to the good stuff.

B. Problem - you get paid less.

a. However, you do get paid more if you have a BA/S and you still enlist instead of trying to get commissioned.

3. From what I've been told, yes you can work on a degree while you are in the military but no, they will not let you major in art.

 

Now I can't tell you much since I'm still in the process of figuring all of this out myself but it seems that finishing college first is always a benefit, whether you decide to get commissioned or enlisted.

I did 20 years in the Navy, working in the public affairs/journalism/photography arena and, for much of my career, overseas in joint service assignments that involved Air Force personnel as well.

 

I'm not sure where Air Force basic photographers are taught, but for the intermediate photojournism program, all the services train their people at the Defense Information School (DINFOS) at Fort Meade in Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C. That also happens to be where all the services train their journalists (writers). I went to DINFOS for the basic J course and the intermediate photo course, the latter I did later in my career. Both were excellent programs and I really got a lot out of them both.

 

There's also a highly competitive advanced course in photojournalism. Over the years, that particular course has been either at Syracuse University or the Rochester Institute of Technology; I think it's back at Syracuse these days. For that program, you are essentially a college student, you don't wear a uniform to class, you take regular classes with regular students (although you follow a specific program of classes designated for the program), but the government picks up the tab for you.

 

In all of the above cases, the schooling you get in the military can count toward college credits. That's of course if the college you want to attend chooses to accept those credits; a lot don't, because the way they make money is by getting you to take their classes and pay for the tuition. But it is possible to get college credit for your military training and experience. Fact is, by the time I started working for my degree, my rank and schooling was worth almost two years of college credit.

 

As for the degree programs available on base, you need to understand that those programs are driven by student availability. So when you're in Germany, you're probably not going to get a lot of opportunities to take classes to go toward a degree in photography. More so, those programs usually focus on the general educational requirements, like English, math, etc., that everybody has to get. You'll need to plan out your education really well so you work on your major while you're stateside. And you'll also need to make sure that you time things right, because again, a lot of colleges don't accept credits from other sources (including from other colleges) because then they don't get the tuition. Though there are programs like Excelsior College in New York or even The Community College of the Air Force that don't offer classes themselves, they just take the credits you've earned elsewhere (including for your military training and experience) and give you a degree once you've met all the credit requirements for it.

 

Honestly I think with photography you're going to find that less people are interested in what degrees you may or may not have and instead in how strong your portfolio is. In the military, you'll get the basics so you can build a strong portfolio, and then you'll get the opportunities to build that portfolio with exciting duty assignments in interesting places.

 

By the way, I would recommend talking to all the recruiters about their photography programs. Every branch has photographers, and most of us get trained at the same schools. I say this because one thing you need to know about the Air Force is that promotions in the Air Force are notoriously slow. The reason being is that they're pretty good about how they treat their personnel, even at the lower ranks, and so they have lower attrition rates than the other services. And since nobody gets out, nobody gets promoted into the slots that aren't being vacated. I'm just saying, depending on what you might be wanting out of your military experience, a different service might be able to offer you an even sweeter deal. For example, the Navy (my branch, so I'm biased) has the advantage that if you get stationed on a ship or with an aircraft squadron, you'll get to see a lot more of the world a lot faster than you would in one of the other branches, where you'll be stationed at a base that may indeed be in a cool location, but if you want to visit somewhere else, it will be on your dime.

 

FYI, the other poster is right about the officer vs. enlisted thing. Officers are managers; they serve as photo officers and public affairs officers and you will rarely if ever see one pick up a camera. It's the enlisted personnel that do the lion's share of the shooting. It's also the enlisted personnel who get all the training on how to shoot; the officers' training is all in management but not in how to actually *do* the work.

Like every other job, still photo in the Air Force can be heaven or hell, depending on your assignment. Tech school (still at Lowry?) is equivilent to Photo101++ at most colleges, or three years of a steady diet of Modern Photography.

 

If you love camera work, apply for any assignment which deals with public affairs or is attached to a PA office. Base Photo Lab is pretty routine, but it's a great way to gain diverse experience. There are a number of special duty assignments, some of which require advanced training or rank, and some which don't.

 

One plum is Civil Air Patrol Staff Photographer. I believe you need to be Staff Seargent to apply. Four years of travelling and shooting Cadets and CAP exercises. You get to meet some awesome people (Gen. Chuck Yeager comes to mind) and get some pretty good plane rides.

 

You can also apply for PJ School (PhotoJournalist, not ParaRescue -- they're called PJ's, too); when I was around, it was 2 years of advanced training at Rochester, IIRC, followed by 4 to 6 years of location work. Deserts, jungles, and fast-burners. Not a great job if you're married, however, unless you really want a divorce.

 

Unless you're a glutton for boredom and punishment, stay away from

reccie-techs. Ditto the Presidental Public Affairs Staff (I don't remember exactly what it's called); it sounds pretty good at first, but is just printing mountains of PR pictures for the Pres -- civilian photographers get the really good assignements.

 

I served at Air Force Audio Visual Service (AAVS) which was later Defense Audio-Visual Agency) (DAVA); I don't know if anything similar is still around, but if it is, it would be a great place to get experience with every facet of still photography -- I got to process the very first pictures of the very first shuttle landing, among other things, and was trusted with the Marines' own official negative of the flagraising atop Mount Suribachi.

Jason --

 

Answering your queries one-by-one ...

 

"1. AF photogs seem to win the most awards."

 

Not true. Each branch of the service has our own media awards, and then the first-place winners from each branch compete against each other in the annual Thomas Jefferson Awards competition (which is going on right now at the Defense Information School). In my own experience, I've seen more Army winners than anything else; Air Force seems to come in second.

 

"2. Officers don't get to do any photographing - so you've got to get enlisted to do any real shooting. A. Problem - you have to do a lot of boring stuff before you get to the good stuff. B. Problem - you get paid less. a. However, you do get paid more if you have a BA/S and you still enlist instead of trying to get commissioned."

 

Enlisted personnel do do the lion's share of the shooting; officer's are managers mostly. As for when you get to do the "good stuff", that's the same as anywhere, as an intern/apprentice, you have to earn your stripes and prove yourself capable; however, opportunities to shoot do still come, even at the lowest paygrades, and the best shooters do prove themselves early. Also, it depends much on where you're stationed; smaller shops don't have the luxury of not using their junior shooters. And regarding pay, sorry, but there's no pay bonus for having a degree. An airman is an airman is an airman, degree or not. What the degree does offer is an improved opportunity for other airmen without degrees, and that will bring higher pay, but the degree itself won't get you money.

 

"3. From what I've been told, yes you can work on a degree while you are in the military but no, they will not let you major in art."

 

You can work on a degree in the military, and you can major in art or anything else you want to. The military will not dictate your degree program. They will also pay for it, through tuition assistance or the Montgomery G.I. Bill program (again, anything you want to study). However, if you're relying on classes provided by the military to get your degree, chances are there won't be very many art classes.

<a href = "http://www.dinfos.osd.mil/DinfosWeb/" >Defense Information School(DINFOS)Command</a>

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<p>

<a href = "http://www.af.mil/photos/media_view.asp?id=11440">

<img src = "http://www.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/web/040428-F-5646C-005.JPG"><br> A click in the bush </a>

</p> </center>

"Defense Information School(DINFOS)Command"

 

Yep, that's the school that taught me most of what I know about photography today. Though I attended when they were still out at Fort Benjamin Harrison, near Indianapolis (Fort Ben was closed in the 90s by the BRAC commission). I had so much fun at that school, especially coming back for the intermediate photojournalism course.

 

Being Navy, I never got to play around in the mud and trees like the guy in the photo Andrew provided, though.

Thank you all so much for your input.

 

I hear that in the tech school for the military, they only teach what you need to know to learn your job. My father used to be in the Army and he went to school for 3 months. A civilian majored in his job at college and it took 4 years.

 

So is tech school not really a good place to learn about photo because they don't tell you everything that college does? Since you say if I request to work overseas, there isn't a good chance for me to be able to major in photo and have all the necessary equipment as college, like say darkrooms, studios, models, etc.

 

I'm still torn between doing photo in the military AND majoring in photo, or if I should just major in photo and do a different job.

 

Also, how is the pay in the military for photo?

"So is tech school not really a good place to learn about photo because they don't tell you everything that college does?"

 

They'll teach you the fundamentals. The biggest difference between college and a tech school is that college will teach you a lot of things that have nothing to do with shooting. English, math, science ... even photography-related, you'll get a lot of theory-related, history of, that sort of thing. And they'll do a lot to teach you the various kinds of photography that's out there, whereas in the military tech school, they'll teach you what you need to know in order to do the kind of shooting they need you to do.

 

If you decide to also go to college in photography, be aware that a lot of your military schooling will count toward that. And the Air Force will pay for it all.

 

As for how the pay is for photography, it's the same as it is for any other career field in the military. Those pay rates are a matter of record, which can be found at http://www.dod.mil/dfas/militarypay/2006militarypaytables/2007_Web_Pay_Table.pdf. Your pay will consist of three main parts: base pay (which you'll get no matter what), Basic Allowance for Housing (unless you live in the barracks), and Basic Allowance for Subsistance (unless you get a meal card and thus eat at the chow hall for all your meals). You might also qualify for aircrew pay, hazardous duty pay, etc., depending on your duty assignment. FYI, pays are taxed by the government (just like a civilian job), allowances are tax-free; if you end up in a tax-free zone like Iraq, your pays are also tax-free.

I was an Air Force photographer (AFSC 3VO72) for the last 10 years of my career. I can tell you being an Air Force photographer can be the best job in the Air Force. If photojournalism is what your after, I suggest trying to get into Combat Camera. I was assigned to the 1st Combat Camera Squadron at Charleston AFB, SC in the mid 90's and loved it. I don't know about how it is now, but then it was the only active duty combat camera unit in the Air Force. Deployments were frequent and sometimes long, but we were able to shoot our jobs as creatively as we wished with little real adult supervision. We also used the latest and greatest equipment available and had ample opportunity to keep our shooting skills sharp. After combat camera, nothing else was quite as good.

David W

 

The combat camera... Did you actually have to shoot fighting?

 

And XP: I'm currently looking in to doing the same thing... let me know what you decide to do.

I went through MEPS and did my ASVAB this week, and I found out unfortunately the photography progam is now unavailable, and only for civilians.

"I went through MEPS and did my ASVAB this week, and I found out unfortunately the photography progam is now unavailable, and only for civilians."

 

So talk to other branches if this is what you want to do. Or check out the journalism program -- military journalists also shoot, it's not just writing. The Air Force might have closed that MOS for the time being, but they aren't the only belle at the ball.

 

BTW, I find it hard to believe the Air Force has done away with all of their military photographers forever. They might just be overloaded at the moment, and so they had to temporarily shut it down. But since they can't send civilians on recon, they've got to still have military people doing the job.

<p>I had a blast being a Still Photographer in the USAF. I separted in 2001 with an Honorable Discharge and worked with the US Army as a civilian photographer and just returned from Kuwait after a 2 yr contract with CSA,ltd as an Event Photographer you can view my work at <a href="http://www.kenastonfreelance.com">www.kenastonfreelance.com</a> and btw Kuwait was great. I'm now looking into joining the US Air Force Reserves thats how much I miss the USAF. Good luck </p>

<p>I had a blast being a Still Photographer in the USAF. I separted in 2001 with an Honorable Discharge and worked with the US Army as a civilian photographer and just returned from Kuwait after a 2 yr contract with CSA,ltd as an Event Photographer you can view my work at <a href="http://www.kenastonfreelance.com">www.kenastonfreelance.com</a> and btw Kuwait was great. I'm now looking into joining the US Air Force Reserves thats how much I miss the USAF. Good luck </p>

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<p>Some really good information here. I am looking at joining the military and would like to do photography. I have a BA in Photojournalism and three years of experience as a writer/photographer at a local newspaper. I am looking at the Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard. Looks like Navy and Air Force are full, looking to see where jobs are available. Let me know if anyone here has advice or suggestions. Thanks. Debra Schell http://debraschell.zenfolio.com/</p>