opinions on brooks institute

[dibaphoto]

i am a high school student, i was recently excepted at brooks school

of photo in santa barbra, and i was just wondering if it is worth

all the money to go to this school. is it truly nessasary as a

photographer to have a degree, and how helpful is a degress in the

real world. is there jobs for a photographer out of college or will

i be starving selling my camera for top a romin.

 

ALSO WHAT ARE YOU OPINIONS ON THE SCHOOOL, is it a well know photo

school. will a degree bring me more opertunities.

 

Is ther any other school that you recomend besides brooks?

[james_moore4]

Hello Bobby,

I own a studio and hired a graduate of Brooks. He graduated some time ago but he does have a degree from Brooks. I can shoot him under the table. He has trouble with the very basics of photography. I am a self taught photographer. Everything I learned came from my experience working at photo labs (excellent experience), reading books (books on the basics) and by shooting lots of film. I can not say that Brooks isn't a wonderful school. I can say that the photographer that works for me that went to Brooks isn't very good at all.

[michelle_cox]

I'm not a professional photographer, so I can only repeat what I've seen in this forum over and over. If your end goal is to have your own photography business, then get a degree in business. If you're planning on being an employee, then think about what sort of places you want to be employed. Do you want to work for a newspaper, do commercial photography? Once you know that, find out from those places what sort of education they look for.

 

Also, I reccomend doing a search in the forums for words like "school" and "starting out". This is the sort of question that gets asked a lot, and there's a lot of good advice already out there.

 

As to the school itself, sorry, I've never heard of it.

[joseph_walsh2]

Bobby: Your job prospects will be brighter if you improve your spelling and syntax.

Seriously.

[kelly_flanigan1]

Brooks was started after the war in 1945; and is a very good school. There are also many camera stores in the SB area such as DEL,s etc. Santa Barbara weather is the best in the world; and housing and apartment prices are astronomically expensive. The town is nice to explore with a bicycle; and is very historic place to vist and live in.

[edsel_adams]

Brooks in the west,RIT in the east are considered the two best Bobby.Go for it!

[amauri_nunes]

FYI

 

Dels's in Santa Barbara has been closed for a few years, too bad, they had lots of good stuff on hand.

[kelly_flanigan1]

I visted DEL's 3 years ago; and they were in a weird different building. It had bars all over the windows; and DELS was on the 2nd floor. I bought a few low cost odd ball lens caps.

[david g. kelly]

I live in Santa Barbara, but I am not a professional photographer, and I did not go to Brooks. I have met a lot of Brooks students and graduates. The students spend most of their time shooting Polaroids with 4x5 cameras. This is a good introduction to traditional photography, especially if you are interested in commercial photography.

 

In the last five years, Brooks has expanded from 300 students to 1500 students and has added a second campus in Ventura. So, it is difficult to compare the old school to the current school. The tuition and cost of living are expensive, so the student body is dominated by wealthy dilletants. On the other hand, I know some people who spent years attending the program on a part-time basis. Now, they work in the local photography industry, where they barely earn enough to pay back their loans.

 

On the whole, I would recommend Brooks if you (or your parents) are wealthy enough to afford it easily. Otherwise, you will be better off going somewhere cheaper and getting a well-rounded education.

 

Oh, and for the record, Dels is out of business. They could not compete with Ebay.

[rendbezsoli]

i guess this debate is over but i'm curious how is this school? i wanna escape from my film aesthetics/film history and american studies majors

[ryanthompson]

I have 5 pals from Brooks who are all talented photographers. They graduated around 1995. 3 of them are visual effects artists for film and commercials, one is a part-time 1st assistant camera man / DP for low budget commercials and music videos - and one is a part-time AVID editor. Since they're all capable photographers employed in modern, photograpy related careers - I think Brooks does a good job.

[w.tompkins]

Hello, I guess this thread is pretty old but for anyone interested about Brooks comment on my gallery and I will tell you all about it. Oh yeah I forgot to mention, I go there.