I am a Certified Digital Photography Underwater Instructor.

Yes, i am a certified underwater photography instructor!

What does it mean ? That i will show to my wife who got the "balls" at home!

OK, i agree with you, until now it's not working.

My certification card of UnderWater Photography Instructor
My certification card of UnderWater Photography Instructor

More seriously, i didn't pass this Digital Underwater photography instructor certification for a living.

I am fifty years old and my interest are far to teach photo on the field and it is placed somewhere else.


But let's speak about learning to become a photography instructor where you learn the way you will teach photography, specially underwater which is one of the most challenging photography type in my very humble opinion.

 

For sure some exception like Sky Diving photography and BASE jumping photography, where it might be a lot more challenging type of photography, but they don't really have white balance problem like underwater where the white balance change every metres.

 

On the other hand, i always tried to imagine how to focus at 250km/h during a free fall from an airplane and asking the other sky divers to say "cheese" at the camera and to not move, or even worst i can imagine a BASE jumper photographer where it's just all about a matter of seconds... the BASE photographer saying after the jump:

- Hey guys we need to climb back because i didn't have time to push the shutter button..

So after few climbing back i can easily see the unhappy face of the BASE jumpers...

 

Wow and i forgot the guys with a kite surf trying to take some pictures from his kite during a beaufort force 8 ! Don't laugh, in 1995 i passed my boat cruise license with a beaufort force 8! We was the only one on the sea, i even thought that the certifier would kill our instructor (our instructor got scolded by the certifier, and i can tell you, it was ... very... Hum ... yes, like that).

 

But let's get back on track and explain why i took some courses to become an underwater photography instructor. If some people are natural to teach photography, i am not, so i took courses to learn how to teach photography, and i learned a lot about teaching!

 

There is a way to teach, you cannot give all your photography knowledge just like that, you will just overwhelm your students by giving them information in every directions and at the end they will not even remember twenty percent of what you have explained during the photography course.

 

First at all, we (us, the instructor's students) learned to put things down at a very simple understanding, extremely simple, and after for each subject, when the students got the general purpose, we develop the subject, but not "like that", there is also a way to develop the student knowledge, a way to lecture, a way to do exercises and to practice skills, in fact there is a way for each step when you are teaching photography.

 

At the end, does this course make me a better photographer ?

 

No! not at all, i didn't become a better photographer, why? don't forget that the purpose of this course was to learn how to teach photography, but i do believe now, i might be a better teacher in this huge topic which is  photography... hopefully.

 

So to finish this blog photo today, two questions:

Is a talented photographer a good teacher? And, is a good photography instructor a talented photographer? In both cases, i will say : ... not so often.


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