Mentoring for Newer Photographers

It's been suggested to me that it would be good to have some mentoring for the benefit of less experienced photographers.

I'm not quite sure how this would work, but the basic idea would be that someone would ask for guidance with a particular problem and then someone would volunteer to help and advise them.

For example, recently Sue and I have done field trips to help on a couple of subjects with a few friends. How we could translate that into a forum context is up for discussion.

The basic notion is a good one I think, so who would like help with something in particular? And after that, who would like to help them?

I suppose one way it might work is, for example, I would say I needed help with say studio portraits. Someone would volunteer to look at my pictures via e-mail and offer advice. Then I would send some more pictures when I had tried the advice, for further comment.

Over to you guys for some opinions and suggestions.

Just wondering in how much things would change, I've already seen members offering personal real life help to other members here and the your photos section offer the basics you describe in your second part.

If the attention behind is to make a list of persons you can directly contact in need for help.
It would only help really new members since you get friends her fast on this forum and you know which member to contact through a note if you need specialized help, at least that's my view on it.

how about dividing the UK into a number of "areas" with volunteer Pentaxian experts ready to do the occasional mentoring field trip within their designated area?

Neil

the drawback of course is this:
how do you use the search functions to learn the answer to a question that has been asked before (often many times) and get multiple perspective in the answers if every question gets asked and answered by pm or email?

Good points all. Looks like it might be a difficult one to make run.

Personal mentoring in the field works well, but on a forum it might be difficult to do something meaningful.

I suppose every helpful answer someone gives here is mentoring in a way.

The question I have is this.
Should this mentoring have to take place outside the forum boundaries,in other words... on a very personal 1:1 level?

Or as Stefan points out, would it be better to keep it into the My Photo's section?
Because sometimes similar advice/tutorials are posted there, already.

To keep it within forum boundaries you have the option to go "on public" using the My Photo's section or go "in private", by using PM and ask for advice to someone who is known for his/her field of expertise.

And....don't forget. A lot of learning and understanding is done by simply "lurking" and enjoying a free ride.

Another thing: Both the teacher and the student (as a figure of speech) should feel and be comfortable with each other.
In other words....."The getting to know each other phase" is a important thing to consider. And that takes time. Probably as much as time as it takes for a newbie to get comfortable and find his/her way on this forum.

Martin.

My own experience of this was from a recent group development of a picture of a wheat field that we did one afternoon in my pictures. Not quite what you're suggesting but it worked well because I think 4 of us were on line at the same time and had time. It was very useful for me.

Personally I think mentoring will work best if the feedback is rapid which is one reason face to face works well and PM can be a bit laboured.

Mike

I would be VERY happy to tutor somebody who wanted advice.

I've written and designed a few photography workshops for young people, and these have been very successful.

I would struggle with on-line tutoring though, because of the pain of having to write everything in detail.

I have often asked for advise on this and many other fora around the net, and usually found the answers I needed. I think that a 'intro to photography' workshop is nonetheless an invaluable tool for a beginner who's just starting up, and it would save on about 90% of the queries that are asked on this forum!

I did offer one a while back and it was even advertised in Pentax User, but there were no takers for a very full day of activities.

Locations may be the problem - just how far will people travel and are those in range the ones who will benefit.

I agree with Mike, it seems an attractive idea but would need to be formalised to be of any use, along the lines of the online conferences of an OU course. But once things become formalised there's an obligation to be available. It's a big commitment and a lot to ask.

I don't think there's any need to save 90% of the queries answered on the forum. It's free and doesn't annoy anyone - some people enjoy giving the advice on an ad hoc basis but might be less than willing to taken on any liability.

Carry on as usual, John?

Yes indeed.

It was an idea that seemed fair to float to see what people thought, and the consensus seems clear enough.

The forum IS a multylayer mentor system !

It is the main reason for me to be here ! So many excellent teachers !
I have got lot of good advice from here.



Just a pity that I cant meet you in real life. It would be defenetly exciting to be "a shadow" for several members here - even only for couple of hours

May be if we could upload an image and rather than ask for C&C we could ask for mentoring that way instead of being told that it was under-exposed more detail could be offered, settings suggested and explained, problems analysed.

I have just recently started taking landscape and I am finding it hard to get right so this detailed sort of help with follow up work would really be of help.

I think you'll find that if you upload into My/Your Photos and ask a specific question people will pitch in and help. It seems to work for me but I think you need a quite specific question.

I have learnt so much here in such a pleasant way that I am really grateful and it only happened because I worked out the K100D was best bang for bucks entry level.

Mike

Think you are right Mike problem being I know the shot is not good but I don't know why so it is difficult ask the right question. I may think it is a matter of exposure where as it is that I have the camera set up incorrectly and to make matters worse I am focusing on infinity when it should I believe be about one third of the viewable distance - but you see I am not sure at all.