Paul Nicklen Masters of Photography – Review
A Review of Paul Nicklen's Masters of Photography Course
Photography is an art form that demands both technical proficiency and a creative eye. To enhance one's skills in this field, learning from renowned experts becomes indispensable. Paul Nicklen, a celebrated wildlife photographer, offers his expertise through the Masters of Photography Course.
In this blog post, I’ll delve into some the course's content, teaching style, practicality, and value for money to help you decide if it's the right choice for honing your photography skills.
Even if you decide not to get the course you should definitely check out a free lesson you can get on the Masters of Photography website!
Overview of the Masters of Photography Course
Paul Nicklen's Masters of Photography Course is a comprehensive online program designed to cater to photographers of all levels. Spanning multiple modules, the course delves into various photography techniques, including wildlife, landscape, underwater, and environmental photography. With its flexible learning format, participants can access the course material at their own pace and convenience, making it suitable for both beginners and experienced photographers seeking to elevate their craft.
The course is divided into 50 video sessions, some of them are quite short with only a couple of minutes of content, while others are long videos, such as his black bear encounter which is divided into two long videos. All of them have some nuggets of wisdom from Paul’s long career as a photographer.
More than Just Gear and Settings
This course is about so much more than just teaching about the camera gear and settings for taking photos. Yes, Paul cover those things as well, but he also dives into the mindset required, importance of goal setting, trusting your creative right brain and so much more.
My Favourites from the Course
There is a ton of valuable wisdom to be gained in this course and Paul has an inspiring attitude for his profession that is really infectious and comes out through his stories.
I think everybody will take something different from this course depending on where you are on your photographic journey and it’s a course I will come back to again and again and I’m certain I will take something different from it each time.
Without giving away the courses content I’d like to share a few of the things that were incredibly valuable to me that I have immediately tried to implement in my own work.
20 - 60 - 20 Rule
Without giving too much away this is Paul’s philosophy about spending more time going after images that are difficult to make. I love this rule, it’s a philosophy I immediately took to heart and I find that I’m pushing myself further with my photography by applying this rule
Post-process
I was happy by the fact that when Paul went through his editing process I actually follow a fairly similar process. However, one of my problems have always been that I always end up with way too many images because I don’t delete enough. Paul’s methodical approach of going through his images several times using the star system, was for me, a final piece of the puzzle I needed to get to grips with my catalogue.
shadowing Paul on a Shoot
My favourite videos from this course were the once where you get to follow Paul on a shooting assignment. Paul talks out loud about his thought process in the field, he shares everything from why he chooses certain gear to composition and lighting. He also goes into the ecology and behaviour of his subject and shares how it informs him to his approach for photographing the animal.
These sessions are both inspiring and educational and I keep going back to them for more.
Check out the free lesson on Paul’s encounter with a black bear here!
Mindset and goal setting
This is an area many photographers skip when teaching, but Paul dives into it and shares how important it’s been for him to get where he is today. This is another part of the course that I immediately took to heart, and even though I already do some of the things he talks about it was great to hear how much it means to him and inspired me to take it even further.
Drawbacks of the Course
I found the course to be incredibly inspiring and educational, and I almost found it difficult to find any drawbacks, but I think two comes to mind.
Price
One thing that immediately stood out when I looked up this course was the price, but the thing is that it has three different price points. At the lowest tier you get access to the whole course (50 lessons) and a Facebook group. This is the one I’m on and I think what you get for the money is absolutely justifiable, the insights you get from Paul through the lessons more than makes up for the cost.
I can’t really comment on the higher price tiers as I don’t have them, but if more behind the scenes, photo competition judged by Paul, live webinar with Paul and more sounds valuable to you then maybe you want to go for one of the higher tiers.
Structure
The structure of the course is not like a book on photography where people usually present the content step by step with a chapter for each aspect they teach. Rather, it’s more like sitting down with Paul and listening to his stories and through them you gain valuable lessons along the way. Personally, I actually much prefer the story telling approach as it’s so much more engaging and I think the lessons sink in better this way. However, if that’s not approach you like then maybe this course isn’t for you.
Conclusion
I think that almost anyone interested in wildlife photography would gain something from this course, I also believe that Paul’s approach to photography where the animal comes first is something a lot more photographers should follow. Paul’s stories are engaging, inspiring and filled with wisdom. He covers not only photography, but also the mindset and approach to making it as a photographer if you want to pursue it full time.
Paul Nicklen is one of my favourite photographers, but also a person who I admire for his dedication to conservation and his approach to life in general. I can highly recommend his Masters of Photography course!
The link to the class is an affiliate link, which means I get a small commission for any purchase you make at no extra cost to you. Rest assured I’m very careful about recommending gear and subscriptions and would not recommend Paul Nicklen’s course had I not researched it and thoroughly enjoyed and found value in the content.
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