Picture Research Course Relaunched

Oct. 8, 2013 - PRLog -- The Picture Research by Distance Learning Course pioneered by Julian Jackson and run for many years by the Publishing Training Centre in London has been revised and relaunched by its author. “It was clear that the profession of photobuying was changing and the course needed to be brought up to date. The fundamentals are still the same for researching, acquring and licensing images, but a lot has changed in the last few years, so the course had to respond to an advancing industry.”

Julian brought the course in-house this year at www.picture-research-courses.co.uk and it is available to beginning picture professionals and those with basic skills but gaps in their knowledge. The course has new material about technology and also some “day-in-the-life” articles by experienced picture researchers. “Over the ten years the course has been going, we have had students from all over the world,” Julian adds. Because it is distance learning, students can take it at their own pace. Normally we expect students to take 6 months to complete it – the fastest was four months, and we have had students take a year or two, for example when they have had life changes or children, so had to take a break and get back to it afterwards, but that shows the flexibility of the distance-learning method.

Julian says, “Over the years we have had over 100 students complete the course and many have gone on to jobs in the stock photography industry. Obviously times are hard but I've had a lot of complimentary feedback about how the course and the assignments in particular gave my students a step up when they were involved with real photobuying projects.

The course has five assignments which are closely based on real assignments from Julian's long career in picture research, so they are the sort of projects that researchers experience when they do the job for real. “There is deliberately room for creativity in the assignments, as no two researchers are alike, and I expect them to develop skills, this is a course for people with a love of visual images, not a set of box-ticking exercises.”

Although most of the course deals with digital technology, the old “analogue” materials of negatives, prints and transparencies are not neglected so students can be confident if they end up handling physical material as well as digital files.

To find out more, visit

www.picture-research-courses.co.uk

Julian Jackson is a UK based writer, PR consultant and photographer, who was a picture researcher and editor for two decades, working for many major media, including the BBC, Channel 4, Reader's Digest, NBC and Der Spiegel. His websites are www.picture-research-courses.co.uk, www.julianjackson.co.uk