One place available for The Email School of Photography

A very old image from 2009 at the Bodleian Library of my alma mater.

My Email School of Photography is a personally tailored correspondence program to assist you with improving your image making skills, at your own pace, no matter what your skill level. I’ve had approximately 200 students in total and about 50 who are still currently at various stages of completion. A lot of my students go on to join me for workshops or Masterclasses, and vice versa – a workshop is a great way to accelerate what you’ve learned in the Email School, and the Email School is a great way to continue the learning post-workshop especially for topics that might require a bit more contemplation and iteration.

Thanks to a couple of coincidences of timing (more graduating assignment submissions than people on the waiting list and fast completers) I have one spot available for the Email School of Photography open now – details of the program follow after the jump. I’ve never advertised this mentoring program much simply because I rarely have any free slots to offer!

Here’s how the Email School works:

1. Determine what your final objective is – it can be as simple as ‘I want to make photos like this’ or as detailed as ‘I want to refine my wildlife photography technique’. You can pick stuff from my flickr portfolio, or anywhere else off the web. Please give me an idea of what you would like to achieve before we start so I can tell you if it’s realistic or not, and whether this is the best way of getting there.

2. Select a portfolio of your 10 images most closely matching your objective with a quick sentence or two on why you think they’re good – this helps me to gauge where you are, what you’re seeing, and what you’re trying to achieve. If you have a gallery online, send me the link to that, too.

3. I’ll then come back to you with a quick portfolio review and a lesson plan to bridge the gap between 1. and 2. This will only be about half of the course, because it depends on how you’re progressing and what other aspects need work along the way.

4. Lessons take the form of nine assignments, email critiques/ teaching, practice (on your part) and photo submissions for assessment. All of the content is customized for you (in the form of long-form email for now) – which is the main difference between my course and others. Also, you should take as long as you need until you’ve mastered the lesson – not submit the first one or two images that you complete, even though that’s the requirement of the assignment. Submissions should be 2MP (~1500x1000px) JPEGs for now, unless specified (including the portfolio). Along the way, ask any questions you feel you need to – there are no silly questions; similarly if you come across something in your practice that you don’t understand or want to explore further, we can always rearrange the lesson plan to suit. I will be brutal but objective with my commentary – it won’t help you if I just say everything is nice. 🙂

5. Students have a year to finish all of the assignments, which is generally double what they need in practice – but this depends of course on how much free time you have to put to it. After that point, fees will be forfeit.

6. “The Fundamentals” and “Making Outstanding Images Ep.1” now form the introductory portion to the course. You will need to watch those before submitting your first assignment.

7. If you don’t already have those two videos, the price of the course, inclusive of two videos, is US$900. If you do, it’s US$800, as before. Both packages include one portfolio review and nine lessons.

8. Cancellations – before the program starts/ any videos or portfolio reviews are performed, there is no refund penalty. A high level of commitment is required on the part of both the student and the teacher, which places demands on time; as such, after the program starts (i.e. portfolio review and videos are sent) refunds are not possible.

If you would like to join the program,
please send me an email using this link with your rough objectives – there are some things which cannot be taught remotely (e.g. how to pose a model, or speedlights, for instance) and I want to make sure we can meet your expectations.

Looking forward to working with you! MT

Selected testimonials from previous Email School alumni

Ignacio Larrain (Email School of Photography): I enrolled into Ming’s email school after being amateur and self-taught photographer for decades.  Ming’s email school helped me tremendously improve my photographic skills by his very structured step by step approach. Ming amazingly finds the time to give feed-back on the assignments submission with almost no delay, be ready to receive his very straight-forward and always relevant feedback on your work. That has been for me the improvement engine.

David Fisher (Email School of Photography): I really enjoyed the class Ming, and appreciate the honest and timely feedback.  It was a real pleasure and I definitely learned a lot.  I can really tell how I’ve raised the level of my photography and am not satisfied with images that last year I would have thought were good.  Thank you again.

Gilles Tourpe (Email School of Photography): Alama! I was back in school … I’ve enjoyed my e-school with Ming. He is an incredibly experienced, demanding and seasoned teacher – sharing his passion for getting the right result through a structured process. It has been a strange experience – with lot of high and lot of low to get to the next high. It has hopefully made me a better “hobbyist” and my results have improved. From white belt to yellow belt … the path is still long!

Sohail Karmani (Email School of Photography): Having just completed Ming Thein’s photography course, I’m happy to say it was worth every penny. I began just over 9 months ago as an almost complete novice. With perseverance, I was able with Ming’s guidance to achieve goals way beyond my expectations. Ming is a consummate professional that brings a rare combination of photographic talent, formidable communication skills, and highly effective teaching ability. As a professional educator myself with 25 years’ experience of teaching, I highly recommend Ming’s course if you’re serious about taking your photography ability up several notches. True to his words, he doesn’t pull any punches or sugar-coat his feedback; but he will help you bring out the best photographer in you.

Ray Hartman (Email School of Photography): Probably the best way to put it is like I wrote earlier: what you do and how you do it (your email teaching) works for me! I feel proud to see my improvements and feel confident that I am more consistent in my results. Therefore my hopes and expectations of this course were very much fulfilled.
The assignments seemed somehow just what I needed to improve in general: the separate parts really came together as the course progressed. You really seem to know what you’r doing when reviewing the initial portfolio.
What I find most striking is that something so seemingly obvious and simple like checking your frame through the finder for intrusions/exclusions is such a powerful tool.
And your remarks about the importance of careful metering suit my believe that photography is not just ‘art’ but also ‘craft’.
All in all I am ‘afraid’ that I can’t give you input for improvement. Just keep up your high standards of quality, integrity and respect. I really appreciated your way of communicating with me, in your feedback on the assignments or otherwise in our mailcontact: quick, to the point, no sugarcoating, but always honest and respectful.
I feel lucky to have met you as a teacher and inspiring person.

Jeffrey Littell (The Email School of Photography): You in very short order have identified my single biggest problem and the key one in my frustrations to date in attempting produce better images: My images are flat! Oh golly, are they ever flat!
Looking at the images you sent to me, I SEE very clearly why your images are great and why mine are not particularly interesting. Even your most simple image is interesting.
I now see much more clearly that the world of photography is about contrast, for without it you have my images. Bland and flat. Seeking contrast to make the key image “pop” involves the sky, time of day or night, and as you so clearly state several other factors.
I must get busy studying these fundamentals so they become my primary criteria for shot selection. I see that I have a lot of work to do but I am not intimidated by what you say because although at times it might be frustrating it will still be great fun.
I like your rules. Tell me anything, make it a teaching tool for me to work on, and we will see a nice progression in my work.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Eugene Palomado (Email School) – I find Ming’s Email School a great way of learning and improving your photography skills. What I love the most about it is that you get to do it on your own time. I guess the disadvantage is that feedback is not instant because everything is done through email but Ming’s response time is awesome! I have no complaint whatsoever in our communication all through out the course of the program and he is very professional. He answers all questions and he even sends you a note if he is going to be delayed in providing feedback. I struggled a bit with email communication at first but it’s something you have to be patient with and understand that there’s no facial queues. Everything is in words so if there’s something that is unclear regardless of what it is, simply clarify or ask. I think the keys to making it successful are to be honest and to communicate well. I highly recommend this program. You’re awesome Ming!

Gary Greenberg (Email school, Intro to PS): As a current student of Ming’s, and owner of one of these videos, and of many from his MT Compendium iPad app, I can’t more highly recommend his training products. I have grown so much from both his products, and freely available blog. I can say that if personal satisfaction is an acceptable metric, I am more satisfied in my own work. His approach is systematic, his ability to communicate top notch, and end product- images- so pure. To many professionals depend upon heavy post-processing (IMHO) these days. I follow and recommend Ming because he pushes me (us) to create amazing images that do not look like they’ve been digitally altered. Thanks Ming for your guidance, expertise, and honesty!

Stefan Decker (Email school): Hi Ming, I just completed your E-Mail school and want to thank you very much for mentoring. Before starting the program, I was in doubt: Either your E-Mail school or a new lens/camera. It was definitely the right decision. It took 8 months full of individual mentoring. For this, the price is a real bargain and the learning effect is much higher than any other “weekend workshop” at a photo studio. The school improved not only my photographic skills, but also the understanding of what makes a good picture. You answered also all of my additional questions. (always super fast and competent). In conclusion: – Highly recommended – 9.5/10

John Chang (Email school): Thank you for a great course, perhaps the best money I’ve spent on photography, i’ve picked up more in the past 10 assignments than the last 10 years. Confident of your career trajectory, I’m going to keep all those images and advice and make money off your fame in the near future! : )

Pete Saunders (Email School): I certainly have benefited greatly from Ming’s mentorship. Don’t expect his critques to be sugar-coated. He will be honest (brutally so at times) but fair. If you want to be on the path to developing useful and creative photographic skills, this is the person to go to. I have been fortunate enough to have had the ear (and eyes) of Ming these past few years in guiding me to the satisfying levels I’m at today. Ocassionally, he even likes one or two of my photographs.

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Be inspired to take your photography further: Masterclass Chicago (27 Sep-2 Oct) and Masterclass Tokyo (9-14 Nov) now open for booking!

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Visit the Teaching Store to up your photographic game – including workshop and Photoshop Workflow videos and the customized Email School of Photography; or go mobile with the Photography Compendium for iPad. You can also get your gear from B&H and Amazon. Prices are the same as normal, however a small portion of your purchase value is referred back to me. Thanks!

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