I liked the instructors. It is a course that takes a lot of work and you can get out of the course what you want to get out of the course. Doing photography kept my sanity during Covid-19. The bad part is that other students don't take the capstone seriously.

Fantastic content. The peer review needs improvement, that is the only motive to not give 5 stars.

The course content is useful, however, the peer review process does not work. They should really reconsider it, because how it is does not worth it. People simply don't review your work (most of them write a dot, or a letter) and also a lot of them don't do the assignments, posting random pictures out of internet. It's a huge disappointment. I don't understand why someone would pay (this course is not cheap) to behave like this, and ruin the experience for everyone.

Overall, the content of this specialization is great. It is cohesive in a way you can't get just learning on your own or via youtube/hobby forums. Highlights for me beyond the fundamentals are that it gives a reasonable introduction to printing and mounting your own work, to setting up a small home studio for product photography, and to building up a project. If you're inclined to want to show your work at exhibitions or competitions it minimally steers you away from bad decisions and toward manageable positive steps, it also covers copyright and image sharing considerations on and offline. The capstone project is the largest scale project you will do, but over the specialization you'll be taking pictures weekly, with various aims in mind. I am now taking, editing and printing more images and have coherent aims for my own projects beyond the course. There are two negatives I experienced with the course, firstly, giving critique is a hard skill to learn and most of the participants just don't have it, they're scared of offending people, so portions where you're critiquing each other you can find you receive very minimal feedback. I get it, it's difficult, and I'm not sure it could be much different in a MOOC. If you're looking for critique a local camera club might be worth looking into. The second negative is there seems to be a glitch on courseras end when reviewing peers. There's a very low number of participants when you hit the later stages of the specialisation and you'll frequently run out of current participants to review. Instead of displaying a message to this effect, it appears that the system reaches into its bank of moderated submissions, you can tell you've hit this when the submissions are all from November 2022. They're predominantly bot accounts or really obviously plagarised content and going through this can be really disheartening, so keep an eye on the date when reviewing peers and if it slips into this territory take a break for a day or two and wait for some more of your peers to catch up to review. Even with that issue, this course is very much worth it. I did study foundational photography a long time ago and I still got a lot out of it, even just being given frequent briefs and deadlines for small creative projects, or the medium one in the capstone, and getting to see what others do with the same restrictions, is a great process to go through.

The Capstone Project was an amazing journey for me, it was fantastic to be a part of a worldwide community that love Photography as much as I do.

The course design is great, really pushed us to practice all that we learn in the previous courses.

Peter and Mark are great teachers and mentors were guardian angels all the step of the way. I cannot be more satisfied with the course.

The help of all peers and Photography friends in our Facebook group. I coudn't do without them.

In the doing of my project I make the firm decision to keep going with my studies of Photography, to keep my passion alive. I am going to study in the Australian Centre for Photography in Sydney.

I will keep my eyes open for any other coursera photography course in the future. Would be so nice to see Peter and Mark again :) Thank you all for such a wonderful opportunity! I cannot recommend this course more. It is Fantastic!

Both the theory and the exercises proved to be valuable, and I have been able to get a much better control of my camera, using it under many circumstances I had previously no control of. I loved the charisma of both professors, and how they encouraged students to learn on their own, practice and share photos online. The secret group also gives students a chance to share and explore with other peers, and learn from them too. thank you for this amazing opportunity. Not only did I learn about photography, but it also gave me a chance to walk, explore and know my city in a much better way.

I learned so much from the professors and the peers in this class. This was the final class in a five class non-credit certification. I highly recommend the five class sequence. The professors are wonderful; the skills taught really helped me. Not only were their lectures informative, they provided other resources to explore. What was the best about the class was the interaction with peers in the class. They were conscientious about providing helpful and encouraging feedback. They were talented photographers, and I learned so much from them. Highly recommended!

It has been a highly satisfying course. The five course series has helped me to graduate beyond casual photography. I would like to specially thank Professors Peter Glendinning and Mark Valentine Sullivan for their well thought out course structure and lectures. Their guidance has truly been inspirational and helped me horn my skills. The entire experience of interacting with course-mates has been exceptional and something that I shall cherish.

First of all I'm thanks to UNHCR ,that give me this chance to be the student of Michigan State University online courses. And I was very like to be the field of photography. I learn many things through this course. And thanks alot to MR Peter and mark,

I really improved my skill day by day. Thanks to viewers in this Coursera online courses that supports each others until end of the final capstone project. Wish you all the best. Good luck.

Beyond my expectations! Extraordinary instructors with great knowledge and guidance throughout the specialization. Loved entire processes and recommend it to anyone wanting to bring their photography skills to next level. Great use of peer review process. Very happy I took this course and hope these instructors to more courses on Coursera.

The entire specialization was a wonderful experience. I learned a lot about photography, and about project planning. The course also helped me to build confidence and not get so hung up on trying to be perfect right from the gate. Nice people taking photography from all over the world and fun, too. Thank you.

I'd give this course even more stars if I could. Creating your own project seemed a daunting task, but it was an incredible experience. I learnt so much. The support from the lecturers and mentors is the best I've come across, and the camaraderie of fellow learners in this course has made it really special.

A great learning experience and for beginners ,it provides that platform which can help you enter into the professional field.The review process and the working along with the peers in the discussion forums is another good opportunity. It makes possible to learn from others,from their work .

This is exactly what I was looking for to figure out how to make sense of a collection of pictures. Definitely for advanced photographers/amateurs who have already experience with cameras and making pictures and who are looking for ways to organize their collections meaningfully.

I have now become awesome because of this awesome course. I will suggest any novice to join this course and take advantage of advanced peers and I would invite any advanced photographers to just understand other's point of view and earn a specialization certificate.

Outstanding . . . through this course I have learned more about photography than I ever expected. The instructors are outstanding and the way in which they teach makes this a fun course. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in making photographs.

A simply wonderful course, technical to a degree but not overwhelmingly so, and one learns through doing. There are plenty of assignments to help build your skill sets, and lots of reviews and peer reviews to help build your personal skills as well.

From a noob photographer to setting up my new photo studio this course has helped me to achieve some greatest heights.

Thanks to Coursera.

Thanks alot

The first 4 modules, as others have said, were helpful. I saw a vast improvement in my work, thanks to this review of basic camerawork and technique. But the fifth module, the Capstone, was horrible for several reasons. First, requiring the photos to be posted in a discussion thread that is not searchable and that does not go back as far as many of the 6+-month-old portfolios that pop up to be critiqued is bad design and bad practice. Some people were able to add their photos to the actual critique page, and I think that may be the best way to go in the future. Second, from reviewing comments and previous threads, the issue of numerous people posting meaningless "." as so-called evaluations is academic dishonesty at its zenith. Some of these seem to be coming from younger students who may not be mature enough or patient enough to handle an online class that requires significant effort. I strongly suggest that these kinds of responses are cause for dropping the offender from the course. This has been going on for the 12+ years that this course has been on Coursera. Third, we averaged 5.6 peer reviews per module. As someone who has taught and graded numerous online college classes, I think five *substantive* critiques would be enough for the capstone. I had to go through and flag about 100 submissions for which I could not access photos, some of which were so old, they didn't show up in the discussion forum. I'd rather get five solid critiques than 10 fake ones. I appreciate Peter and Mark, and thank you both for discussing these issues offline. Your cheerful demeanor in the face of the platform's lengthly history of non-supportive responses made all the difference. Coursera, step up your game. Update the interface.

Honestly, the completion of this course took a long while because of the grading criteria - you need to have many reviews, so I would advise anyone who wants to complete to factor that in. Also, I did not receive any reviews from the professors which was a bummer. I think the worse thing was that some people used photos that they Googled and was not their own. But all in all, I think if you really put in the effort to do it, you would find this course rewarding.

This is a great learning opportunity for those interested in photography but it would have been better if the photos were not uploaded in the discussion forum. I wanted to review some projects but sadly, their works could not be found in the discussion forum.

First Thanks for this course availability. A good one in this subject. However, the course content, assessment methods, difficulties to find things in discussion forums,... Way to go...

I'd give it 5 stars, but the middle section on lightroom needs a big refresh. the rest of the lectures, assignments, peer grading and comments were best in Coursera so far!

While Peter is an amazing professor and has great explanation, the other professor has a huge lack of enthusiasm and his monotonous voice made consider several times dropping out of the course. Recommended to give you an overall idea of photography but the assessment of the classmates were mostly disappointing.