utahlasvegas

Hello, I am trying to decide if I want to apply to MFA programs for photography again. I've been teaching an intro to digital photography course at a community college for two years and have twenty years of experience in the field. I was formerly an award winning photojournalist, and my photography teaching feedback has been outstanding. I absolutely love photography and teaching it more than pretty much anything in the world, but I've been having horrible luck at getting into an MFA program, so I can qualify myself to teach it full-time at the college level. Honestly, and I don't mean this to be offensive at all, I'm not really into the experimental fine art stuff which seems is what most MFA programs want. Most of what I've seen from successful MFA candidates would be stuff that I would have taken on accident or never intentionally. I'm more of a traditional photographer I guess. So do any of you know of any programs which are interested in what I'd hesitantly call straight photography? I'm talking about sharp and well-exposed landscapes, architecture, portraits, and photojournalism type stuff? I think in the past I've spent too much time thinking about the location and not enough about the specific programs. It might be a blessing that I wasn't accepted at some of the places where I've applied. I mean, just looking at the heads of the department's portfolios, I don't know if I could have lasted at a place where they like photos of sculptures that they made out of lightbulbs or photos of collages from 1970s porno magazines. Hopefully I haven't made anyone upset about this... different strokes for different folks, but instead of wasting money with guessing at this again, I thought I would post here to see if anyone had any suggestions. I do already have a master's in English, but the job market is really bad, and even though I know it's also really bad for photography, I feel much more competitive in photography than I do with English. One of my former advisors told me to see if there are any MFA photojournalism programs, but I haven't been able to locate any. Thanks for any and all suggestions. I really appreciate the help!

"I'm sorry to hear that you were rejected from UCSB. I hope you don't mind me asking when and how you heard?" They emailed me.

Last year I was rejected (for photo) by Arizona and UNLV, but UNLV put that they "encouraged me to apply again for 2014." But crap, they both rejected me again. UCSB also rejected me... still have two apps out, but maybe it's time to just move to Asia or something... I dunno. It's so frustrating! The UNLV thing really stings quite a bit.

I applied to UNLV and Arizona. UNLV called me a couple weeks ago to ask about my portfolio, but I haven't heard anything since. I haven't heard anything at all from Arizona. I still have my fingers crossed and really want to go to UNLV. I'm in Reno, now, and love Nevada, especially at night. Good luck everyone!