Photography: A Victorian Sensation

I recently studied the free online course Photography: A Victorian Sensation, run by Edinburgh University, and delivered via Coursera.

I’d really enjoyed the exhibition Photography: A Victorian Sensation, at the National Museum of Scotland, with which the course is associated, and I’d had a good experience of distance learning with the short Open University course I’d done some years ago (), which had a little on the topic of analysing old photographs, so this was a course that was really interesting to me and that I was very keen to do.

Over the 5 weeks of the course, new content was released at the start of each week, including videos, audio, web pages, blog entries, handouts etc. Each week had a different topic. The first week covered the early pioneers of photography, and I found this very interesting. Over the other weeks it covered The Great Exhibition in London, studio and amateur photography, stereo photography, and how photography became available to the masses.

Since the course was associated with Edinburgh University and the National Museum of Scotland, there was a particularly Scottish flavour to it, with lots about the photography partnership of Adamson and Hill. But there was also a lot about photography elsewhere in the UK and around the world.

I was away in Italy for a week in the middle of the course, so I had a bit of catching up to do when I got back. I’d have liked to take part in some of the discussions on the forum, but didn’t get round to doing this.

It was a great course, and, since I love learning things, I’ll be keeping my eye out for other interesting online courses!