Is photography school really necessary?

If you aren't a self starter then - I get it. But if you have an internet connection and are genuinely interested in photography and have talent for the art. Then why not just youtube it, read articles and magazines and tutorials and practice? Learn by doing and experimenting?

My issue is, I have £600 that I want to use to buy either a studio lighting kit, or 2 Nikon sb 900's for my D7000. Mostly for portraits or models, max 3 models at a time. But I'm contemplating spending the money on the courses instead, although alot of what I see being offered is offered for free anyways on youtube… So why is it a good idea?

Most photographers are self-taught. With free internet resources it's easier than ever. The quality of your portfolio is vastly more important than a sheepskin.

Looking at some of the questions that people post on this forum for help with homework questions, I have to question what type of education one would really get by going to school. There seems to be an emphasis on picayune information and made up technical jargon that would have little application in the real world on a real shoot. With a degree you'll be able to wax eloquently on camera obscura and daguerreotype and be able to make your own pinhole camera and drop a few names of people nobody knows. This kind of stuff might play at a cocktail party, but really who cares?

One of the cheapest and quickest ways to learn photography is to join a good club, nothing can beat spending time with an experienced photographer on a shoot, you'll learn more in an afternoon than you will in a year surfing the net blind in a haphazard way. You tube is often the 'blind leading the blind', few have any accuracy to them (there are some, but not many). I see the same misunderstandings repeated over and over and put forward as fact. An experienced photographer will tell it to you as it really is, step by step.

Photography is several seemingly unrelated topics, it's only when you have the 'overview' that it all makes sense, same with any subject really, photography is not rocket science, but it is counter-intuitive.

The web is a great resource when you can separate the wheat from the chaff.

If portraits and wedding shoots are what you want to do as a hobby then don't worry about it. If you want to do it as a business and you want to eat, then you should go to school not to learn photography, but to learn the business. You want to learn what the customer requires, who to sell to, pricing, how to handle complaints, accounting (if you get bigger), etc. If you can find that on youtube then great. Probably your customers and models would like to know you know what you are doing (and not just some pervert hiding behind a camera) before contracting you and that would require something like certifications, degrees, etc. But references are generally the best. If you want to be taken seriously, go to school. I'm not a professional photographer as its not an easy business to be successful in. There are too many who do it as a hobby (many quite well) but can't make a full time living and take up the potential business at cheap prices.