california: Im a junior in high school and we have all these college reports coming up. I want to be a photographer and I was wondering what colleges would be good for someone looking for a profession like that. I'd like to stay in California so some colleges there would be great. I was thinking about UC Berkley or the San Francisco Art Institute? Help please! Thanks!|||UC Berkeley and SFAI are both great choices. Ansel Adams founded the photography program at SFAI; Annie Leibovitz attended SFAI, although as a painting major, and is now huge in the photo industry. It really depends if you would like the "college" experience or the art school experience. If you are already a California resident, you could always attend a UC for undergrad & an art school for graduate school to save yourself a little bit of money. Photography is a very expensive choice between your supplies, equipment, and promotional materials. If you know you would rather go towards the commercial aspect such as weddings, fashion, etc. I would recommend going to a community college to build your portfolio and take several business, graphic design, and web design classes. If you are looking into the fine art aspect, expect to be going to graduate school and possibly teaching. Other programs to look into are Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CalArts in Valencia, UCLA, & UCR.|||If I had any option, I myself would choose the Brooks Institute of Photography. Check out their website. They have locations in Santa Barbara, and Ventura, California. Whenever magazines had examples of work by photography students, I found the work of students there most attractive to me. Try Googling things like contests for photography students, or new and emerging photographers. Usually you see the work of several students from the same school, a variety of schools, and you can judge for yourself, if they're doing the work, and use the approaches, that interests you. If you check the sites of schools like UC and SFAI, you might get info on student exhibitions, that you could check out. Good luck; I'm sure there are exciting experience ahead.|||Yes, Art Center and Brooks take the lead in photo schools in California. http://www.artcenter.edu http://www.brooks.edu If your goal is to be able upon graduation to use any camera, under any conditions, anywhere in the world and produce marketable images on demand, these two schools are the ones for you.|||Brooks institute and academy of art university|||Brooks! without question, for sure. you are lucky to already live in a great state for photoschool