[Pook]

In my experience, camera clubs are just inhabited by old men who photograph steam trains, or do "travel photography"... (yawn).. basically, decide what you want to learn. Do you want to learn more technical skills, or do you want to learn how to take better photographs? People confuse the two you see. All the technical skill in the world will not make your photos more interesting or exciting - they may well make them sharper of better exposed, but who really cares about that? Technically, photography ain't rocket science. You want to improve your photography, then look at as many photos as you can.. and I don;t mean rubbish you see in National Geographic or whatever.. look in magazines like Dazed, The Face etc.. look at lighting used, styles.. Go see movies... LOTS of them.. gat ideas.. get inspiration. THAT'S what makes a good image. I'd rather take a really interesting image that's slightly off the ball technically, than a pin sharp, well exposed picture of a steam train, or a boring landscape shot of a hill, some clouds and some moss.

You want to learn photography, then get yourself on a course that delves into the academic side rather than the technical. Learning technical stuff will not really make your pictures any better. SHarper maybe, but will they be any more interesting? I think not. Learning technical stuff is important to an extent, but it shoudl be something you learn in order to allow you to operate your equipment without thinking, so you can concentrate on what's really important - taking images that knock you for six, because they're visually interesting.

No idea how old you are, or what you do, but you want to REALLY learn? Get a job as a photographic assistant to someone interesting, preferably fashion or advertising based. You'll learn more in 1 week than you would in a lifetime of book reading and course attending.

Plus... just shoot... film is cheap, and if you're digital, it's cheaper still. Examine your work... what does it say? Is it interesting? If not, why not?

No time to spell check, so I hope you sleak typo :-)