Yes, completely. No paywalls, no premium tiers, no catch. Photoclass has always been free and that's not changing. The course, the community, the mentor feedback, all of it.
If you want to support Focal Point, there's a Ko-fi, but it's entirely optional and doesn't unlock anything.
Photoclass runs twice a year, with cohorts starting in January and July. Each cohort runs for the full year, with a break mid-year between the two halves.
Units unlock every other week throughout the cohort. There's no hard deadline for individual units, but the pacing is intentional and worth following.
No registration required. All course content is accessible at thefocalpointhub.com/photoclass-2026. Joining the Discord is recommended but not required.
Photoclass is built for photographers at every level. It starts with foundational concepts and builds through intermediate and advanced material over the 10 units. If you're a complete beginner, you won't be lost. If you've been shooting for years, there's still a lot to work through.
The assignments and the final project are open-ended enough that your work will reflect wherever you are, not where you're supposed to be.
Yes, but it depends on where you're coming in. The course is intentionally paced, and the units build on each other, so joining a few weeks late is very manageable. Joining near the end of a cohort is a different situation. At that point, waiting for the next cohort start makes more sense than trying to catch up on the majority of the course at once.
Cohorts start in January and July.
Photoclass 2026 runs across 10 units plus a final project. Topics cover the technical side of photography (exposure, focus, metering, flash), compositional and creative approaches, genre-specific techniques, and the longer-term practice of developing and executing personal work.
The course is weighted toward understanding how and why, not just what buttons to press.
It depends on how deep you go. Reading through the lessons in a unit takes roughly an hour or two. Completing the knowledge check and shooting the assignment will add to that, and how long the assignment takes is entirely up to you and the subject matter.
There's no minimum or maximum. Work at whatever pace keeps you engaged.
The course is structured sequentially and the early units build context that later ones assume, so going in order is recommended. Units unlock every other week, so the pacing is built into the course structure.
Not currently. The final project and your completed work are what you take away from the course.
The Discord is the primary place to share assignment work and get feedback from the community and mentors. Sharing publicly is encouraged but never required.
Submit it anyway. The assignments are about engaging with the concept, not producing a portfolio piece. A photo that didn't work the way you wanted it to, plus a reflection on why, is just as useful as one that came out exactly right.
The habit of shooting and reflecting is what the assignments are really building.
For most assignments, the intent is to make something new using what you've just covered in the unit. Pulling from an archive tends to skip the part where you actually apply what you're learning. If you have a genuinely relevant older photo and a good reason for using it, include that context when you share it.
Yes, when you share in the Discord. The mentor team and the wider community are active, and feedback sessions happen regularly. The more context you give when sharing (what you were going for, what you're uncertain about), the more useful the feedback tends to be.
Scheduled feedback sessions are announced in the Discord in advance.
The main community is on Discord at discord.gg/fzKjSY8JTR. It's where assignments get shared, feedback sessions happen, questions get answered, and most of the day-to-day conversation takes place. Over 7,000 members, photographers at every level.
The mentor team is a group of experienced photographers who volunteer their time to give feedback, answer questions, and participate in feedback sessions. They're active in the Discord. Introductions and more information about the mentor team are pinned in the server.
The final project is a long-term personal photography project that you develop, plan, shoot, and present over the second half of the course. The subject and scope are entirely up to you. It's meant to be something you actually care about, not an exercise with a predetermined outcome.
The course covers brainstorming, planning, and how to approach a long-term project in the units leading up to it.
No. The final project is self-paced and there's no deadline attached to it. You can keep working on it and checking in with the Discord community well after completing the rest of the course. The project is yours to see through on your own timeline.
There's no fixed number. The scope is something you define when planning your project, based on what's realistic and what the concept requires. A tightly edited series of 10 strong images can be more compelling than 50 loosely related ones. Define the scope early and be honest with yourself about what you can execute well.
Look back at your assignments so far. Which ones were the most interesting to shoot? Which ones did you want to keep going with after the assignment was done? That's usually a more reliable signal than trying to come up with something from scratch.
The brainstorming unit covers mind mapping and freewriting as ways to work through ideas. Both are worth trying before deciding anything is or isn't viable. And the Discord is a good place to talk out early ideas with people who have been through the same process.
Whatever you have. The course covers concepts that apply across camera systems, from smartphones to DSLRs to mirrorless to film. Some technical lessons will reference specific controls that smartphones may not have, but the underlying ideas are the same regardless of what you're shooting with.
The camera you have with you is the right camera.
No. Understanding manual mode is covered in the course because knowing what the camera is doing (and why) makes you a better photographer in any mode. But the assignments don't require manual mode, and there are plenty of situations where a priority mode or auto is the right tool.
Nothing is required. Post-processing software is covered in the course, but specific applications aren't mandated. Lightroom, Capture One, Darktable, and others all work. Free options exist for every platform. If you're not sure what to use, ask in the Discord and you'll get a range of opinions based on what people are actually using.