AWARD 01
Dialogue India Academia Award
Innovation in Photography Education
Dedicated to Exposing the Photographer inside you
Photography is a subject that requires less theory and more practice. Baring aside exceptions, every person who takes up photography has to undergo a continuous learning process to develop skills and gain the experience to shoot great pictures. Also self learning constitutes mostly of trails and errors and experimentations. It is time consuming, often confusing and in certain cases disheartening to the point of promising people giving up their passion, even before starting their journey.
IIP knows this well enough. This is why IIP draws its faculty from experienced photographers who have faced the ups and downs of photography and gained valuable knowledge over a span of years - giving them in-depth understanding of not only the subject but the human mind as well. IIP faculty members also understand well enough that no two students learn in the same way or pace. This insight lets the faculty guide students in a step by step manner, answering doubts and queries at every crossroad.
Adhering to the institute's vision, the faculty works with utmost dedication to expose the photographer in each and every student. Since photography is not an ordinary subject and does not follow the usual classroom rules, IIP mentors start the teaching process by befriending each student so as to help them better. As students you will find the IIP faculty friendly, open and always helpful
See differently.
Tell your story.
Tell your story.
"A great mentor is a lifelong friend who guides and helps at every stage"
Sixteen years of exposing the photographer in you.
The Indian Institute of Photography is an online photography school founded in 2010 as India’s first structured online
photography programme. It has certified more than 33,000 photographers across 44 countries.
Every student’s submitted work is critiqued by a named human
mentor. IIP is run by IIP Foundation, a registered non-profit trust.
33,000+
Photographers certified
44
Countries reached
2010
Year founded
It began with one unreasonable idea
In 2010, nobody in India was teaching photography online in a structured way. The assumption was that it could not be done, because photography is learned by doing and doing cannot be supervised through a screen.
Rajesh Goyal disagreed. After two decades as a working photographer, creative lead on over 500 advertising campaigns and branding work for more than 100 brands, he had watched too many capable people give up early.
Not for lack of talent. For lack of anyone telling them what they had got right.
How we teach, and why it is different.
Photography needs less theory and more practice. That has not changed. What has changed is that practice alone is no longer enough, because anyone can now find technique for free in thirty seconds and AI can correct an exposure without being asked.
What remains scarce is judgement. Someone who can look at your frame and tell you that the light was right but you stood in the wrong place.
So every IIP course runs the same loop. You read. You ask. You shoot. You submit. A mentor opens each frame, marks it up technically and creatively, and writes back — within 24 hours on our Foundation and Diploma programmes.
Our mentors are working photographers, not teaching assistants. They have had the bad shoots and the rejected briefs, which is why they understand the person as well as the picture. No two students learn at the same pace, and the critique is written for the student in front of them, not for a syllabus.
The institution behind the courses.
IIP Academy is the educational arm of IIP Foundation (Initiatives for India’s Progress), a non-profit registered under the Indian Trust Act, 1882, with FCRA registration and approvals under Sections 80G and 12AA of the Income Tax Act.
That structure matters. It means the foundation also runs work that does not pay for itself: cultural documentation, research into Indian crafts and traditions, skill training for young people, and community programmes.
Beyond the online portal, IIP operates campuses at Noida and Bareilly and a centre at Kausani, and teaches Diploma, BFA and MFA programmes through the Faculty of Fine Arts at Bareilly International University under NEP 2020. It has run photography training for government departments, public sector bodies, universities, schools and institutes of national importance including IITs and IIMs.
01
Noida
Campus
02
Bareilly
Campus
03
Kausani
Centre
Work that has earned recognition.
AWARD 02
Maharaja Bir Chandra Manikya
Photography Award
AWARD 03
National Photography Training
Excellence Award
OUR PROMISE · SINCE 2010
What we promised in 2010.
Photography Simplified.
There is a photographer in you.
A shared passion. A purposeful approach.
Our philosophy brings together a love for the art of photography and a commitment to helping learners develop their skills through accessible, structured education.
IIP Teaching Philosophy
IIP strongly emphasizes on individual focus and follows a friendly mentor based approach to groom students in the art of photography. Since photography as a subject requires less theory and more practice. Guidance and hands on learning constitute a vital part of the teaching philosophy. For both classroom sessions and online programs, IIP allots mentors to every student. Each mentor is committed to not only usher the students through theory lessons, practical assignments, answer queries and clear doubts but to also share their experience, inputs and ideas to develop a student's mindset and skills. Professional critiquing also forms an important aspect in the continuous development of a photographer. In lieu to which, IIP mentors not only provide students with professional critiquing, tips and suggestions to better their art but have also created a special students' lounge where students can learn from each other. Self do quizzes and professional evaluation ensures greater knowledge absorption for students.
IIP Structured Curriculum
Photography is a major art stream constituting of many diverse areas. To be a great photographer one needs to be apt in the basics and fundamentals, which are a pre-requisite for more advanced courses in fashion, outdoor, wildlife and other areas of specialization. Keeping this in mind IIP has structured both its basic and fundamental courses to not only inculcate in students a good grasp of the subject but also provide them with the platform to take their passion for photography higher, should they desire to do so in the future. The curriculum at IIP involves both theoretical learning and practical assignments structured in a step by step manner to gradually introduce students to the world photography. Subjects covered range from learning the basics to understanding visual literacy to photo shoots and creating portfolios.