It was a unit part of my qualification, went for a semester, 4hrs per week.
Went into developing pictures, light, contrasting, camera settings,etc

But to be perfectly honest, alot of it can be picked up by trial and error, trying things out to see what looks good, the course was still good though, explained alot of things, as well as learning development of photos, using filters and shit.


EDIT: SLR? I have a cannon digital camera, just has a few good modes and a few things you can customise once you work it out.
I didnt buy a SLR for 2 reasons, 1 - Couldnt afford one. 2 - I needed a digital camera that I could buy an underwater casing for when I go out scuba diving, and you cant get them for a mid-range SLR (at least thats what I was told)

I must admit though, I would absolutely love to have a decent SLR