Course overview

Photographs are encountered everywhere, everyday, by everyone. More people than ever are creating more pictures than ever before.

Photography is both a unique art form and a mass medium. Photography has established its place within our art galleries and museums; it continues to be a major commercial practice and a means for us to record our day-to-day lives. The disciplines of fine art, commercial, documentary and vernacular photography increasingly cross over and individual photographers frequently work across these different areas. This is an innovative and inspiring time for photographers and for the study of photography.

This course is designed to give you a solid understanding of the breadth of photographic practice as well as allowing you to focus on a particular area you would like to specialise in. In the first two years of this three-year degree you will engage in projects based around documentary, fine art and editorial photography. You will create work for the gallery space, photobooks, magazines and the web. You will also learn key technical skills and explore historical and contemporary theoretical debates about photography. This will give you the ability to think, talk and write about your work and that of others. In the third year you will have the chance to specialise and write your own briefs that relate to an area of photography you are especially interested in.

Throughout the three years of the degree we have strong professional practice units that will enable you to develop the employability skills needed on graduation. During these units you will:

• develop a physical and digital portfolio
• undertake professional work experience
• learn about the practical and legal issues related to being a photographer
• be introduced to how to go about setting up a business
• learn how to present yourself, both in writing and in person, to potential clients or employers

You will also put on two exhibitions of your work, one in the second year and one in the third year. These give you the opportunity to work with your peers on real-life projects that engage with the wider public and promote you and your work outside of the University.

This course is suitable for ambitious students who are interested in exploring and learning about the subject of photography, as well as learning to be creative, technically skilled, innovative photographers. Our recent graduates have gone on to work as assistants, commercial and editorial photographers, exhibiting photographers, film-makers and picture editors. We have graduates who have set up small businesses and ones who have gone on to work for big companies. We also have a number of students who currently teach photography or are pursuing postgraduate education. The success our graduates is a reflection on the breadth of photographic practice we cover on the course and of the key transferable skills our students develop. 

Interview

You may be invited to attend an interview where you will be expected to present a portfolio of art and design work. In your interview you will be asked to show and discuss your work. You will also be asked to talk about why you have chosen to do a degree in photography and why this particular course is appropriate for you.

The interview is also an opportunity for you to ask questions so that you can make sure that you are clear about what the course involves. You should bring a representative selection of work in a portfolio of a manageable size. Between twenty and thirty finished images in a portfolio should be enough.

You should demonstrate different kinds of photographic approaches in your work and can include some non-photographic work, such as drawings or paintings. However, please remember that it is your photography that the interview will focus on. Overall, make sure that you draw the interviewers' attention to the work you want to talk about and concentrate on expressing clearly the main points that you wish to say. Interviewers will remember work that makes an impact and a lively, informed discussion.

Course content

BA (Hons) Photography is a three-year degree. You will take a number of the following types of unit throughout your degree:

• Practical units where you make work in response to a brief and on a particular theme.  These units include technical workshops in areas such as using 35mm, medium and large format cameras, black and white and colour printing, digital photography, and studio and location lighting.
• Professional practice units where you will learn skills such as portfolio development, exhibition organisation, CV writing and where you will undertake industry-based work experience.
• Practice research units where you will learn the skills needed to conduct visual and theoretical research that will inform both your practical and written work.  
• Visual culture units in which you will discover the key practitioners and ideas that relate to photography and its wider context as part of art and design.

Over your first two years, you will develop your practical, technical, professional and theoretical skills, which will be used to complete three final major units in your third year. These long-term projects culminate in the University's degree shows.

For the last eight years graduating students have also organised an exhibition of their work in London, which has consistently attracted a large and varied audience.

Year one units

• City Spaces
• Photography and the Photobook
• Introduction to Professional Practice
• Introduction to Practice Research
• Creative Digital Photography
• Introduction to Visual Culture
• Set Brief Project
• Self-Led Project
• Visual Culture Research project
• Visual Culture Dissertation

Year two

• Documentary Practices
• The Body
• Professional Practice and Promotion
• Practice Research and Project Proposals
• Commissioned Briefs
• Visual Culture (choice of subjects available)

Year three

• Set Brief Project
• Self-Led Project
• Visual Culture Research project
• Visual Culture Dissertation

Teaching and assessment

The course is taught in a variety of different ways. You will have formal lectures, seminar discussions and one-to-one and group tutorials. There are also study visits to galleries and photography festivals in nearby cities such as London, Southampton and Brighton.

You will also learn through the research and development of practical projects, participation in seminar debates and tutorials, and study leading to written work. Detailed feedback is provided for each unit, during the development of the work and after the final outcome has been submitted. This allows you to reflect upon your work and further develop your skills.

The course is taught by full-time practising professionals with expertise in exhibiting, publishing, curating and writing about photography. Their teaching is accompanied by that of part-time lecturers, who also exhibit and are published in books and periodicals. Recent visiting speakers on the course have included the world-renowned photographers Martin Parr, Jason Evans, Paul Seawright, Adam Broomberg, Anna Fox, Eric Kessels, Turner-Prize nominee Richard Billingham, Richard West, editor of the leading magazine Source: The Photographic Review and the curator and writer Val Williams.

Career prospects

The course focuses both on the study of photography and on teaching you the creative and technical skills to be a photographer. You will learn a range of transferable skills including:

• the ability to research and process information
• how to work individually or as part of a group
• how to present ideas both visually, orally and in a written form
• the ability to approach problems and challenges in a creative way

As a result, you will have the skills to work as photographers or as part of the wider creative industries, from writers to curators, picture editors to educators.

Our recent graduates have gone on to work as assistants, commercial and editorial photographers, exhibiting photographers, film-makers and picture editors. We have graduates who have set up small businesses and ones who have gone on to work for big companies. We also have a number of students who currently teach photography or are pursuing postgraduate education. The success of our graduates reflects the breadth of photographic practice we cover on the course and the key transferable skills our students develop. 

Facilities and features

The School brings together students and staff from various creative disciplines, generating a dynamic learning environment. You will have access to our:

• darkrooms, which are equipped with black and white and colour enlargers
• the digital darkroom  equipped with Mac computers, high end neg scanners and ink jet printers

We have digital and traditional cameras, from 35mm to medium and large format, which are available to use in the studios and borrow.

There are two photographic studios allowing for three shooting set ups at any one time; these have both flash and tungsten lighting equipment and these lights are also available to borrow.

Our open access IT suite has  PCs as well as Macs, flatbed scanners, slide scanners and large format ink jet printers. You will have your own email address and access to information from the Student Portal on the University website.

The photography section of the University Library is well stocked and constantly updated, and all the key photography periodicals are available.

Entry requirements

View all the entry requirements for BA (Hons) Photography for the academic year 2013/14 (opens in new window).