Photography | BA (Hons) Degree (full-time course)

In this unit you will begin to develop your knowledge and understanding of photography, allowing you to learn to use the ways in which the photographic image is created, from analogue to digital.

You will begin to develop your skills in practical applications of photographic techniques and processes and your ability to apply critical and analytical approaches to a range of your photography.

This unit will build on the development of skills, experience and knowledge introduced in Fundamentals of Photography. It will encourage you to further develop your range of skills, and consolidate those learnt in the previous unit.

You will begin to consider what the photographer does, who they are, and the power of the photographic medium. The unit builds on the fundamentals to allow you to consider the ways in which photography can be used to communicate.

This unit aims to encourage and develop your awareness of the historical, social and cultural context that underpins the contemporary practice of creatives in a professional and academic context.

You will be encouraged to develop critical and analytical approaches through the introduction of research skills, critical examination and investigation and how to connect this to your own practice.

Building on the Fundamental Skills unit, which gave you the skills to take photographs and the Establishing Practice unit, which allowed you to begin exploring your identity as a photographer, this unit begins to explore outlets for your photography.

This unit aims to develop your knowledge of the role of editorial in photography. Rather than limiting the unit to an exploration of the documentary there will be consideration of subversion, manipulation and the idea of the ‘real’. You will gain a broad understanding of editorial outputs, and develops skills in preparing your work for them. This will include file handling, data tagging, digital touching up, or not touching up, and when/why they would be used.

This unit aims to provide you with the opportunity to produce self-initiated work, informed by the development of your skills, knowledge and experience of production processes and techniques, digital technology and software applications from the previous units.

You will be encouraged to submit a proposal for an individual project, with evidence of planning, development of ideas and proposed application of appropriate techniques, technology and software, which will be agreed with staff.

This unit will develop your understanding of visual communication, and how as a photographer this can be used to make a statement. That statement can be political, social or antisocial, environmental, humanitarian, personal or cultural. Building on the establishing practice at Level 4 this unit aims to define and develop what you want to say with your imagery.

This unit aims to continue to develop your understanding of the historical, social and cultural environment in relation to your practice. You will continue to develop your critical and research skills through your examination of a topic, and develop your communication style in the presentation of the results of this investigation in an academic format.

In this unit you will develop your knowledge and understanding of working in the photographic sector and gain experience of working to the requirements of an external practitioner, which also includes the experience of presenting your work in the form of a pitch.

You will continue to develop your understanding of cultural, legal, ethical and practical considerations in your response to the ‘live’ brief and develop your transferable skills through the experience of working and presenting in an industry context. 

A series of workshops, where you will design your own learning, to support a self-initiated photographic response to a negotiated brief.

You will be encouraged to demonstrate your ability and motivation to engage with increasingly creative and complex ideas, problem solve and experiment through a sophisticated use of techniques and processes and identify specialist areas of practice to develop.

In this unit you will be encouraged to continue the process of defining your specialist photographic practice.

The unit will be delivered in two parts. In the first part you will be introduced to a different pace of working through developing creative responses to five weekly topics. In the second part of the unit you will develop a self-initiated response for a photographic outcome, informed by the diagnostic phase.

In this unit you will be introduced to collaborative working. The unit will be delivered in two parts. In the first part you will be introduced to group working which will allow you to explore, and reflect on, your relationship and approach to collaborative working.

In the second part of the unit you will work on a brief set by an external participant. This could be a company, a charity, or other external organisation.

You will complete a self-directed, detailed research examination of a topic, which can either take the form of a critical investigation or a practice-based research project.  

An initial series of sessions will support you in your proposed choice of topic, which is then presented in the form of a proposal and includes an overview of research sources and resources that have informed your choice of research activity. 

This unit enables you to create a significant piece of work that should fully reflect the development of your photographic practice and an exit portfolio to allow you to launch your photographic career.

The final work will be part of a curated show and you will need to include your plans for presentation at this.