Program Overview

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Photography (including foundation year) - BA (Hons)

The Photography (including foundation year) BA (Hons) is a four-year degree that includes an intensive foundation year, which will give students the chance to explore a range of creative approaches and build a substantial portfolio of work before progressing to their subsequent years of studying photography.

Why study this course?

Our film and photography courses are ranked second in the UK overall, according to the Guardian University Guide 2026. This is a great route into a photography degree, particularly if you don't hold the necessary requirements to begin a three-year undergraduate photography degree.

Course details

• Course type: Undergraduate
• Student:
  • Typical duration: 4 years
  • Location: Aldgate
• UCAS code: W123
• Entry requirements:
  • At least one A level (or a minimum of 32 UCAS points from an equivalent Level 3 qualification, eg BTEC Subsidiary/National/BTEC Extended Diploma)
  • English Language GCSE at grade C/4 or above or will need to take the University English test
• Accreditation of Prior Learning: Any university-level qualifications or relevant experience you gain prior to starting university could count towards your course at London Met.
• Assessment: You will be assessed via project work, essays, and an individual portfolio.

Where this course can take you

Our Photography (including foundation year) BA degree opens up a wide range of careers on graduation. While many of our graduates go on to become freelance or in-house photographers, there are also opportunities in graphic design, illustration, digital marketing, video-editing, and education.

Course structure

The course consists of the following modules:

Year 0 modules

• Critical & Contextual Studies: Foundation
• Critical Creative Practice
• Project
• Techniques

Year 1 modules

• Critical and Contextual Studies (Photography and Fashion Photography) 1
• Looking and Making 1
• Project Work 1
• Techniques: Photography

Year 2 modules

• Critical and Contextual Studies (Photography and Fashion Photography) 2
• Looking and Making 2
• Professional Practice 1: Photography
• Project Work 2

Year 3 modules

• Critical and Contextual Studies: Dissertation (Photography and Fashion Photography)
• Looking and Making 3
• Major Project
• Professional Practice 2: Photography

Module descriptions

Critical & Contextual Studies: Foundation

This module introduces a range of cultural and contextual practices and is diagnostic in helping students identify areas of reading, writing, information gathering, and research in relation to their abilities, needs, and aspirations.

Critical Creative Practice

This module addresses what is fundamental to creative practices across all disciplines; color, composition, the fabrication, discussion, and development of ideas, visual narratives, collaborative practice, documentation, presentation, curation, through looking at the work of renowned and important artists and designers.

Project

The Project module provides a broad, varied, stimulating experience of a range of creative practices that allows for self-assessment of individual interests and aptitudes towards developing a specialism.

Techniques

The Techniques module introduces a wide range of materials, methods, techniques, and processes to produce work in a broad sense.

Critical and Contextual Studies (Photography and Fashion Photography) 1

This module introduces you to the history and theory of your discipline, its extent and conventions, and its broader social and material context in culture and contemporary practice.

Looking and Making 1

This module consists of seminars, talks, visits, and workshops designed to provide a critical and thematic basis from which students are able to explore and expand their personal creative, critical, and contextual basis for future practice.

Project Work 1

This module provides an opportunity for students to develop projects, responding to photography briefs, using technical skills and research methods supported within the course.

Techniques: Photography

This module introduces students to and engages them with digital and analogue photography and approaches to photographic production.

Critical and Contextual Studies (Photography and Fashion Photography) 2

This module continues to critically engage you in the history, theory, and practice of your discipline, its extent and conventions, and its broader social and material context in culture and contemporary practice.

Looking and Making 2

This module requires students to develop and test ideas that reflect upon trends in current practice as well as historical models.

Professional Practice 1: Photography

This module enables the development of practical and skills in contemporary photographic practice and begins to build the basis of professional understanding that will enable students to pursue careers in the creative sector upon graduation.

Project Work 2

This module provides an opportunity for students to develop and to explore their creative identity through responding to photography briefs and using technical skills and research methods supported within the course.

Critical and Contextual Studies: Dissertation (Photography and Fashion Photography)

This module offers you an opportunity to develop a sustained enquiry into a topic you choose because it particularly interests you.

Looking and Making 3

This module consists of seminars, talks, visits, and workshops. Students build on the critical and thematic basis for their personal creative, critical, and contextual practice explored and expanded at Level 5.

Major Project

This module provides an opportunity for students to create a substantial final major body of work based on their individual creative identity and aligning to their aspirations for their future careers within the creative sector.

Professional Practice 2: Photography

This module supports students in acquiring coherent and detailed knowledge of specific skills appropriate to individual career aspirations, building key knowledge and skills in order to be autonomous, self-directed professionals able to plan and pursue individual careers.