Program Overview

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BA (Hons) Photography, Video and Digital Imaging with Integrated Foundation Year

Overview

Gain wide-ranging skills needed for success in today’s photographic industries and beyond. You’ll learn how to make high-quality digital and traditional images in our professional photography studios, digital production suites, and photographic darkrooms. Learn how to tell compelling stories about the things that matter to you with guidance from our expert team of practising photographers. Develop your own distinct visual language and acquire the skills and contacts to get your work out into the world.

Why Us?

• Our BA (Hons) Photography, Video and Digital Imaging course has a 100% positivity score for how teaching staff make the subject engaging, how often the course is intellectually stimulating and how teaching staff support students' learning (National Student Survey 2024)
• Our Film Production and Photography courses are 5th in the UK (Guardian University Guide, 2025)

Facilities

• Hone your skills in our darkrooms, studios, and digital suites housed in our dedicated facility, the Northern Centre of Photography (NCP). Learn more about our new facilities at the NCP.
• Join our unique creative community, working alongside professionals in the North East Photography Network (NEPN)
• Be inspired by our team of award-winning teaching and technical experts

Course Structure

In the first year – the foundation year – you'll study five modules. After completion of this foundation year, you'll then move onto the Photography, Video and Digital Imaging honours degree course.

This course is structured so that you'll explore different approaches and styles of photography and moving image to build your skills, your creative approaches, and understanding of the practice as you develop your own aesthetic and intellectual position as an image maker.

You'll have opportunities to experiment and challenge yourself, present your ideas to your peers, and test your work in the real world.

Course Modules

Foundation Year:

• Foundations of Art, Design, Performance and Media Production (40 credits)
  • This module will enable you to become a confident, cultural consumer, exploring fundamental concepts needed for successful study in art, design, performance, and media production courses. A key focus will be consideration of the audience and context for creative practice. You’ll examine a range of themes through the lens of contemporary creative practice, which may include topics such as communication, celebrity, new technology, and identity.
• Essential Study Skills (20 credits)
  • This module supports the development skills and attributes needed for degree level study and graduate employment. This includes searching for information, reviewing evidence, presenting information, and self-analysis to identify strengths and areas for improvement.
• Foundation Project (20 credits)
  • This module supports understanding in a topic area related to your area of study. It also encourages independent and team working with support available from tutors throughout the lifespan of the project.
• Practical Numeracy Skills (20 credits)
  • Explore a range of relevant, real-world concepts and ideas which will help develop confidence and competence in numeracy. The module encourages a critical approach to numerical facts, and topics include interest rates and loans, budgeting, and the use and misuse of statistics and fake news.
• Introduction to Creative Practice (20 credits)
  • This module will give you an introduction to a range of concepts and practical techniques used in contemporary creative practice in art, design, media production, and performance. Workshops will introduce some key technical skills and ideas, including digital production, learning through making, and reflective practice. The process of creativity is a key focus of this module, and you’ll build your own portfolio of work featuring a range of creative outcomes in various styles and media.

Year 1 (national level 4):

• Studio and Location Photography (40 credits)
  • Explore the studio, street, and darkroom as locations for photography. Learn the key aspects of staged and realist photography and how they overlap. Build your experience across different technical skills including how to use DSLR and 35mm film cameras. Develop skills in:
    • Adobe Lightroom
    • Digital workflow and editing
    • Printing in the black and white darkroom.
• Image Editing and Production (40 credits)
  • Explore a wide range of digital and analogue image editing techniques and production processes. Be introduced to key digital techniques and editing software, exploring how digital montage can be both seamless and non-seamless. Explore a range of alternative darkroom print processes which enable a completely different way of thinking of photographic technologies and photographic experience. Get hands-on experience of a range of different photographic technologies and be able to develop your own work using appropriate methods to express your emerging creative ideas. Develop skills in:
    • Adobe Photoshop
    • Digital and darkroom printing
    • Creating screen-based and virtual outputs
    • Using smartphone editing apps
    • Digital and analogue cross-overs.
• Investigating Photography (20 credits)
  • Become confident in using the resources in the Northern Centre of Photography and develop your skills as a learner and a practitioner. Begin to develop your own approach to making work and learn how to research and learn from the work of other practitioners through the integration of research and study skills with photographic practice.
• Creative Moving Image (20 credits)
  • Participate in technical workshops that will introduce you to relevant software and hardware (cameras) for producing moving-image work. Attend complementary screenings, lectures and seminar discussions, from early video practitioners to contemporary practice and the impact of YouTube. Produce your own creative moving image piece that demonstrates your skills in:
    • Using cameras professionally for moving image production
    • Video capture and production
    • Video editing (Premier Pro).

Year 2 (national level 5):

• Narratives and Story Telling (40 credits)
  • Learn how to become an engaging visual storyteller and how to initiate and complete your own individual, self-directed project. Employ a professional approach to your working practice through research, production skills, editing and effective time-management, and with enhanced skills in:
    • Image capture techniques
    • 4k video production
    • Image sequencing and storytelling
    • Advanced Image Editing
    • Zine and Photo-Book Production
    • Ideas and concept generation
    • Project Management.
• Sites for Practice (40 credits)
  • Learn how to initiate and resolve a body of work and present it in a public context. Gain experience in producing, presenting and advertising your own work. Begin to find a place for your work in society and build your professional profile. Develop enhanced skills in:
    • Studio production with Phase One Camera Systems and Capture One Processing software
    • Presenting work for public display
    • Building your digital profile and networking
    • Understanding clients, audiences and contexts
    • Ethical practice and visual analysis.
• Issues in Contemporary Photographic Practice (20 credits)
  • Explore some of the main debates and issues in contemporary lens-based practice. Discuss topics in lecture presentations, seminars, and workshops, supported by small group tutorials. Identify practitioners and modes of professional practice to inform your own creative approach, while gaining enhanced transferable skills in:
    • Accessing and using research sources
    • Critical thinking
    • Written, oral and visual communication.
• Collaborative Creativity (20 credits)
  • Prepare for real-world and ‘live’ collaborative creative projects. Build your work experience, establish, and enhance your creative and professional networks and broaden your understanding of graduate opportunities, creative enterprise, and career pathways. Gain skills to:
    • Identify and develop your professional abilities
    • Communicate effectively
    • Collaborate and work as part of a team.

Final year (national level 6):

• Practice and Pitch (40 credits)
  • Identify an individual area of interest and develop an in-depth, practice-led exploration. Learn how to research, present, and pitch your visual ideas to prospective clients and audiences.
    • Take an explorative approach to image-making, responding to a particular theme or topic and demonstrating an imaginative and creative approach to the use of specific media
    • Evaluate and understand the ethics of your practice, including in relation to inclusivity, diversity, and sustainability
    • Present and pitch for opportunities using appropriate visual, oral, and written formats.
• Publish/Present (40 credits)
  • Develop a self-negotiated practical project that is ready for public presentation in an appropriate context, media, and format. Work with a subject matter, theme, topic, or issue of your choosing, and fully reflect on the ethics and environmental footprint of your work. Select where and how the final work can reach its intended audience, for instance in a physical space, online, or through print publication. Demonstrate your advanced skills to:
    • Produce a fully resolved body of work
    • Find and connect with your audiences
    • Access appropriate academic, professional and peer networks and know how to benefit from feedback from others.
• Your Research Project (20 credits)
  • Explore in depth a specific aspect of the theory, history or contemporary practice of photography, video, and digital imaging. Devise a research topic with help from module tutors and produce either an extended piece of academic writing or an equivalent extended visual research presentation, with advanced skills to:
    • Produce a written or visual research project that positions your own work and ideas
    • Equip yourself with key understanding of research processes necessary for further postgraduate work.
• Your Professional Presence (20 credits)
  • Advance your understanding of professional photographic practices, creative careers, professional networks, and approaches to enterprise. Build a careers and professional practice research portfolio with case studies enabling you to understand and negotiate your own pathway and to identify opportunities within the contemporary cultural and professional environment. Gain advanced skills to:
    • Develop a professional portfolio
    • Build your online presence
    • Identify career pathways
    • Build your professional networks.

Facilities

Our Photography courses are situated at the Northern Centre of Photography. The University provides excellent facilities and industry-standard software so it's easy to make a seamless transition from your studies to the workplace.

Entry Requirements

We don’t currently display entry requirements for Ireland. Please contact the Student Admin team on or .

Entry requirements are provided for guidance only and we may offer you an entrance interview which will help us determine your eligibility for your chosen degree. This enables us to consider making you an offer if you're perhaps a mature student who's been out of education for a period of time, or you've gained significant knowledge and skills through employment rather than traditional education.

Eligible entry qualifications:

If you're unsure of whether you think you might be suitable for the course, please contact us.

**If you've studied for a GCSE which has a numerical grade, you'll need to achieve a grade 4 or above. Equivalent alternative qualifications are also accepted, such as Level 2 Key Skills in Communication and Application of Number.

If English isn't your first language, please see our English language requirements.

Fees and Finance

The annual fee for this course is £9,535 if you're from the UK/Ireland/EU settled/pre-settled.

Undergraduate fees are set according to rules from Government in line with forecast inflation. The fee for your first year of study for 2025/26 will be £9,535. You will pay tuition fees for every year of study. Fees may increase every year based on the Retail Price Index.

If you're a full-time UK/Irish/EU settled/EU pre-settled student, you may be eligible to receive financial support to cover your fees for the full four years. UK and EU settled students may also be eligible to receive a maintenance loan.

Please note, this course isn't available to international students.

Learn more about settled status, pre-settled status, special discounts, visa requirements, and Common Travel Area (CTA) agreements for the Republic of Ireland applicants in our Help and Advice article.

Take a look at the scholarships and bursaries that may be available to you.

This information was correct at the time of publication.

Career Ready

Graduates from this course are creative individuals who work in a broad range of careers. This may be in directly related areas such as the music and fashion press, medical, sports and event photography, as well as people-facing professions such as teaching and marketing. Graduates have also taken up internships using their creative and management skills and established their own small businesses, operating throughout the country.

North East Photography Network (NEPN)

With opportunities to meet and learn from many visiting international photographic practitioners, you'll be joining a centre of research and teaching excellence in the North of England. Part of a vibrant campus, we have links to major cultural and industry organisations and we host the North East Photography Network (NEPN), the region’s professional development agency for photography.

Through NEPN, you'll meet visiting photographers from around the UK and farther afield, and have opportunities to work alongside them, developing your contacts and industry experience.

Getting You There

Our course will take you places! We’ll help you find the right opportunities for a fulfilling career or further study. We give our students the chance to develop real-world experiences and build a professional CV. This could mean working collaboratively as part of a creative team, undertaking an internship or placement in business, or working on a commission through our Sunderland Creatives Agency. You’ll also find out about routes into teaching and other postgraduate study.

Sunderland Culture

Sunderland Culture is a collaboration between the University, council, and the city’s key culture organisations. This partnership brings big name creatives in contemporary visual arts, glass, ceramics, and performance to the city; showcases exciting local talent; and gives our students unique experiences including exceptional career-enhancing opportunities.

Meet the Team

• Craig Ames
  • Senior Lecturer in Photography
• Johannah Churchill
  • Lecturer in Contemporary Photography
• Stephen Turner
  • Senior Technician Darkroom Photography
• Alexandra Moschovi
  • Professor of Photography/Curating, Research Student Manager

View all staff for BA (Hons) Photography, Video and Digital Imaging with Integrated Foundation Year

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• BA (Hons) Fine Art