Program Overview

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Photography, Video and Digital Imaging BA (Hons)

Overview

Our Film Production and Photography courses are 5th in the UK (Guardian University Guide, 2025). BA (Hons) Photography, Video and Digital Imaging provides you with the 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. Our students have gone on to work in a whole range of areas such as medical, music, sports and events photography, working as studio and gallery assistants, curating, running commercial photography businesses, teaching, community and social work and publishing.

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)
• Join our unique creative community, working alongside professionals in the North East Photography Network (NEPN)

Course structure

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.

Year 1 (national level 4):

Gain a range of essential photographic and video skills and an understanding of the work of photographers, past and present.

Core modules:

• 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):

Develop your practical and conceptual skills, while learning how to work effectively with others and getting your work out into the world.

Core modules:

• 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):

Acquire advanced skills for in-depth, practice-led exploration. Produce resolved bodies of work to deadline and be able to communicate your professional attributes to clients, audiences, and future employers. Develop the critical thinking, academic and research skills for future study.

Core modules:

• 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

Our typical offer is:

• Irish Leaving Certificate: 112 UCAS points – Students must have H1-H7 or O1-O4 in Maths & English.
• QQI/FETAC 5: Pass profile overall. For entry we also require H1-H7 or O1-O4 in Maths and English from Irish Leaving Certificate.

If your qualification is not listed above, please contact the Student Administration team at for further advice.

Our admissions policy uses a range of flexible options to support you in studying with us. This may include a reduced offer of up to 16 UCAS tariff points, (or equivalent). Find out if you are eligible.

If English is not your first language, please see our English language requirements.

If you are studying an HND or Foundation Degree you may be able to enter stage two of our degree courses. For more information, please contact

Part-time study

If you study this course on a part-time basis you will typically complete 40-80 credits in a year, rather than the 120 credits of full-time students. All modules are taught during the day and you will study alongside full-time students.

Portfolio and interview

We’re interested in your creative potential; please prepare a portfolio of work you have completed so far. This can be a physical portfolio (eg. a box of prints) or a digital version (eg. PowerPoint or PDF). We’re not looking for perfection as we appreciate you may still be developing work. We’d like to see:

• A variety of work – a range of styles and techniques
• Work completed in or outside your studies
• Interesting ideas that you feel didn’t quite work

We’ll also ask you to come to interview. This will allow us to get to know each other. We’re interested in your approach to your work, as well as your interests, influences, and experience.

This course is subject to approval.

Is your qualification not displaying here? For international qualifications, search our full list of international entry requirements for this course.

Fees and finance

The annual, full-time fee for this course is:

• £9,535 if you are from the UK/Europe
• £16,500 if you are an international student

*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.

Tuition fees for part-time students are £7,145 per 90 credits. Please note that part-time courses are not available to international students who require a Student visa to study in the UK.

Read more about EU fees and funding 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 commissions. You’ll also find out about routes into teaching, and other postgraduate study.

Local opportunities

Sunderland Culture is a collaboration between the University, council and the city’s key cultures 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.

There are also opportunities to work on placements and commissions through our Sunderland Creatives Agency.

Guest speakers

We welcome many professional photographers and image makers from around the world to the Northern Centre of Photography. You’ll get to meet and hear from many of them. Recent speakers have included Kuba Ryniewicz, Eva Vermandel, Krishna Sheth Gilston, Shahidul Alam, Paul Wenham-Clarke, Bart Pajak, John Kippin and Nicola Neate.

Creative Industries Week

Creative Industries Week gives everyone in the Faculty of Arts and Creative Industries the opportunity to participate in a range of projects, workshops, talks, industry visits and career events. This exciting week encourages interdisciplinary working, broadens your experience, to build your confidence and help develop your career path.

Recently, students have benefited from zine making and micro-publishing workshops, had the chance to find out about photography and astronomy and explored innovative approaches to sustainable creativity.

Meet the students

• "My journey at Sunderland has been one of growth, self-discovery, and artistic fulfilment." - Josh Gawthorpe
• "I'm now working in my dream job as a club photographer in football." - Luke Nickerson
• "I absolutely loved the course and made some life-long friends." - Rebekah Kitchell

Meet the team

• Johannah Churchill - Lecturer in Contemporary Photography
• Alexandra Moschovi - Professor of Photography/Curating, Research Student Manager
• Craig Ames - Senior Lecturer in Photography
• Amanda Ritson - Manager – NEPN (North East Photography Network); Academic Tutor

Related courses

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