Program Overview

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Overview

This four-year undergraduate program in Photography with a Foundation Year is designed to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of the subject, allowing them to progress onto the BA (Hons) Photography course.

Introduction

The Foundation Year of this four-year program aims to provide students with an understanding of the subject to allow them to progress onto the BA (Hons) Photography course. This Foundation Year provides the perfect opportunity for students to explore the key principles of art, design, and media. The course is designed to help students develop their creative skills, build a larger portfolio, and provide a good transition period to familiarize themselves with the Salford School of Arts, Media, and Creative Technology, and life as a student at the University of Salford.

Course Details

Foundation Year

The Foundation Year will provide students with a dynamic, exciting, and collaborative environment in which to become a confident self-learner, with the underpinning skills and knowledge to apply to their studies. Students will be taught with students interested in progressing to different art, design, and media programs, and study modules that will help them increase their knowledge and understanding of basic art and design as well as other aspects of creative thinking.

Year One

• Imagined Communities: This module introduces students to analogue capture and processing of images in the darkroom.
• Street and Studio: This module introduces students to studio and location-based lighting, and develops their digital post-production skills.
• Urban and Rural: This module introduces students to traditional and more experimental approaches to image capture and basic digital post-production.
• Photography and the Book: This module introduces students to photography and its relation to self-publishing and Artist's books.
• Establishing Frameworks: This module introduces students to the importance of elements of working as a professional, and presenting their work to a defined market.
• Exploring Creative Contexts: This module is designed to encourage students to explore, consider, and reflect on a range of perspectives in the field of creative practice.

Year Two

• Constructing Worlds and Meanings: This module asks students to respond to the construction of meaning and narrative in relation to both still and moving images.
• Exploring Possibilities: This module asks students to respond to experimental modes of image making and presentation.
• Photography in Context: This module asks students to respond to an outside venue with a group photography exhibition.
• Opportunities and Industry: This module asks students to focus on and engage with the broad industry of photographic practices.
• Developing Frameworks: This module asks students to identify and engage with their personal and career aspirations.
• Responding to Creative Contexts: This module is designed to encourage students to investigate, collaborate, and make connections across a range of contexts related to the theory and practice of photography.

Year Three

• Towards Resolution: This module asks students to research, plan, and test ideas leading towards a major body of photographic work.
• Resolution: This module asks students to undertake a major photographic exploration of identified subject(s).
• Applying Frameworks: This module asks students to identify and engage with their personal and career aspirations.
• Independent Research Project: This module provides an opportunity for students to engage in a detailed examination of an aspect of visual culture of their choice.

What Will I be Doing?

• 50% Coursework
• 20% Presentations
• 30% Dissertation

Teaching

Students will learn through a mixture of practice and theory-based activities, including lectures, tutorials and workshops, seminars, individual tutorials, and self-directed learning.

Assessment

Assessment will be mainly based on project work, presentation, and on the ability to incorporate feedback.

Career Links

Students will meet industry professionals, including guest speakers, curators, artists, organisers, and/or affiliated non-profit organisations involved in the promotion of photography.

Requirements

• GCSE English Language at grade C/level 4 or above (or equivalent)
• Maths at grade C/4 or above (or equivalent) is preferred but not essential
• 64 tariff points from A-levels (or equivalent) to include an Arts & Design qualification preferred

Tuition Fees

• Full-time home: £8,505 for Foundation Year and £9,535 for subsequent years (2025/26 and 2026/27)

Additional Costs

• Optional costs may include £150 for field trips and £250 for a European visit per year
• Students will be required to pay from £100 for show participation in their final year

Student Information

• Terms and conditions
• UCAS information: Course ID W643, Institution S03

Data

• 80% of students say staff value students' views and opinions about the course
• 89% of students say teaching staff have supported their learning well
• 91% in work or doing further study 15 months after the course

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