Photography - BA (Hons) Degree drafted
| Program start date | Application deadline |
| 2023-09-01 | - |
Program Overview
This course will develop skills and expertise in the following:
Year One
Photography Fundamentals - 40 Credits
This module aims to introduce students to the basic fundamental skills, ideas, and technical processes relating to the field of photography and encourage them to apply appropriate production techniques to realise their ideas.
It will facilitate the planning of a response to a creative brief whilst developing students’ understanding of visual languages nurturing their ability to communicate ideas, emotions, and information via the photographic image.
The module will introduce students to the work of practitioners working in the field of photography, both contemporary and historical, and the critical ideas behind their work with the aim of developing students’ own ability to produce images actively and with purpose.
The focus is on manual camera handling, working in the photo studio, traditional darkroom techniques and digital imaging processes.
Photographic Perspectives - 20 Credits
This module aims to provide students with the opportunity to develop more advanced photographic skills and techniques whilst introducing them to a range of genres and contexts with regard to photographic and lens-based practices.
The focus is on working with professional formats and exploring key photographic genres and preparing images for display.
Students will develop creative image manipulation techniques and explore the differences between conceptual, functional and aesthetic approaches to photography.
It will develop students’ ability to reflect upon, and evaluate their own skills in order to identify the most appropriate approaches to the production of images in specific contexts.
The module will encourage students to consider the expectations, perceptions, and responses of their audience and reflect upon the historical, societal, and cultural dimensions of their own practice.
Collaborate - 20 Credits
The Collaborate module provides students with the opportunity to work collaboratively with students and academics from other subject areas on a holistic theme/problem introducing them to the concept of interdisciplinary collaboration.
Through focused engagement in their specific discipline area followed by collaborative engagement with other subject areas students will be able to identify key attributes of their discipline and how these can be utilised within an interdisciplinary context.
By working in a range of collaborative and independent mode of practice students will be given the opportunity to develop interpersonal and networking skills.
Concept - 40 Credits
The aim of the Concept module is to introduce students to a series of diverse historical and theoretical concepts and debates. Students will be introduced to a range of academic tools that will enable them to engage discursively with one another and the wider academic community.
Through exposure to research material in a series of Study Groups students will be encouraged to nurture independent interests and to locate these within a range of paradigms. This module will develop skills of academic research and writing alongside autonomous and enquiry-based learning.
It will develop a basic understanding of the relationship between theory and practice within both their core subject and transdisciplinary areas. The application of historical and contemporary theoretical perspectives relevant to global cultural contexts will also be addressed.
It will aim to introduce the possibility of a coherent and creative position in relation to art and design.
Year Two
Creative Photographic Practice - 40 Credits
This module will build on students’ foundational knowledge and will focus on their individual creative expertise within the context of contemporary cultural, ethical and professional photographic practices. It will support students’ development through independent enquiry, personal innovation, and risk taking, encouraging them to explore, experiment with, and gain an understanding of different forms of contemporary photographic practices.
The focus is on Experiment, Narrative and Context.
The module aims to extend students’ professional, technical, and intellectual skills and develop their confidence in order that they can identify where their individual creative practice is located within the broad spectrum of photographic and lens-based practices.
The module will require students to explore alternative and diverse avenues of expression, production and presentation to further develop their skills whilst developing a cohesive portfolio of work.
Explore - 40 Credits
This module aims to consolidate transdisciplinarity in the generation of creative ideas by offering students the opportunity to experience skillsets which exist outside the students’ subject specific domain and offers an environment to experiment and explore.
This allows students to plan a personal trajectory from a range of existing projects that can illuminate their creative path into their third year and beyond.
These pathways direct students towards possible professional avenues of practitioner, entrepreneur, and academic. This module will also nurture the students’ reflective writing skills that will illustrate the development and contextualising of ideas from their projects.
Critique - 40 Credits
This module aims to develop students’ confidence as they explore creative possibilities within their area of interest, underpinned by historical and theoretical concepts and debates through a process of critical evaluation within Constellation. The student will increasingly develop a personal stance from which to address a particular research interest that will form the foundation of their third year research.
It will build upon the skills of academic research, analysis and critical writing to engage in critique and further develop autonomous learning. It will identify relevant and challenging transdisciplinary contexts within which to situate specific areas of interest in Art and Design and critically apply historical and contemporary theoretical concepts and debates.
It will confirm and cohere creative positions in relation to theory and practice.
Year Three
Professional Photographic Practice - 40 Credits
This module aims to develop students’ understanding of strategic planning, negotiating workloads, and developing a professional portfolio. It will nurture students’ advanced professional intellectual and technical skills and develop the aesthetic judgement required from them at this level.
The focus is on photographic projects made for publication and planning a career in Photography.
Students will be able to deploy knowledge of general and specialist discipline areas through the engagement with an individually developed project that will demonstrate intellectual depth and rigour, synthesising ideas from a breath of a theoretical and practice based contexts. Creative thinking techniques will be evident through experimentation and innovation that clearly demonstrates an understanding of the specificity of audience.
This module will extend practical skills through the production and presentation of independent, high quality photographic work that has the appropriate intellectual underpinning.
Exposure - 40 Credits
This module is designed to enable students to actively build upon their own strengths and interests and to make critical decisions which will affect the ways in which a viewing public interpret and read their work, ultimately shaping their career, by building an advanced level of intellectual expertise and vocation into the core of their practice.
The module does this by a studio practice which exposes students to the intellectual, professional and strategic rigour of a public exhibition.
Thus this module is both the culmination of their creative practice and in many cases the launch pad for their professional careers and professional practice.
Contribution - 40 Credits
The final year Contribution project is a key element to any undergraduate degree as it represents the synthesis of the student’s creative endeavours within Constellation.
This is an opportunity for students to demonstrate independent study, to analyse and articulate information from a wide range of areas as presented in and inspired by Constellation, and to consolidate research in an intellectually ambitious arena.
This module challenges students to create a critical fusion between the student’s practical work, and transdisciplinary theoretical matters. In this module, students will be able to focus their academic interests and demonstrate academic skills, and present evidence of refinement and of autonomy, signifying a capacity to defend the critical position at the centre of their work. It will produce and effectively communicate an outcome that is situated in a relevant and challenging context of Art and Design.
It will present and defend a set of theoretical and contextual issues in an ambitious manner.