Course units
UAL is committed to ensuring that its students’ knowledge and skills are set within a contemporary personal and professional ethical framework so that they may make a positive impact in practice, particularly in relation to UAL’s Principles for Climate, Racial and Social Justice. The UAL Principles help inform the course’s approach to ethical awareness and application within the curriculum, leading to advocacy, mitigation and urgency in developed practice. Ethical behaviours and values are embedded in course aims and are assessed throughout. Aligned with this is our expectation that students will be ready to apply these to their careers and to respond and adapt to societal change and emerging technologies, including AI.
In common with all courses at the University of the Arts London, this course is credit rated. The course is three years, levels 4-6. Each year requires you to achieve 120 credits. To be awarded the BA (Hons) Photography qualification, you need to accumulate a total of 360 credits.
Year 1
During the first year, through a series of specially designed practice and theory sessions, you’ll learn about contemporary and historical photography practices, and the key theoretical frameworks used to situate them.
You’ll be supported through workshops and tutorials to develop and research your own photographic ideas in relation to project briefs and experiment with the technical skills to develop your personal position as a photographer.
You’ll be introduced to specialist photographic skills and creative methodologies in a supportive environment, to develop your curiosity and creativity.
Throughout the course, there will be guest lectures from industry professionals, including photographers, artists, filmmakers, picture editors, curators, commissioners and more, giving insight into a range of photographic practices and providing a space to meet other photography students from across the programme at BA and MA levels.
In your first year you’ll be introduced to the wider resources of the University, including the Digital Space where you can sign up to short courses offering training in various software packages.
Introduction to Photography (20 Credits)
This unit acts as an introduction to the course and to your subject specialism. Topics covered include effective learning and studentship at undergraduate level as well as an introduction to basic technical skills.
Approaches to Practice (20 Credits)
This unit introduces you to different ways of experimenting and making with photography. Throughout the unit, you’ll take part in a series of hands-on workshops designed to help you try new ideas, take creative risks, and discover a range of photographic approaches.
Histories of Photography (20 Credits)
This unit aims to develop a critical capacity to look at, discuss and understand photographic images. Through a series of lectures and seminars we will exchange ideas about the histories and possible futures of photography.
The Photobook (40 Credits)
This unit invites you to develop a photographic project through the form of a photobook. Through lectures and practical workshops, you’ll learn about photobook forms and design principles, including layout, sequencing, binding, and how image and text work together to build meaning and narrative. You’ll also be introduced to key professional tools such as software for design.
Issues of Representation and Power (20 Credits)
In this unit, we look at how photography can be used to draw attention to contemporary issues of power and representation. We explore photographic practices that engage with contemporaneous social issues, including forms of activism, documentary art practice, social justice and research as practice. The unit presents a series of lectures, seminars and practical moving image and sound editing workshops.
Year 2
As you move into Year 2, you’ll expand on your skills, undertake further experimentation and start to develop a more specific understanding of your work. You’ll be encouraged to question the contexts in which your work may be encountered and how your work is placed in relation to wider visual cultures. Year 2 builds on the foundations established in Year 1, retaining and deepening themes of practice, contextual studies, and professional development.
You’ll continue to ask critical questions about photography practices in contemporary culture, exploring photography as an expanded form, and you’ll further explore questions of climate, racial and social justice, and consider the contexts in which your work will appear.
Towards the end of the year, the emphasis in contextual studies shifts towards preparation for your selection of a research topic that you’ll continue to explore in the Research Project unit in your third year, and you’ll also build skills in preparing your work for exhibition.
Experimental Imaging (40 Credits)
This unit explores photography as an expanded and interdisciplinary practice. You’ll investigate how photographic thinking can be extended through processes that could include moving image, sound, and computational processes such as AI and photogrammetry. Undertaking a series of experiments, you’ll develop your own practice project exploring photography in expanded ways, linking these forms to ecological ways of thinking.
The Live Brief (Industry, Community and Collaboration) (20 Credits)
This unit provides you with the opportunity to choose from a number of live briefs set by industry partners. Through this process you’ll share skills and expertise by collaborating with others and gain insight from working on projects that are set in a variety of external-facing contexts.
Exhibiting Practices (40 Credits)
This unit develops your individual creative practice as a form of professional cultural production. It will explore ways of exhibiting work in public, through the spaces of contemporary visual arts in London and beyond, considering curation and exhibition production in these different contexts. You’ll produce your own creative work and develop ways of exhibiting or disseminating your work that’s appropriate for your creative and conceptual vision.
Questions in Contemporary Visual Culture (20 Credits)
The aim of this unit is to provide a clear foundation of research methods necessary to further your theoretical and practical work. The unit will support the close and critical reading of images and texts and develop strategies through which images and texts can be combined to produce arguments in the form of an essay or research publication, with clear communicable conclusions, preparing you for Year 3.
Year 3
Year 3, the final stage of your degree, consolidates and develops your ability to direct and plan your own work. All final year units are designed to enable you to think about how you may be able to sustain your practice after graduation and find exciting career opportunities in the future.
Research Project (40 credits)
In this unit, you will research, produce, and present a substantial self-directed research project and further develop connections between practice and theory. This work might consist of an extended written research project, an audio-visual essay or a research/practice output with a written component; all of which you will work on with the support of specialist supervisors.
Major Project 1 (20 Credits)
In this unit you’ll begin the exploratory process of researching and making visual work towards your final major project. You’ll develop a written proposal, complete a risk assessment and begin to make work that will be further developed in the Major Project 2 unit.
Major Project 2 (40 Credits)
Major Project 2 builds on your interests and knowledge acquired from previous units to produce a significant body of practice-based work. You’ll be supported in conducting in-depth research and technical / methodological experimentation, which on completion will demonstrate sophisticated understanding and articulation of your own practice.
Creative Futures (20 credits)
This unit asks you to consider your future goals and how best to prepare yourself for your career after university. You’ll undertake extensive research into your chosen career field and produce a creative identity package that supports your future goals. You will be supported in developing a professional CV and online presence, and you will learn how to market yourself to future employers.
Optional Diploma between Years 2 and 3
Between Years 2 and 3 of the course, you’ll also have the opportunity to undertake one of the following additional UAL qualifications:
Diploma in Professional Studies (DPS) (Optional)
An optional, year-long learning opportunity which enables you to develop your professional skills by undertaking time out for industry experience. Supported throughout the year by academics, you’ll build on the knowledge gained on your course in a range of national or international locations, and graduate with an additional qualification of Diploma in Professional Studies.
Diploma in Creative Computing (Optional)
Between Years 2 and 3, you can undertake the year-long Diploma in Creative Computing. This will develop your skills in creative computing alongside your degree. After successfully completing the diploma and your undergraduate degree, you’ll graduate with an enhanced degree: BA (Hons) Photography (with Creative Computing).
Diploma in Storytelling (Optional)
Between years 2 and 3, you can undertake the year-long Diploma in Storytelling. Enhance your creative voice and discover how to engage audiences and enact change through compelling storytelling - a skill that's in demand across a range of creative industries. After successfully completing the diploma and your undergraduate course, you’ll graduate with an enhanced degree: BA (Hons) Photography (with Storytelling).
