In the first year, you'll be introduced to the University and the technical workshops and facilities available to you. On the course you’ll learn the technical and conceptual skills that will give you a solid foundation from which to explore your areas of specialist activity. 

Environment
You'll examine the relation of photography to environment, with a particular emphasis on space. Internal and external, urban and rural environments are an important feature of our cultural, social and political experience. And the critical consideration of the complexities of environment represents an important aspect of contemporary practice. This unit provides you with the opportunity to explore these ideas through the genres of documentary, architecture, landscape and street photography.

Styling Identity
You'll extend your knowledge of creative fashion styling, identity and image creation practice from a theoretical and practical perspective. This unit aims to use and explore various approaches to research, and empower you in the complex process of analysing a more diverse range of sources and interpreting your findings in a wider range of outcomes.

Image Making
After a basic introduction to a range of different methodologies, exploring the notions of the singular image, tableau, series and/or montage, you'll decide on the mode of production of your work. Your project can be realised in the studio, with the option to undertake set-builds; or on location, as appropriate to your concept. This will be a visual project with outputs such as a book, exhibition, installation, moving image, magazine, zine or online publication.

Individual Project
This concludes the first year. It encourages you to reflect upon your progress so far, consolidate your successes and begin to make work that's not defined by a set brief but driven by personal research and exploration.

The second year focus is on finding your own specialist way of working and you’ll be encouraged and supported to start working more independently. During this year you may also have the opportunity to complete an industry work placement or even study abroad. 

Fashion Film
Moving image plays an increasingly central role in fashion and photography. In this unit you'll examine how the use of moving image affects both the promotion and consumption of fashion, through critical thinking and creative practice. This unit challenges you both creatively and intellectually; it enables you to build concepts for fashion films, learn the technical and professional skills necessary to realise those concepts and successfully promote fashion through moving image.

Exposure: The Festival
This unit runs alongside, and directly interacts with, Fashion film and 'beyond photography' unit/s. The project that you produce for either of these units will be exhibited as part of the Medway Photo Festival. The unit develops your understanding of producing, developing and presenting work for an external audience.

Storytelling
This unit aims to examine the use of narrative within photographic practice and associated creative disciplines. Stories emerge from media in a number of different ways; including models of mood creation, scene setting and resolution; but also through fragmentation, association and juxtaposition.

Photographic Futures
This unit serves to consolidate your learning throughout the second year of this degree course. It's designed to synthesise your understanding of your own work with audiences, expectations, publication and dissemination of photographic work.

Study Abroad (optional)
This optional unit is designed to broaden your educational experience and deepen your understanding of cultural diversity. It will enable you to study within a different cultural context and gain fresh perspectives.

The third year will see you achieve a greater level of independence with self-managed research, study and practice, resulting in a final major project and a written dissertation. 

Major Project
Requires you to make a significant body of work. You'll draw upon the skills and knowledge you've acquired on the course. You're encouraged to employ an experimental and creative approach to the generation of ideas and the making of work, supported by an advanced creative methodology. Essentially, your independently led project requires sustained critical development, strong conceptual ideas, risk taking, aesthetic judgement, and sophisticated communication with a detailed understanding of context.

Exposure
The exposure unit has several outcomes and is intended to help you progress your photographic practice within an external context along with your communication and professional skills. The unit is run throughout year 3 and has two distinct elements. The first element is to produce a photographic body of work along with associated contextual input with a professional client. Secondly, you will produce a professional dossier that will include your career plan, personal branding, evidence to accompany your input into the year 3 exhibitions and a photographic portfolio.

Independent Research
You'll undertake a substantial period of sustained, individually negotiated research on a subject that is likely to be related to the contextual and/ or theoretical concerns of your chosen area of study (which may include specific disciplinary concern and/or wider cultural practice).

This course offers the opportunity to study abroad for part of your second year. To find out more about studying abroad as part of your course please see the Study Abroad section:

• Study abroad information

Through industry-facing project briefs, strong links with practitioners at multiple levels, portfolio reviews, visiting lectures, studio visits and a notable series of course publications and annual exhibitions, students are afforded many opportunities to gain valuable contacts and experience within the world of photography. Our industry contacts include:

• theprintspace
• Metro Imaging
• Carl Lyttle (3D specialist)
• DDB (advertising agency)
• Burnham Niker (leading photographers’ agency)
• Getty Images
• Royal Engineers Museum & Archive
• 125 Magazine
• Medway Council
• Association of Photographers.  

Past and present guest lecturers have included: 

• Victor Burgin
• Simon Norfolk
• Tom Hunter
• Edmund Clarke
• Dan Holdsworth
• Dinu Li
• Rut Blees Luxemburg
• Sophie Rickett
• Stephen Gill
• Eva Stenram
• John Stezaker
• Simon Roberts
• Chrystel Lebas
• Anne Hardy
• Esther Teichmann
• Tim Flach
• Melissa Moore.

Our graduates have landed roles in a dazzling range of fields, including:

• Fashion
• Editorial
• Advertising
• Fine Art
• Freelance photography
• Post-production
• Digital imaging
• Video editing
• Production
• Art buying and direction
• Picture editing
• Research
• Image management
• Marketing.