In the first year, you'll be introduced to the University and the technical workshops and facilities available to you. 

The course will introduce you to some core photographic skills and genres (including landscapes, portraiture, street photography and montage) whilst also engaging in fashion industry specifics such as editorials, fashion film and storytelling skills.

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. 

Photo-Object
This unit encourages you to consider the relationship between photography and objects. This basic premise will be explored through a series of workshops focusing on the composition, lighting and layering of objects, within both studio and external settings. Working alongside these sessions will be a series of related lectures, where you'll develop a deeper understanding of how social and cultural meanings are communicated via photographic representations of objects.

Fashion Film
Working as part of a team (or individually if you wish) you'll use story and mood-boards to develop a fashion film concept and style, then establish timelines to help organise production and meet deadlines, from finding actors/models, scouting locations, shooting and editing audio-visual footage, to post-production and promotion of your work. You'll be guided through every stage of this process via step-by-step workshops that will encourage you to experiment with new techniques and learn to create technically proficient and visually exciting audio-visual work. As creative practitioners you'll be expected to locate your work within wider industrial, social and cultural developments, potentially culminating in the showcasing of your film.

Storytelling
This unit examines the use of narrative within photographic practice and associated creative disciplines. It is essential that you not only develop an understanding of the contextual and conceptual issues associated with photographic storytelling, but also the underlying cultural, political and ideological perspectives. Therefore, the unit incorporates critical studies, which will introduce you to a wide range of theoretical and creative ideas.

Exposure: Positioning Practice
This unit serves to consolidate your learning throughout Year 2 and focuses attention on where your practice and career are heading in the short and long term. It is designed to synthesise understanding of your practice with regard to the dissemination of work, possible directions you might take in Year 3, and consideration of where you might want to work within the creative industries.

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. 

You’ll have the opportunity to fully demonstrate your style and your understanding of fashion and creativity through your final major project, accompanied by your thesis.

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.