BA (Hons) Photography

UCA’s Integrated Foundation Year is designed to give you the skills you’ll need to start your degree in the best possible way – with confidence, solid knowledge of creative practice, study skills and more.

You’ll explore a range of creative techniques and develop your portfolio, with your chosen subject in mind. We’ll work with you throughout the year to ensure you’re on the right track and give you the tools to achieve your highest potential on your degree.

Find out more about the Integrated Foundation Year

For our students coming from a non-UK educational background, UCA has launched an Integrated International Foundation Year, based at UCA Farnham to bring students from around the world to one hub of creativity.

This year of preparatory study is designed to give you the skills you’ll need to start your degree in the best possible way – with confidence, solid knowledge of creative practice, study skills and the English speaking and writing skills you’ll need to succeed.

You’ll explore a range of creative techniques and develop your portfolio, with your chosen subject in mind. We’ll work with you throughout the year to ensure you’re on the right track and give you the tools to achieve your highest potential on your degree.

Find out more about the Integrated International Foundation Year

Launch
This primary week at the beginning of the course will be used to prepare you for university learning. Many of the workshops on offer will be programme wide and will be enhanced with subject specific learning. You will be introduced to a range of skills workshops designed to audit and refresh your existing skills in order to prepare you for the commencement of the course learning, including an introduction to 35 ml cameras and how to process a black on white film to ensure that basic skills are refreshed at the beginning of the course learning programme.

The Real
This is a programme-wide unit, run in course-specific groups, giving you the opportunity to investigate core subject-specific themes and ideas interpreted through the lens of ‘the real’. You’ll explore situations or communicate ideas about the social, political, and economic circumstances that shape human experience.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity
You’ll be able to demonstrate an awareness of how your own social identity (such as gender, race/ethnicity, class, disability, sexual orientation, and religion) informs how you navigate creative practices.

Elective – Printmaking
This is an interdisciplinary skills-based elective unit open to Photography and Digital Arts students where you’ll be introduced to a range of printmaking processes to build and enhance your existing skillset. You’ll gain the knowledge to be competent and confident working creatively with printmaking processes.

Elective - Digital Storytelling
This is an interdisciplinary skills-based elective unit open to Photography and Fine Art students. You will be introduced to a range of creative and technical workshops to develop core skills in film language, cinematography, sound recording and post-production techniques.

Opportunity
During this opportunity week, you will receive one personal tutorial that feeds back on the work of the previous term. There will also be a number of refresher workshops designed to recap any skills.

The Body
You’ll be introduced to a range of genres, styles, and critical and methodological approaches which are related to or centred on the body and our relationship to the body. This is a good opportunity to improve your research skills and gain a deeper understanding of your own creative practice.

Professional Identities
This employment-focused programme-specific unit offers you the opportunity to identify relevant professional contexts and navigate your relationship with these contexts.

Learning Enhancement
In this unit, you’ll have the opportunity to undertake enhanced subject-specific workshops and training to enrich your existing skillset.

Launch
You’ll prepare for the year ahead with a range of refresher skills workshops designed to recap on previous learning, together with preparation work for the forthcoming core unit Spatial Practices.

Spatial Practices
You’ll explore spatial practices and their relationship to ideologies and systems of power, looking at the ways in which photography practices document, intersect with, and subvert traditional approaches to space and place.

The Conscious Practitioner
You’ll engage with subject specific concepts of inclusion, exclusion, and diversity, and interrogate how belief systems, values, and attitudes influence approaches to creative practices.

Conceptual Disciplinary Elective
You’ll have the opportunity to select either a discipline-specific or an interdisciplinary elective unit from within the programme, in order to build on and enrich your existing learning. Each elective will include practice-led, research-driven lectures and seminars, supported by relevant skills workshops.

Opportunity
During this opportunity week you will receive one personal tutorial that feeds back on the work of the previous term and take part in workshops designed to recap on any skills that were omitted during term 1. You’ll also prepare for the forthcoming core unit Expanded Practices.

Expanded Practices
You’ll explore photography as an expanded field of creative practice, and how it can open out across multiple mediums and engage with the world. We want you to examine imaginative possibilities that sit between meaning and materiality using a range of approaches and processes.

Professional Development
You’ll build on the work you did in Year 1 on your professional outlook, develop the necessary skills to confidently engage with relevant professional contexts, and put together a professional experience plan.

Professional Experience
Following on from the previous unit, you’ll get the opportunity to engage with external-facing professional contexts as part of your journey from student to graduate. This will enable you to understand how your practice sits within a range of professional contexts outside of an educational environment.

If you opt to complete a professional practice year, this will take place in year three. You will undertake a placement within the creative industries to further develop your skills and CV.

While on your Professional Practice Year, you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee for that year. This fee will be determined using government funding regulations. Based on current regulations, we expect this to be a maximum of 20% of the tuition fee rate that you are charged for your second year of study. You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during this year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this as you approach your Professional Practice Year.

Please note: If you are an international applicant, you will need to enrol onto the course ‘with Professional Practice Year’. It will not be possible to transfer onto the Professional Practice Year after enrolment

Launch
Your final Launch Week is a space in which you can reflect on your own independent learning journey. You will be encouraged to rework an existing piece of work to produce a new outcome and be guided through how to draft a viable proposal for the next unit.

Final Major Project – Development
You’ll begin developing work for your final major project, identifying and experimenting with a range of relevant creative and technical methodological approaches in a way that reflects your own research interests.

Critical Contexts
Drawing from interdisciplinary approaches to gathering research, you’ll be able to synthesise and contextualise your research interests within relevant critical contexts through either the written or spoken word.

Opportunity
During this opportunity week you will receive a personal tutorial that feeds back on the previous terms work, and work independently to refine your final major project..

Final Major Project: Realisation
In this two-component unit you’ll complete your final major project with a major body of work that reflects your individual practice, and also complete your independent professional exit plan, as part of your transition to either a professional or postgraduate environment.

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

• Study abroad information

Tuition fees - 2024 entry

UK students:

• Integrated Foundation Year - £9,250
• BA course - £9,250

EU students:

• Integrated International Foundation Year - £9,250 (see fee discount information)
• BA course - £9,250 (see fee discount information)

International students:

• Integrated International Foundation Year - £17,500
• BA course - £17,500

If you opt to study the Professional Practice Year, for 2024 you will be required to pay a reduced tuition fee of £1,850 (UK students) and £3,390 (International students). You will also incur additional travel and accommodation costs during your Professional Practice year. The University will provide you with further advice and guidance about this.

The fees listed here are correct for the stated academic year only, for details of previous years please see the full fee schedules. 

Financial support

There are lots of ways you can access additional financial support to help you fund your studies - both from UCA and from external sources.

Discover what support you might qualify for please see our financial support information

UCA scholarships and fee discounts

At UCA we have a number of scholarships and fee discounts available to assist you with the cost of your studies.

You'll find everything you need to know for your level of study on our scholarships page.

Additional course costs

In addition to the tuition fees there may be other costs for your course. The things that you are likely to need to budget for to get the most out of a creative arts education will include books, printing costs, occasional or optional study trips and/or project materials.

These costs will vary according to the nature of your project work and the individual choices that you make. Please see the Additional Course Costs section of your Course Information for details of the costs you may incur.

As a long-established photography course, our renowned teaching team bring with them high-profile industry connections, both nationally and internationally. We regularly arrange visits to, and lecturers from, a wide range of companies and institutions, such as:

• Autograph
• Impressions Gallery
• National Media Museum
• Berg, Blackwell, Focalpress, Routledge and other publishers
• bookRoom
• Brighton Photo Biennial and Brighton Photo Fringe
• National Institute of Design, India
• The Photographers’ Gallery, London
• Photography & Culture journal
• Photoworks magazine
• Source: The Photographic Review

As well as a course team including a number of practising professionals, we're connected with the Association of Photographers, a national body that works to give student members a head-start as photographic practitioners.

Skilled and creatively gifted photographers are needed across an enormous range of industries, and many of our graduates have secured professional roles in a variety of fields, including:

• Fashion
• Editorial
• Advertising
• Fine Art
• Documentary-making
• Curatorial posts
• Gallery/ project management
• Writing
• Teaching
• Lecturing
• Technical support.

Alumni of this course include Paul Seawright, Gareth McConnell, Eileen Perrier, Andrew Bruce, Jane Bown, Stephen Bull and Anna Fox.

You may also like to consider further study at postgraduate level.

BA (Hons) course
BA (Hons) course with Professional Practice Year

The standard entry requirements* for these courses are one of the following:

• 112 UCAS tariff points, see accepted qualifications
• Pass at Foundation Diploma in Art & Design (Level 3 or 4)
• Distinction, Merit, Merit at BTEC Extended Diploma / BTEC National Extended Diploma
• Merit at UAL Extended Diploma
• 112 UCAS tariff points from an accredited Access to Higher Education Diploma in appropriate subject
• 27-30 total points in the International Baccalaureate Diploma with at least 15 IB points at Higher level, see more information about IB entry requirements.

And four GCSE passes at grade 9-4/A*-C including English (or Functional Skills English/Key Skills Communication Level 2).

Other relevant and equivalent Level 3 UK and international qualifications are considered on an individual basis, and we encourage students from diverse educational backgrounds to apply.  

Portfolio requirements

For these courses, we’ll need to see your portfolio for review. We’ll invite you to attend an Applicant Day so you can have your portfolio review in person, meet the course team and learn more about your course. Further information will be provided once you have applied.

More portfolio advice

BA (Hons) course with Integrated Foundation Year
BA (Hons) course with Integrated Foundation Year and Professional Practice Year

The standard entry requirements* for these courses are one of the following:

• 32 UCAS tariff points, see accepted qualifications
• Pass at Foundation Diploma in Art & Design (Level 3 or 4)
• Pass, Pass, Pass at BTEC Extended Diploma / BTEC National Extended Diploma
• Pass at UAL Extended Diploma
• 32 UCAS tariff points from an accredited Access to Higher Education Diploma in appropriate subject
• 24 points from the International Baccalaureate, see more information about IB entry requirements.

And four GCSE passes at grade 9-4/A*-C including English (or Functional Skills English/Key Skills Communication Level 2).

Other relevant and equivalent Level 3 UK and international qualifications are considered on an individual basis, and we encourage students from diverse educational backgrounds to apply. 

Portfolio requirements

BA (Hons) course with Professional Practice Year

The standard entry requirements* for these courses are one of the following:

• 112 UCAS tariff points, see accepted qualifications
• Pass at Foundation Diploma in Art & Design (Level 3 or 4)
• Distinction, Merit, Merit at BTEC Extended Diploma / BTEC National Extended Diploma
• Merit at UAL Extended Diploma
• 112 UCAS tariff points from an accredited Access to Higher Education Diploma in appropriate subject
• 27-30 total points in the International Baccalaureate Diploma with at least 15 IB points at Higher level, see more information about IB entry requirements.

And four GCSE passes at grade 9-4/A*-C including English (or Functional Skills English/Key Skills Communication Level 2).

Other relevant and equivalent Level 3 UK and international qualifications are considered on an individual basis, and we encourage students from diverse educational backgrounds to apply.  

Portfolio requirements

For these courses, we may need to see a visual or written portfolio for review. We’ll invite you to attend an Applicant Day so you can have your portfolio review in person, meet the course team and learn more about your course. Further information will be provided once you have applied.

*We occasionally make offers which are lower than the standard entry criteria, to students who have faced difficulties that have affected their performance and who were expected to achieve higher results. We consider the strength of our applicants’ portfolios, as well as their grades -  in these cases, a strong portfolio is especially important.

BA (Hons) course
BA (Hons) course with Professional Practice Year

The standard entry requirements* for these courses are one of the following:

• 112 new UCAS tariff points, see accepted qualifications
• Pass at Foundation Diploma in Art & Design (Level 3 or 4)
• Distinction, Merit, Merit at BTEC Extended Diploma / BTEC National Extended Diploma
• Merit at UAL Extended Diploma
• 112 new UCAS tariff points from an accredited Access to Higher Education Diploma in appropriate subject
• 27-30 total points in the International Baccalaureate Diploma with at least 15 IB points at Higher level, see more information about IB entry requirements.

And four GCSE passes at grade 9-4/A*-C including English (or Functional Skills English/Key Skills Communication Level 2).

Other relevant and equivalent Level 3 UK and international qualifications are considered on an individual basis, and we encourage students from diverse educational backgrounds to apply.  

Portfolio requirements

For these courses, we’ll need to see your portfolio for review. We’ll invite you to attend an Applicant Day so you can have your portfolio review in person, meet the course team and learn more about your course. Further information will be provided once you have applied.

More portfolio advice

BA (Hons) course with Integrated Foundation Year
BA (Hons) course with Integrated Foundation Year and Professional Practice Year

The standard entry requirements* for these courses are one of the following:

• 64 new UCAS tariff points, see accepted qualifications
• Pass at Foundation Diploma in Art & Design (Level 3 or 4)
• Merit, Pass, Pass at BTEC Extended Diploma / BTEC National Extended Diploma
• Pass at UAL Extended Diploma
• 64 new UCAS tariff points from an accredited Access to Higher Education Diploma in appropriate subject
• 24 points from the International Baccalaureate, see more information about IB entry requirements.

And four GCSE passes at grade 9-4/A*-C including English (or Functional Skills English/Key Skills Communication Level 2).

Other relevant and equivalent Level 3 UK and international qualifications are considered on an individual basis, and we encourage students from diverse educational backgrounds to apply. 

Portfolio requirements

These courses don't require a portfolio. If you receive an offer, you’ll be invited to attend an Applicant Day where you can meet the course team and learn more about the course. 

*We occasionally make offers which are lower than the standard entry criteria, to students who have faced difficulties that have affected their performance and who were expected to achieve higher results. We consider the strength of our applicants’ portfolios, as well as their grades -  in these cases, a strong portfolio is especially important.

BA (Hons) course
BA (Hons) course with Professional Practice Year

The entry requirements for these courses will depend on the country your qualifications are from, please check the equivalent qualifications for your country:

• Non-UK equivalent qualifications

Any additional entry requirements listed in the UK requirements section, e.g., subject requirements, work experience or professional qualifications, also apply to international applicants applying with equivalent qualifications.

Portfolio requirements

For these courses, we will need to see your portfolio for review. We will invite you to attend an Applicant Day so you can have your portfolio review in person, meet the course team and learn more about your course. If you are unable to attend an Applicant Day you can upload a portfolio digitally, there is also the option to submit it online via your UCA Applicant Portal. Further information will be provided once you have applied.

BA (Hons) course with Integrated International Foundation Year
BA (Hons) course with Integrated International Foundation Year and Professional Practice Year

For these courses you need to have completed 12 years of schooling (with good grades) and show strong evidence of your ability to successfully complete the programme and progress onto your chosen degree.

Any additional entry requirements listed in the UK requirements section, e.g., subject requirements, work experience or professional qualifications, also apply to international applicants applying with equivalent qualifications.

Portfolio requirements

These courses don't require a portfolio. If you receive an offer, you’ll be invited to attend an Applicant Day where you can meet the course team and learn more about the course. 

English language requirements

To study at UCA, you'll need to have a certain level of English language skill. And so, to make sure you meet the requirements of your course, we ask for evidence of your English language ability, please chcek the level of English language required:

• English language requirements