Photography MA

Course overview

Enhance your skills, broaden your scope and refine your style as a photographer on our MA Photography degree course at UCA Rochester.

This course will encourage you to be bold, both in your work and the way in which you display it. You will be encouraged to speculate, experiment and add complexity to your projects, using our extensive facilities to help you realise your ideas.

We also focus on the dissemination, exhibition and publication of photographic work, as well as covering critical theory and reading and writing about the image.

With a balance of support that will develop your practical skills and foster a high standard of diverse critical approaches, you will respond to the diverse field of contemporary photography and explore practices of representation that engage with the still and moving image, as well as performance and installation.

Your studies will be supported by a number of internationally renowned staff in a department that encourages experimentation. This will help you to establish yourself as a rounded professional who can formulate ideas in a sophisticated framework, whilst also communicating impactfully with others, both visually and verbally.

Wherever your career aspirations lie - from fashion to fine art, editorial to curation - we place a strong emphasis on publication, empowering you to find creative ways to disseminate your work beyond the academic context.

Length of study	1 year full-time
Campus	Rochester
Entry requirements	Honours degree and/or relevant work experience
Course entry options	Sept 2021

Course details

Term one

You'll be introduced to the University and the technical workshops and facilities available to you. The first term includes a range of lectures and seminars and you’ll start to explore your creative practice.

Contemporary Debates and Creative Enquiry
This unit introduces you to a range of research methods and tools appropriate to an advanced level of study in creative disciplines, as well as outlining key issues and debates in contemporary visual and material culture. It is designed to enable the use of advanced study skills to prepare students for the development of your MA project.

Exploratory Practice
This unit is concerned with the exploration of creative practice in order to inform the detailed development of your project proposal. The unit provides a structured framework to allow you to investigate the potential of methods, ideas and themes in your discipline.

Term two

During term two you begin developing your MA project, evaluating and testing out the aims of your proposal over a sustained period of self-directed study.

Innovation and Development
In this unit, you'll begin to develop your MA project over a sustained period of self-directed study as you begin to work more independently as a researcher and practitioner. Within this development stage of the course, you are expected to deepen and extend the critical understanding and articulation of your research. You are encouraged to challenge the relationships between photography, technology and representation, exploring the latest developments both theoretical as well as practical in photography, fine art and the wider media culture.

Term three

In the third term of the course, you'll apply the knowledge gained through your research to create a final body of work.

Resolution and Presentation
In this unit, you'll apply the knowledge gained through your research in the Innovation and Development unit to undertake the resolution and finalisation of your final body of work. In this final part of the course, you'll combine an ability to define and produce a form of completed work as well as locate their project within a professional context. You are encouraged to develop the final production of your work in the form that is most relevant to the work: for example, an exhibition, a book dummy, website, a performance or dynamic time-based work.

Fees and additional costs

Tuition fees
The course fees per year for 2021 entry are:

UK students full-time - £10,400
EU students full-time - £10,400 (see fee discount information)
International students full-time - £17,500 (standard fee)
International students full-time - £16,800 (full early payment fee)

Additional course costs
In addition to the tuition fees please see the additional course costs for 2021 entry.

Further information
Find out more about our course fees and any financial support you may be entitled to:

These fees are correct for the stated academic year only. Costs may increase each year during a student’s period of continued registration on course in line with inflation (subject to any maximum regulated tuition fee limit). Any adjustment for continuing students will be at or below the RPI-X forecast rate.

Fee discounts and scholarships

To support our students and alumni to progress to the next level of study, we have developed a new range of fee discounts across a range of courses.

Read more about fee discounts

Course specifications

Please note, syllabus content indicated is provided as a guide. The content of the course may be subject to change in line with our Student Terms and Conditions for example, as required by external professional bodies or to improve the quality of the course.

Louise Mayell, MA Photography, UCA Rochester

Chiaying Tai, MA Photography, UCA Rochester

Haobo (Albert) Chen, MA Photography, UCA Rochester

Lanya Feng, MA Photography, UCA Rochester

Charlotte Scally MA Photography work, UCA Rochester

Yuan Zhang, MA Photography, UCA Rochester

Zhiyun Chen, MA Photography, UCA Rochester

Yaun Xiang, MA Photography, UCA Rochester

Aias Demetriou, MA Photography, UCA Rochester

Paul Wicks, MA Photography, UCA Rochester

Ringo Chan, MA Photography, UCA Rochester

Facilities

We have three fully-equipped, spacious photographic studios and lighting; perfect for still-life, fashion, tableau and other constructed photography; dedicated processing and printing darkrooms for both black and white and colour film-based photography. Our digital imaging centre including Flextight scanners, large format Epson printers with a print size from A4 to B0, a digital suite of Mac Pros and colour calibrated monitors and up-to-date software.

Photography studios, UCA Rochester

Photography Digital studios, UCA Rochester

Course connections

Industry links

Our MA Photography course enjoys extensive links with a number of photographic, media and fine art professionals, curators, publishers, specialist printers and book designers. These connections enrich your experience through visiting lecturer and seminar programmes.

In the last three years, speakers on the course have included photographers and other creative practitioners such as:

Ori Gersht
Zed Nelson
Sarah Pickering
Eva Stenram
Katja Mayer
Chiacomo Brunnelli
Chris Coekin
Harry Borden
Jim Mortram.

Additionally, creative professionals and industry links for our course include:

Benedict Burbridge, editor of Photoworks
Stuart Smith, book designer at Smith-Design
Karen McQuaid, senior curator of The Photographer's Gallery
Jennifer Thatcher, art critic for Art Monthly and Art review
Jean Wainwright, curator and art critic for Art Newspaper and Tate Audio Arts
Terry King, specialist printer
Emily Pethick, director The Showroom
Robert Shore, writer and editor of Elephant Magazine
Edward Dorrian, organiser of Five Years
Aron Mörel, independent book publisher
Bruno Ceschel, independent publisher ‘Self Publish Be Happy’
Nick Clements, photographer and publisher of Men’s File Magazine
Fred Mann, gallerist.

Careers

Our postgraduate degree prepares you for your career through professional practice units, talks by visiting artists and portfolio reviews with figures from across the photographic industry. Career opportunities include:

Freelance photography
Fine art
Fashion
Advertising and editorial
Post production/digital imaging
Picture editing and research
Curating
Image, arts and community arts management
Gallery administration.

Graduates of MA Photography have gone on to win the Jerwood Photography prize; to exhibit their work in The Photographers' Gallery, Photofusion, ArtSway and the Geffyre Museum as well as publishing their outputs in different venues ranging from The Sunday Times Magazine to monographs with Dewi Lewis Publishing.

Further study

We also encourage you to apply to national and international competitions and residencies. Recent graduates have met with success at the PhotoforumPasquArt in Switzerland and Emergent Lleida, Spain. Alumni have also gone on to study for PhDs and to teach in many different national and international institutions at a range of levels.

Our course provides an excellent platform for you to connect with your subject, or to further your teaching career at an advanced level. It also helps prepare you for progression to an MPhil or PhD.

Explore our Gradshow

Visit our 2021 grad show site to see the incredible work created by our graduating students

Visit the 2021 Gradshow

Angus Fraser

"Doing the MA felt like a natural next step for me, both personally and professionally. I had already gained considerable 'real-world' experience and I wanted to return to my studies in order to see what new directions my work could go in. The creative freedom that the course encouraged enabled me to explore different styles and approaches."

Entry requirements

UK entry requirements

An honours degree or equivalent qualification in the subject or a related discipline

and/or

Relevant work experience, demonstrating your ability to study at postgraduate level.

Consideration will also be given to applicants who can make a strong case for admission in relation to a particular project and can demonstrate their potential to satisfactorily complete the course.

International and EU entry requirements

To view the equivalent entry requirements for your country please select it in the list below.

Pick Your Country

Don't meet the international entry requirements or English language requirements?

You may be able to enter the course through the following entry courses:

Pre-sessional English courses in the UK or China

UCA International Foundation courses

The UCA International College

Portfolio requirements

For this course, you’ll be required to submit an online portfolio via your UCA Applicant Portal. Further information on how to compile and upload your portfolio will be provided once you have applied. If you receive an offer, you’ll be invited to attend an Offer Holder Webinar where you can meet the course team and learn more about the course.

More portfolio advice

Apply now

Application links - MA Photography

UK applications

Apply for full-time study - starting September 2021:

Apply direct to UCA for September 2021
(Open now)

International & EU applications

Apply for full-time study - starting September 2021:

Apply direct to UCA for September 2021
(Open now)

When to apply:

You can apply throughout the year but we recommend you try and apply as early as possible so you have time to arrange accommodation and visas, if required.

For more information visit our how to apply pages