Photography MA

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.

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.

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.

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

• UK students full-time - £10,400
• UK students part-time - £5,200

• International and EU students full-time - £17,500 (standard fee)
• International and EU 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. 

To support all of our current students and our recent UK and EU 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

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.

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.

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.