Photography

Visual Communication

Module code: PHOT40654

Image Technologies 1

This module provides an introduction to the basics of photographic craft utilising both digital and analogue imaging skills, lens choices and focal lengths, the principles of the exposure triangle utilising lens aperture, depth of field and shutter speeds, and working with a variety of light sources and colour temperatures to achieve a range of visual outcomes. Workshops and tutorials will enable the student to develop a best practice digital workflow, understanding various file formats, file naming, selecting, editing and the creation of contact sheets. Students will develop the ability to work with RAW files and understand conversions, compression and reproduction to A4 prints.You will be taught through a mixture of lectures, technical instructions and practical workshop-based deliveries. The technical instruction component to this module constitutes the Health and Safety pre-requisites that allows you loan provision for the particular cameras covered and access to all computer workshops.

Module code: PHOT40653

The Photographers Eye

This module offers you the opportunity to explore and investigate, through an intensive engagement with the medium, the pictorial elements available to photographers in the effective communication of observations about the world around us. It encourages you to engage with photographic practices that place the emphasis on 'making' rather than 'taking' photographs. The module asks that you consider the structures of the photograph that John Szarkowski developed in his iconic book The Photographer's Eye and developed further in the book Looking at Photographs. To quote from The Photographer's Eye: "This book is an investigation of what photographs look like, and of why they look that way. It is concerned with photographic style and with photographic tradition: with the sense of possibilities that a photographer today takes to his work".It builds also conceptually upon the framework of 'description' and 'interpretation' from the semester one Visual Communication module, by providing a wider framework of understanding through the additional methodologies of 'evaluation' and 'theory'. You will learn how to develop the photographic picture, by considering and practising your use of framing, awareness of light and your picture-making skills in general. You will consider more fully the practice and techniques of digital printing skills in the production of a final body of work.

Module code: PHOT40656

Image Technologies 2

Building upon Image Technologies 1, this module extends the understanding of photographic craft through the application of studio and location lighting as well as by providing the opportunity to extend your skills in analogue (film) processes. Through studio workshops you will be instructed in studio lighting skills. On location, you will learn to apply location lighting techniques, mixing flash technology with ambient light for a variety of effects and uses. This will include battery-operated strobe lights used with total manual control as well as on-camera flash.You will be introduced to medium and large format analogue (film) cameras and the black and white darkroom. You will be taught through a mixture of lectures, technical instruction, and practical workshop-based delivery. The technical instruction component to this module constitutes the Health and Safety prerequisites that allow you loan provision for the particular equipment covered and access to the black and white darkroom.

Module code: PHOT40655

Research Practices 2

This module will introduce you to a diverse set of photographic approaches, voices and ideas. Through presentations, lectures, tutorials, gallery visits, film screenings, reading groups and technical/conceptual workshops you will encounter many and varied aspects of image production and dissemination. Specifically in Semester 2 you will learn through a series of seminars and presentations foregrounding the encounter with photography, & platforms of dissemination relevant to the creative industries.You will be asked to chart your developing awareness of these ideas, methodologies and technical skill sets through an online research document.

Module code: PHOT50662

Photographic Practices

This module offers you the opportunity to consolidate the skills, knowledge and insights acquired in the course to date and to decide upon an area of photographic practice that interests or concerns you and which may provide a sense of direction for your final year. Having nominated an area of interest you will carry out background research, investigating the feasibility of your plans, in terms of, for instance, access to particular locations or people, availability of specialist resources, or the costs involved in the production of your idea. You will negotiate your thoughts and plans with your tutors and will produce an individual proposal for a project with a clear outcome, including risk assessment, a detailed costing and an outline of anticipated difficulties and planned solutions. You will, as a member of a team be involved in some planning, preparation, and publicity for a public exhibition of work.As well as considering your personal responses to photographic practice this module aims to equip you with the knowledge and skills you will need in order to be able to enter and survive in the professionally environment of photography and/or allied creative industries. Through lectures and seminars, you will learn and engage with a range of appropriate professional and business practices. This information in addition to making professional contacts will be consolidated and used in a Professional Report.

Module code: PHOT50661

Working With Photographs

This module addresses how diverse the photographic process has been and continues to be in the formation of an 'image world'. Photography is primarily utilised in the formation of 'mass produced' imagery that contributes fundamentally to how things and ideas are distributed and consumed through the media. In addition to these industry usages, photographs have been made in order to persuade, to reveal and to evidence our relationship to the world and to each other. You will be asked to reflect upon some of these relationships and possibilities in the making and consideration of photographic work. Through practice-based workshops and tutorials you will be involved with the strategic concerns that a particular practice/s requires. "The ability to interpret, critique, create, and use visual communication on sophisticated levels". (Williams, Newton, Visual Communication: Integrating Media, Art and Science) are the working methods being explored in this module.Producing photographs means that we also consider some of the questions, debates and issues that have raged around the medium of photography, its nature and purpose, since its invention. Is it art, or merely a mechanical recording device? Is it objective and scientific, coolly analytical, or is it an emotionally charged trigger to subjective memory and contemplation? What is photography for? How do we make sense of photographs? Through a series of lectures, you will learn to relate your developing practice to a body of theories, ideas, thoughts, and strategic approaches.

Module code: PHOT50659

Research Practices 1

This module will introduce you to a diverse set of photographic approaches, voices and ideas. Through presentations, lectures, tutorials, gallery visits, film screenings, reading groups and technical/conceptual workshops you will encounter many and varied aspects of image production and dissemination. Specifically in Semester 1 you will learn through a series of seminars and presentations foregrounding photo practitioners, theories, and processes relevant to contemporary practice.You will be asked to chart your developing awareness of these ideas, methodologies and technical skill sets through an online research document.

Module code: PHOT50660

Individual Practice 1: Explorations

Individual Practice1: Explorations is a practice-based module of photographic work and related research that will contribute to and define the framework for the production and implementation of work for a Degree Show made in the Individual Practice 2: Consolidations module in Semester 2.Levels Four and Five of the Photography award have provided opportunities for you to practise different kinds of photographing and to amass a considerable range of technical skills. The making of photographs has been related to visual communication throughout the award and the importance of critical thinking emphasised as crucial to your intellectual development and understanding. As you enter Level Six it is expected that you will have professional and/or personal ambitions for your photographic interests. This module provides the opportunity for you to explore and develop those areas of particular interest and to refine your skills further. Each student proposes an area of practical and research study that can demonstrate and expand upon the knowledge and experience gained in previous studies. Every student's programme of study is mentored and evaluated individually through constant discussion and feedback between the student, your peers and supervising tutor/s.As part of this area of study the essay asks that an informed critical perspective be fully considered in relationship to a chosen theme, issue, or question. This may or may not be related to your practical work for the module. The emphasis is on formulating a critical perspective rather than a survey or purely descriptive piece of writing, providing a structured and coherent analysis supported by properly referenced (Harvard) visual and textual sources. Like the practice-based work supervisory feedback is structured throughout the module. It is expected that this writing will expand understanding of photographic practice/s and practitioners beyond what you are familiar with, through rigorous visual and text-based research pertaining to the concerns identified. The essay should provide an informed and well-researched work fully supported by carefully selected and properly captioned illustrations. The essay must be to a high academic standard including a bibliography and using Harvard Style referencing throughout.

Module code: PHOT60661

Individual Practice 2: Consolidations

Working within the framework set up from the Individual Practice 1: Explorations module, you will be engaged with the production and implementation of your self-initiated programme of photographic work. With tutorial support, you will continue the research and experimentation work begun in the last module, but this will now be focused with a much clearer sense of direction. You will be working towards the Degree Show and moving from the research and experimentation phase through to development and implementation.You will need to maintain an adventurous, risk-taking attitude while engaging with the realistic acknowledgement of the constraints imposed by time, space, people, and institutions. You will consider your practice in relation to a potential career direction and or/ personal fulfilment, and this will inform the compilation of your portfolio and the form of your final exhibition. You will ensure that the end result of your final year's work is based as little as possible on speculation and as much as possible on the knowledge gained from trial, error and adjustment. It is very important that you continue to inform your practice through reading, research, and the analysis of photographs from appropriate sources, as this material will form the basis of a Final Evaluative Practice Document.

Module code: PHOT60663

Professional Directions 1

This module provides the opportunity to work on building and perfecting a professional portfolio of photographs suitable for industry presentation. Through a series of workshops, you will consider the profession from both behind and 'in front' of the camera, including the professional photographer, starting and running a business and ways in which photographers’ function, for example through the AOP or The British Institute of Photographers (BIPP). You are to identify a professional area of expertise, which your portfolio of photographs will be based upon.You will be engaged in seeking professional feedback and reviews of your work from industry practitioners, for example from photographers or editors, ideally allied to the sector you have chosen to work in. From these reviews you will present the thoughts and opinions received as a written evaluation presented together with your portfolio. It is expected that the portfolio be produced of a standard suitable for a personal client presentation. The final submission will be in the form of a peer assessed portfolio review.

Module code: PHOT60662

Professional Directions 2

This module seeks to prepare you for `life outside University', by asking you to make professional preparations for employment possibilities. You can consider entry into the creative industries related specifically to photographic practice or to other areas that require a competency in and application of highly developed visual skills. You might however wish to continue your education by considering postgraduate studies related either to your photographic practice or in other fields like teacher training. Whatever your individual choice might be, appropriate strategies will help you to achieve those objectives.This module will enable you to make realistic and well-informed decisions in relation to your future career intentions, and to develop the resilience needed to transition from undergraduate study to a career. Through lectures, workshops, and tutorial feedback you will develop personal promotional material and present yourself to an industry professional as a confident employable individual.

Module code: PHOT60664