MA Photography - MA

You can opt to complete this module as either 180 credit points, or as 160 credit points with an additional module in Advanced Art and Design Research worth 20 credit points.

Photography

(180 credit points or 160 credit points)

Working with your allocated supervisor, and through discussion with your peers, you’ll develop a learning agreement that outlines both your personal and project aims.

Tutorials will be used to invite debate and provide a platform to critique theory and practice. You will evaluate the development of your research, personal engagement and practice, and contribute to the critique of peer work. Tutorial discussions will be supported by a series of staff-led presentations that examine critical photographic debates reflecting current theoretical ideas and their relationship to the development of your practice. You will be able to attend optional trips to UK and European photo festivals, and participate in regional and national gallery visits.

Once per term, staff and students will participate in a collaborative forum to share ideas and develop a community of practice that will support the development of your final group exhibition.

Throughout the module, you will maintain a reflective journal in which you will record, analyse and critically evaluate your ideas in the development of your project. Research reading will be sustained through an annotated bibliography contained within the journal.

As part of the critical seminar series, you will produce a critical essay and a contextual essay that examines and evaluates an area of photographic practice pertinent to your developing project research.

Technical workshops will help you to develop your pre-existing photography skills. They will incorporate traditional and digital production methods, and can include wet darkroom printing; studio lighting; alternative processes; RA4 colour printing; and high-end digital workflow, including Capture One, Lightroom, and the Adobe Suite.

During the final phase of the module, you will realise a substantial body of photographic work suitable for exhibition or publication as defined through your learning agreement and evidenced in your reflective journal.

This body of work will be assessed holistically at the end of the course. It will include a finalised learning agreement, a reflective journal, an artist’s statement, and a final photographic show. This whole package will be supported by a presentation as part of your final assessment.

Optional research module

(20 credit points)

Advanced Art and Design Research

This module will expose you to a range of different research methods across diverse practice-led research projects and research-led practices within Art and Design. If you are interested in pursuing your practice in the form of a PhD, this module will prepare you for further study.