Photography BA(Hons)

Year one will give you a firm foundation in photographic processes and techniques as well as the critical and cultural contexts of the discipline. From day one, you’ll be encouraged to take ownership of your learning journey and engage with opportunities to embed yourself in our supportive creative community.   

Modules

Foundation

Through an investigation into both practical and theoretical aspects of Photography, you’ll gain a foundational understanding of ways of learning and developing new knowledge

Process

In this module, you’ll learn to confidently use specialist photographic facilities and equipment. From digital to analogue, studio to darkroom, you’ll explore some of the key photographic processes and techniques.  

Agency

Through practical projects that encourage you to take agency over your learning journey, you’ll develop a conscious awareness of the intersection of photography with education, wellbeing, sustainability and social responsibility. 

Progress

This module is all about consolidating your competency in the use of specialist photographic facilities and equipment. You’ll further progress your technical and craft skills in a range of different approaches while exploring professional working practices and industry contexts.  

Approaches

In this module, you’ll be introduced to a broad range of practical and theoretical approaches to photography, as well as developing critical thinking skills through investigation, analysis and reflection.  

Action

How can we use our creative practice to benefit our environment, community, stakeholders and society? In this module, you’ll be encouraged to take a critical view on the relationship between images and the larger contexts they operate within and are influenced by. 

You’ll engage with a wide range of genres and possible applications of your work, exploring the critical and professional constraints of audience engagement and perception. You’ll also develop a deeper critical understanding of how photography operates in the world. 

Modules

Commitment

Develop a practical understanding of contemporary professional practice with a commitment to creatively respond to set briefs within the context of commissioned work. 

Engagement

Through close and careful observation of the material world around us and our relationship to it, you’ll produce creative expressions of ideas and emotions utilising approaches that are contextually appropriate. 

Situation

You’ll further develop your critical understanding of how photography is situated and intersects with some of the most urgent global issues in our culture and society. 

Collaboration

Collaborate on a creative output with external partners. To develop professional practice and an awareness of a variety of roles within the photographic and creative industries. Explore ethical, sustainable and inclusive working practices within the creative industries.  

Experimentation

In this module, you’ll be encouraged to be curious, tolerate uncertainty, test ideas and play with possibilities. You’ll experiment with a range of techniques and processes and investigate how they relate to conceptual frameworks. 

Context

You’ll develop your independent creative practice and build an awareness of the intended audience and situational contexts of your work.

You can choose to take an optional professional placement after your second year on a three-year programme, or after your third year if you’re studying for a degree with an Integrated Foundation Year. 

You’ll be responsible for finding your own placement, with support from the Employability team. 

Choosing this option will enhance your industry experience and skills while studying. 

How you’ll study during your professional placement 

You’ll spend time working in a professional context, as part of a business or organisation. This can be in one role, or up to three, and must be for a minimum of 24 weeks. 

You’ll develop in-demand workplace skills, deepen your insight into industry and grow your network of contacts, all of which could help you get ahead in your career after graduation. 

Throughout this year, you’ll develop a portfolio of work that includes critical self-reflection on what has been learned from the experience. You’ll be required to evidence your experiences, the skills you’ve learned and your professional growth. 

In the final year, you’ll focus on your future aspirations and ambitions and how you can work towards achieving them. At the end of the year, you’ll have a complete body of work that represents your unique perspective as a creative practitioner along with the professional tools to launch yourself into the creative industries.  

Modules

Investigation

You’ll carry out an in-depth critical investigation into a topic that’s related to your creative practice. 

Development

Translating your research into practice, you’ll refine and experiment with appropriate techniques and processes as you test creative concepts in response to a chosen area of study. 

Fulfilment

You’ll produce a sophisticated body of work that represents who you are as a creative practitioner, demonstrates your critical engagement with the medium and reflects appropriate industry expectations and contexts.  

Ambition

You’ll develop and apply the practical skills needed to realise your ambitions, including creating a professional identity as an emerging creative industry pioneer. 

Why study an Integrated Foundation Year route? 

If you’re taking on a new subject that you haven’t studied in depth before, have been out of education for a while or have a non-standard educational background then an Integrated Foundation Year degree may be the right choice for you. It is a four-year degree with an Integrated Foundation Year to start, which allows you to explore the primary elements of your subject before progressing on to the remaining three years of the BA(Hons) degree. 

What you'll study in your Foundation year

If you choose this pathway, you'll study five core modules in your Foundation year. These are all designed to help you explore the foundational elements of your subject. You'll gain relevant technical skills, learn to experiment and take risks, develop an understanding of professional practice, have opportunities to work across disciplines and collaborate with other students on live project briefs. 

Modules

Explore

You'll begin your foundation year by working collaboratively with others to explore themes of the future. You'll take risks, experiment through play and be supported to break through barriers.

Technique

You'll take subject-specific workshops and develop essential technical and practical skills in your area of study. You'll also enhance your analytical and organisational abilities.

Apply

You'll work with your peer group to think beyond discipline by addressing a societal or global issue. You'll then showcase your work to your peers and deliver and accompanying evaluation of your process.

Industry

You'll enhance your creative and practical skills in your subject specialism by responding to typical industry briefs, underpinned by focused research and experiments. You'll also gain industry insights through guest lectures and workshops.

Launch

You'll develop your unique identity in your specialism through the production of a self-initiated body of work. Your final project will be the bridge to your next year, fully supported by evaluative reviews and critical analysis of the work you have created.

After the Foundation year, you progress into Year One of the full three-year degree, equipped with a deeper knowledge of your subject, a clear understanding of your strengths, and develop a practical and technical skillset and the confidence to excel in your chosen subject. 

If you apply for and enrol onto a degree with an Integrated Foundation Year, you’ll have the option to switch onto a five-year version including a placement year. That means you’ll complete the first three years of your course before completing a placement in industry in your fourth year and returning to Falmouth for the fifth year of your programme. 

On this Photography course, you'll build valuable technical, critical and professional skills through practical workshops, seminars, lectures, tutorials, critiques, field trips and masterclasses with industry professionals. 

At Falmouth, we use a 'digitally enhanced learning & teaching' approach. Your experience will always be predominantly in-person, including seminars, tutorials and studio teaching, with some, more targeted elements, being online either live (synchronous) or pre-recorded (asynchronous). You can read more here.

100% of your assessment will be coursework, with no formal examinations.

Assessment methods

• Foundation year assessments are 100% coursework based
• Portfolios 
• Projects 
• Exhibitions 
• Journals 
• Presentations 
• Essays