Photography BA(Hons) (Online)

Through practical and critical enquiry, you will be supported to disrupt, experiment and question creative processes. This initial stage of the course requires courage to test, and curiosity to explore. You will be joining an immersive community culture, collectively growing skills, embracing innovation and encouraging creative endeavour.  

Through live briefs, and online workshops and lectures, you will be introduced to a range of creative processes, from critical thinking to practical hands-on skills across different photographic mediums. You will also begin to engage with a wider industry context, preparing you for the future workplace.  

Modules

Explore

You will immerse yourself in the course from week one, building a community and laying the foundations for a long-lasting creative practice.  

You will also begin to explore the medium through experimentation with a range of photographic approaches and post-production techniques. 

Source

This investigative module aims to build your professional collaboration and research skills, helping you to develop important industry awareness at an early stage in your studies, preparing you for a range of careers in the creative industries.   

In Source you will work with peers and people in your own community to gather collective intelligence and find creative responses to shared questions. 

Make 

This photographic practice module develops your image making and post-production skills and refines your use of materials, processes, and techniques.  

You will be invited to explore the world around you, bringing together storytelling and process and finding exciting ways to make images using film, digital or alternative processes.

Reflect 

This module focusses on your critical thinking skills, and how you use research and image analysis to better understand the context of photographs. We will explore what it means to ‘create for good’ and consider our responsibilities as creatives.  

Through the lens of sustainability and change, you will explore how your own and others’ images can communicate impactfully. 

Advancing and deepening your technical skills, you will experiment and begin to specialise in certain areas of photographic practice by exploring responses to set briefs. You will have opportunities to collaborate with others on your course and industry partners, to produce ambitious group projects using online platforms.  

You will grow an awareness of audience, refining your practical and critical research skills, project management, and your knowledge of contemporary photography, history and theory. As you progress through this stage, you will begin to develop your own self-initiated projects and collaborations. As more industry-facing experiences begin to be introduced, you will be challenged to question convention, disrupt, innovate and maintain courageous thinking.

Modules

Define

This module aims to develop your ability to shape ideas and photographic outcomes, and to interrogate ethical and sustainable approaches to your practice. 

You will be working on a brief for a non-profit organisation or sustainable business, using your skills to help advance key narratives and ideas.

Audience

Practicing a range of research methods, you will develop a group response to contemporary issues, exploring social, ethical, and environmental situations.   

In this module you will also reflect upon professional work culture to build a collective learning environment which can generate ideas and visual possibilities.   

Engaging with the concept of ‘Audience’ you will be analysing and re-imagining the impact of photographs and creative outputs in promoting positive change.   

Innovate

Applying the knowledge and skills you have developed so far, and supported by your learning community, this self-directed practice module will harness your ability to generate innovative photographic responses to a variety of challenges, underpinned by your developing critical voice. 

Collaboration

Working as part of a team, you'll work on 'Challenge Briefs' that reflect the sort of assignments you could expect to be working on in industry. Developing your 'soft skills', like communication, problem-solving, critical thinking and leadership, you'll sharpen your ability to work well as part of a group to produce outstanding work. 

This module is a collaboration with Falmouth’s other online courses including interior design, illustration, visual communication, creative writing and more. You will therefore have an opportunity to widen your professional network and collaborate with people in different creative fields.  

The stage supports you to refine your photographic approach and to challenge your emerging fields of interest, culminating in a final portfolio of work and a contextual report that grounds your work. You will refine core skills and reflect critically on your strengths, exploring alternative models of practice that help define your creative future beyond the course. 

Modules

Develop

This module is designed to enable you to develop your professional identity ahead of your Final Major Project. You will evolve and refine a specialist body of creative, innovative work and identify a future career pathway in the creative industries.  

Futures

This industry module aims to situate your practice and prepare you with the skills needed for a successful and dynamic career in the creative industries.  

You will receive practical and technical advice about a diverse range of creative industry roles, from experienced industry practitioners. 

You will define what success means to you and approach the values and mission you want to take with you after you graduate.   

Launch

In your Final Major Project, you will develop an innovative final photographic portfolio that demonstrates a high level of professionalism and industry level finish, appropriate for your career ambitions. 

Frame

This module requires you to write a report contextualising your work within the broader industry and identifying future audiences for your practice. 

This practice-based accelerated online degree is underpinned by rich online resources, workshops and video-based tuition. We offer a truly inclusive, conscious and multidisciplinary syllabus designed to meet the demands of photography within and beyond the creative industries.  

What sort of activities will I do?

The weight of your academic teaching will take place through pre-recorded lectures from your core academic team and practicing professionals in the creative industry. You will have a weekly webinar where you can connect with your fellow students and staff for stimulating discussions and feedback. You will also receive technical inductions from pre-recorded videos and resources which you can refine and enquire about during your webinars. 

You will be joining a supportive and diverse course community in which you will develop your unique creative practice through inquiry-based collective learning fostering responses to challenges and connection opportunities in your own communities and contexts.  

What will my study hours be?

Based on the total learning time for the accelerated online courses, an average study week for full-time undergraduate students can be up to 50 hours, and for part-time students, can be up to 33 hours. As our online courses are intended to be flexible the actual time required to study will vary based on the level of study, the module week, and individual learning pace.

What does accelerated study mean?

An accelerated degree condenses your degree modules into two years on the full-time route, or three years on the part-time route. This means you'll be working across three study blocks per year, instead of two, including through the summer. Typically, there is a break of around two weeks between submitting your final assignment for each module and the start of the next study block. You will also get breaks on public holidays, for around two weeks at Easter and for around three weeks in December.

This BA(Hons) Photography online degree employs a variety of assessment strategies over the course of the year. These include the submission of portfolios of practical work, presentations, verbal reports and a final major project. 

Your summative (final) assessments occur at the end of each module, usually at the end of the study block whereas you may have interim formative assessments part way through a module as well. These assessments help ensure that you remain on track with your work. 

You will receive continuous written and/or verbal feedback on all your work throughout the year. At the end of the module, you will receive detailed feedback in written form. 

You'll be able to check in with your online tutor to discuss your progress and ask any questions you have about your course.  

Find out more about learning online

• Dedicated easy-to-use virtual learning environment (VLE)
• Accessible online audio / visual content
• A Student Advisor to support you throughout your studies and access to our Student Support Services
• Access to our Employability Service
• 24/7 access to Falmouth's extensive online library of contextual books, journals and resources
• Access to online software tutorials at LinkedIn Learning
• Students' Union community
• Optional in-person events
• Invitation to attend alumni events

Although online students don't have access to on-campus facilities as part of the course, you can hire equipment and access facilities by paying a charge. Find out more about availability and prices here.