MA Photographic Studies: University of Westminster

Introduction

The School of Media, Arts and Design is the leading provider of higher education in photography in the UK with a long and distinguished history. The celebrated School of Photography at the Regent Street Polytechnic of Central London developed from courses first held in the 1840s and was, for a hundred years, the main source of part-time commercial photography education.

Course Overview

The programme enables students to explore their relation to practice and theory within a contemporary context. The course locates practical investigation within the study of photography across its diverse social use. Practice on the course ranges across art, documentary, landscape, portraiture and beyond, with students negotiating their work with staff in tutorials.

The MA Photographic Studies is intended for those who wish to develop their practice, theory and criticism of photography to a higher level of expertise and scholarship. The course aims to develop relationships between a creative photographic practice and critical theory in the context of art and mass media culture. Modules explore practices of photography and develop student awareness of social, cultural and critical issues involved in photography and its histories.

Course Structure

Image and Language and Uncommon Practices are practical modules that provide a tutored framework for students' work, the former developing a specific practice, the latter introducing new practical and critical approaches to visual work.

Students develop critical skills in project work throughout the course and conclude the study with a major body of individual work. Students may also acquire additional techniques and skills in short courses and undergraduate modules provided by the School outside the MA Photographic Studies course. The Photography Department has excellent photographic facilities, including five studios and a wide range of high quality photographic (analogue & digital) photographic equipment maintained by dedicated technicians.

Practice Research enables students to develop a photographic project through research in practice to identify potential strategies for the Major Project. Theory Research students identify an area of research that leads to the production of the Dissertation or Theory/Practice.

Associate Career

Graduates from the course have gone on to a range of different careers in the arts, media and photographic industries, including work as artists, various types of photographer through to curators, picture editors, developers of innovative projects involving photography, teaching and further research work, including doctoral work.

Entry Requirements

• Successful applicants have a good first degree in arts or humanities and/or equivalent experience in a photography or visual arts related industry.