Photography courses

About MA Commercial Photography in University of the Arts London

MA Commercial Photography focuses on technical excellence and will support your ambitions towards becoming a high-end freelance photographer.

You will be interested in working across areas of commercial practice, such as advertising, fashion, sport, lifestyle and editorial. Alternatively, you may wish to develop other career pathways – for example, as a digital visual specialist or picture editor.

This course will support you to develop an advanced level of competence in responding to key and changing developments across contemporary commercial photography. Within this, you’ll consider the impact of global and ethical issues and accelerating technologies which demand responsive practices, adaptive visual approaches and distinctive concept development.

Independent learning is a key feature of the course, with a focus on the integration of contemporary technical and business skills underpinned by critical and research practices throughout.

What to expect 

• You’ll take an enquiry-led approach to independent learning through discovery, interaction and response to change.
• Throughout the course, you’ll create substantial self-initiated projects, synthesising your skills, knowledge and understanding, enabling you to create a substantial professional portfolio for your future career.
• You’ll develop a strong foundation in technical, critical and research skills that will enable you to grow critical awareness in your personal practice while establishing a distinctive individual identity to your work.
• Commercial photography practice is rooted in collaboration, which is strongly encouraged and foregrounded throughout the course. You’ll present and communicate projects to peers and partners, demonstrating critical awareness through interdisciplinary work.
• For your Final Major Project, you’ll be supervised and supported to undertake a significant piece of work, including research planning and the application of models of commercial photographic practice.  

Industry experience and opportunities 

You'll have opportunities to collaborate with external organisations, working to real-time/live briefs that are designed to enable you to understand the potential uses for your work and future practices.

Through a practically-focused, career-orientated approach, you’ll produce work to industry standards and have a range of opportunities to learn from industry within professional environments. You’ll gain an invaluable understanding of the industry and business aspects of commercial photography, while being introduced to key contacts and helped to build relationships.

Working on set and self-initiated projects which promote learning through discovery, interaction and response, you’ll work towards developing a high-quality portfolio suitable for presentation when approaching clients for future commissions or industry roles.

Entry requirements

• A Bachelors Honours degree with 2:2 in a required subject or equivalent.

English language requirements

• IELTS: An IELTS score (or equivalent) of 6.0, or above, with 5.5 in each of the components. Certain courses require higher IELTS scores of 6.5, 7.0 or 7.5. .
• TOEFL iBT: 80 - 100 overall.
• PTE Academic: 51 - 65 (with no less than 51 in each component).

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