Photography

Explore and experiment with photographic practices by studying our BA (Hons) Photography degree at Cambridge School of Art.

Learn to create images that tell compelling stories, whether your dream is to be a fashion or fine art photographer or a photojournalist.

As a photography student at ARU you’ll explore many areas of photographic practice including digital and analogue image-making, experimental crossovers, multimedia, self-publishing and exhibition.

Take full advantage of all our analogue and digital facilities, including colour and black-and-white darkrooms; continuous, daylight and flash studios; a digital post-production and printing suite; specialist camera equipment including DSLRs, large format cameras, lenses, light meters and lighting kits that you can borrow for your work. You’ll also have access to the full Adobe Creative suite; Apple iMacs; wide-format printers and scanners; vintage printmaking presses and a letterpress machine.

Our team of technical officers will be on hand to offer training and support on all our art facilities - not just the ones for your course - and you can also borrow specialist camera equipment through our dedicated loan service.

All your work will be supported by academic staff working at the forefront of photographic research and innovation and have years of professional experience. You will be taught through individual tutorial and studio sessions, as well as in group lectures and workshops, with regular career development events throughout your study. Recent guest speakers have included Tom Hunter, Jane Hilton, Tim Flach, Hannah Starkey, Carole Evans, Alastair Levy, Mike Crawford and Lillian Wilkie.

That’s just a few of the reasons our course scored 93% for ‘overall satisfaction’ in the National Student Survey 2019.

Through continuous experimentation, you’ll be encouraged to refine your photographic style and voice.

Critical and contextual studies will connect your own research and writing to your practice and will guide you to specialist resources in our campus library. Explore hundreds of photographers’ monographs and access technical and contextual texts, as well as other online resources, to underpin and expand your practice.

You can expand your skillset, with additional technical workshops including printmaking, 3D work and writing workshops. You can choose to take part in photography field trips too, and experience photographing different locations such as Venice and Prague.

While studying your BA (Hons) Photography with us, you’ll learn to adopt a professional approach to your work, covering aspects of career management such as rights issues, project management and self-promotion through social media.

Our degree course will help you prepare for work in the photographic, creative and media industries, or for self-employment as a photographer or artist. You can choose to take up formal or informal work placements that will help you establish your own professional network, including opportunities such as working for magazines, galleries and photographers. Our campus employment bureau can also help you find photographic jobs that fit around your studies.

We work with employers to make sure you graduate with the knowledge, skills and abilities they need. They help us review what we teach and how we teach it - and they offer hands-on, practical opportunities to learn through work-based projects, internships or placements.

Around ARU you can also take advantage of many opportunities to use and promote your skills, such as working with staff and students to photograph their events.