Photography with Foundation Year

Available for September or January intakes.

Course overview: This course includes an integrated foundation year, ideal if you do not have the appropriate qualifications, subjects, grades or experience for entry to year one. Do you enjoy capturing fleeting moments? Can you imagine taking and making photographs for a living? You become a technically proficient, creatively curious and critically reflective photographer exploring all types of photographic production, from portraiture and fashion to still life, allowing you to identify your specialism in this diverse industry.

We offer a practical photography course in a region that celebrates its legacy of documentary culture – there are varied landscapes that include industrial, urban, coastal, and moors for those interested in shooting on location across genres such as portraiture, documentary, fashion and landscape. This is the place where Chris Killip, Tish Murtha and Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen were inspired to create their impactful bodies of work.

Three strands run through the course to cement your future-ready focus enabling you to build your practical and subject-specific skills, through access to analogue darkrooms as well as digital cameras, printers and lighting studios, create an extensive body of work by developing your making process skills and working on personal projects and develop an outward-looking ethos by responding to live briefs that consider audience and market, resolved into outcomes appropriate to the industry.

Top reasons to study this course:

1. Professional facilities: our photography studios and darkroom are installed with the latest equipment, so you learn in professional studios to support your development.
2. Learn on location: we are located at the heart of stunning photographic locations with beaches, sunsets, industrial landscapes, historical buildings and the beautiful North Yorkshire Moors.
3. Get creative: our course and campus are powered by Adobe and Apple. We’re Europe’s first Adobe Creative Campus and the only Apple-accredited University, equipping you with the digital tools and resources to hone your creative photographic skills.
4. Expert teaching: our staff are practising photographers, curators, historians and critics who have exhibited and had their work published in national publications.
5. Linked to our own art gallery: our international contemporary art gallery, MIMA (Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art), holds a photography collection to inspire you. You benefit from supportive voices, specialist expertise, shared wisdom, new ideas, a helping hand or a friendly catch-up, developing your unique creative voice.

Take advantage of our Creative UK membership and help futureproof your career, with networking events, a resource hub to support professional development, and bespoke workshops in partnership with industry leaders and mentors. Sign up for free student membership to get opportunities, events and newsletters sent directly to your inbox.

After the course: A large variety of unique options are open to you after graduating. The creative, research and professional skills gained open a broad range of careers possibilities, including freelance and corporate photography industries (advertising, fashion, editorial, blogging, documentary and art photography); photo-related industries (art buyer, picture editor, publisher); art-related (curator, archivist, gallery admin); further education and academic (teaching, research, education); art directing; entrepreneurship.