The BA Fashion Photography course is situated in the School of Media and Communication, and allows study of fashion photography as both a practical and cultural discipline. The course is academically rigorous, with exploration of analytical and critical approaches to photographic imagery, together with study of the ideology, politics and context of fashion. You will learn the technical skills of photography, whilst exploring images from haute couture to street style, from advertising campaigns to designer look-books, from art gallery to shop window and from fanzine to glossy magazine, and develop an analytical and critical view of global style and the cultural landscape of the fashion industry. You will have the opportunity to take part in industry collaborations, and recent projects have been with River Island, Elizabeth Arden, CPL Aromas (makers of fragrances for Agent Provocateur and Jo Malone), Proctor and Gamble, Unilever, the V&A and English National Ballet, and the Richard Young Gallery. You will experience location and studio shooting, using the excellent photography studios and darkrooms within the College, and you will explore digital image production and manipulation. You will experience working in teams and building relationships with stylists, make-up artists, model agencies and art directors. You will be encouraged to develop your own authentic take on fashion photography, and by the end of the course will be fully equipped to enter the industry as a professional and original image maker. Graduates from this course are working successfully across a broad range of media, including fashion, style, music and advertising.

BA Fashion Photography is based is based at Lime Grove in Shepherd’s Bush, just west of Holland Park and Notting Hill. The area, which is rich in cultural influences from across the world, is home to Shepherd’s Bush Market and the many fabric shops lining the Goldhawk Road. There are numerous restaurants, cafes, delis and food stores, as well as the market, which reflect the many cultures of the people living there. Nearby is the Shepherd’s Bush Empire, an excellent venue for live bands, and the Westfield Shopping Centre, one of the largest retail complexes in Europe that caters for the luxury market as well as the high street. Holland Park with its Orangery and Leighton House Museum are both worth visiting.

UAL statement on learning and teaching

Courses in UAL span a broad range of art, design, communication, business, media, science and communication subjects. So the ways in which you learn and how your time is used will vary according to the specific course you are studying; this may be in studios, labs, classes, involve working alone, learning from peers in pairs or groups, or with external partners. Most importantly, no matter which course you enrol on, you will learn not only about your subject but also about how you learn and how to increase your knowledge base.

Our courses will guide you to take increasing responsibility and ownership of your work and your learning. We do this so that you will be ready and able to take full advantage of the full range of opportunities offered by the creative industries in the global economy.

UAL statement on assessment methods

Assessment always sounds austere and foreboding, but it is not. We see assessment as a very real part of learning, rather than just a means of looking back at past work and measuring achievement; we believe that assessment helps you plan future work and develop new ideas.

Your work will be assessed through projects or portfolios, with written papers or research journals, and, on some courses, examinations. You will be graded according to a set of marking criteria that relate to such things as research, subject knowledge, methodology, and your capacity to analyse and reflect on your achievements. So don’t be afraid of assessment - it is the way to progress.

Course Units

Year One     Stage One     Level 4     120 credits 

Term One: Introduction to Study in Higher Education (20 credits); Image Construction (20 credits);

Term Two: Introduction to Cultural and Historical Studies (20 credits); Genres and Forms (20 credits);

Term Three: Visual Language (40 credits);

Year Two     Stage Two     Level 5     120 credits

Term One: Cultural and Historical Studies (20 credits); Fashion Interactions (20 credits);

Term Two: Fashion Spreads (40 credits);

Term Three: Research Methods for Photography (20 credits); Signature Style (20 credits);

Third Year     Stage Three     Level 6     120 credits

Term One: Research Planning (20 credits);

Terms One and Two: Cultural and Historical Studies Dissertation (40 credits);

Term Two and Three: Final Major Project (60 credits);

Course Outline

Year One

In the first term you will study two units.

Introduction to Study in Higher Education gives you an understanding of your personal and professional development at university, with three core purposes: to introduce you to the necessary learning skills for undergraduate study; to show you where you are situated within the College and the University; and to help you understand what you will learn on your course and how you will develop your skills.

The Image Construction unit provides you with a series of presentations looking at technical aspects of photography. This will enable you to study and experiment with a variety of approaches to image making, thereby developing your image-making skills and promoting your growth as a photographer.  

In the second term you will study two units.

Introduction to Cultural and Historical Studies introduces you to key concepts and ways of thinking about fashion and its context in society and culture. You will attend lectures, seminars and workshops, and do a significant amount of reading of academic texts in order to complete a formal academic essay for assessment. Completion of this unit will allow you to make an informed choice of subject for study in the second year Cultural and Historical Studies unit.

Genres and Forms contains a series of critical and technical studies which will enable you to experiment with a variety of approaches to image making. You will explore portraiture, still life and fashion and beauty, and will be encouraged to make links between the ideological, historical and technical elements already studied and to articulate them visually.

In the third term you will do the Visual Language unit, which allows you to explore and experiment with a variety of critical and art directed approaches to fashion, images and fashion stories. There will be a series of critical fashion imaging debates, together with further technical studies in both analogue and digital systems through a series of workshops. You will explore how to communicate specific visual codes that are art directed for fashion consumption through constructed and staged images. You will also develop and extend your knowledge and use of digital image manipulation.

Year Two

In the first term you will be able to study a Cultural and Historical Studies unit of your choice that will broaden or deepen your learning of areas relating to your interests in your chosen field. You will have the opportunity to participate in lectures, seminars and workshops with students from other courses within your School, and will read relevant academic texts and complete a formal academic essay for assessment.

Also studied in the first term, the Fashion Interactions unit provides you with an overview of the fashion industry, and introduces you to the relationship between photographic production, commissioning agencies and audiences. Your network of professional contacts will be extended and you will become prepared for professional practice. You will be asked to find a real-life commission which will give you the opportunity to put your work into the public domain. You will present an oral pitch to the client, together with a written proposal that will include the budget, the schedule of work and the timescale.

In the second term the Fashion Spreads unit gives you the opportunity to examine the evolving relationship between typography, print media and digital imagery in magazines, and how these elements influence consumption. Magazines have been at the forefront of visual communication since the early part of the twentieth century, and you will study how style and fashion magazines have continually challenged viewer and consumer perceptions of clothing, objects and environments.

In the third term you will do two units.

Research Methods for Photography introduces the Cultural and Historical Studies Dissertation that you will undertake in the third year. You will start to consider the proposal for your dissertation, and you will learn about two key stages, the literature review and the research, how they relate to each other and how they relate in the wider context of Cultural and Historical Studies. You will look at the relationship between primary and secondary sources, ways of developing and originating research, and ways of realising the research appropriate to Cultural and Historical Studies.    

The Signature Style unit gives you the opportunity to develop your understanding of the importance of signature style in fashion photography. You will be introduced to the notion of photographic mode and study how key practitioners have shaped and employed it to achieve their individual unique style. You will understand the importance of subject matter, and the ways in which unique and authentic visions are developed will be emphasised.

Year Three

In the first term you will do the Research Planning unit. This builds a formal structure of research into your practice, and develops the work done in Research Methods for Photography. You will be encouraged to analyse research methodologies, and you will develop your skills through exploring and utilising various approaches to research in preparation for your Final Major Project.

In the first and second terms you will complete a major piece of written work for the Cultural and Historical Studies Dissertation unit. This allows you to demonstrate your understanding of the critical and analytical perspectives developed within cultural and historical theory, and how you can apply these theoretical perspectives in a specific study, which you will have already identified in the third term of the second year. The dissertation gives you the opportunity to undertake primary and secondary research that examines in depth cultural issues relating to a particular aspect of fashion, lifestyle, the body, performance or the media, and to produce a written piece of work that reflects the critical debates around your chosen topic.

The Final Major Project, undertaken in the second and third term, gives you the opportunity to produce a coherent set of photographic images at an advanced conceptual, technical and aesthetic level. This body of work will be a development from the range of cultural and practical work that you have undertaken so far on the course. There will be a clear emphasis on contemporary fashion image-making, directed towards a specific and clearly identified audience.

Learning and Teaching at UAL

Courses at UAL span a broad range of art, design, communication, business, media and science subjects. The ways in which you learn and how your time is used will vary according to the specific course you are studying; this may be in studios, labs or classes; involve working alone, learning from peers in pairs or groups, or with external partners. Most importantly, no matter which course you enrol on, you will learn not only about your subject but also about how you learn and how to increase your knowledge base. Our courses will guide you to take increasing responsibility and ownership of your work and your learning. We do this so that you will be ready and able to take full advantage of the range of opportunities offered by the creative industries in the global economy.

Assessment Methods at UAL

Assessment always sounds austere and foreboding, but it is not. We see assessment as a very real part of learning, rather than just a means of looking back at past work and measuring achievement; we believe that assessment helps you to plan future work and develop new ideas. Your work will be assessed through projects or portfolios, with written papers or research journals, and, on some courses, examinations. You will be graded according to a set of marking criteria that relate to such things as research, subject knowledge, methodology, and your capacity to analyse and reflect on your achievements. So don’t be afraid of assessment - it is the way to progress.

Developing your skills

All our undergraduate courses are concerned with the development of your personal and professional skills. On your course you will evolve from learning basic skills in your discipline through to a position where you are an independent creative thinker capable of making an effective contribution to the relevant sector of the fashion industry. PPD (Personal and Professional Development) skills are embedded in all units on every course. Speaker programmes with contributions from alumni, members of industry and others are a part of many courses, as are work placement opportunities in industry. Where relevant, students have the chance to attend trade fairs, enter industry competitions, visit exhibitions and go on field trips and visits. The central position of our John Prince’s Street site in the West End affords students easy access to all sectors of the fashion retail market. In addition, our position as a constituent College in the University of the Arts London means that our students have access to the wide range of activities and events that occur in all the Colleges and at the University’s centre. Last but not least, being in London gives every student opportunities to explore and be inspired by the cultural, intellectual and social life of one of the great capital cities of the world.

Resources

Our excellent resources for educating our students are two-fold: people and premises. People includes everyone at the College who contributes directly in some way to your education, whether as a subject tutor, a technician, an Open Access Officer, a librarian or a study support tutor. Premises include the buildings and the facilities contained in them, such as specialist machinery, design studios and workshops, lecture and seminar rooms, and the library.

The facilities at Lime Grove provide a range of analog and digital cameras, lighting and other industry standard photographic kit, seven fully equipped shoot studios, colour and black and white film processing facilities and darkrooms, two state of the art digital suites with Mac computers, scanners and colour printers. A team of helpful, highly experienced and knowledgeable technicians and demonstrators run the facilities.

Fiona Minors is the Acting Course Leader for BA Fashion Photography.

Fiona Minors is the Programme Director for Fashion Image courses, including BA Fashion Photography and FdA Hair and Make-up for Fashion, and her particular interest lies in the relationship between theory and practice. Her recent curation of the exhibition ‘Hair’ in the Fashion Space Gallery was part of the LCF year long celebration of the many facets of hair and its place in fashion and culture. The exhibition skilfully blended artefact with history through well chosen imagery and text, recorded interviews and occasional live presentations.

Tony Glenville is the Creative Director for the School of Media and Communication and has done many jobs in fashion during his varied career. He has worked as a journalist on a number of publications, including Paris Vogue, the Financial Times, The Independent, the Evening Standard and Urban Junkies. He has styled Kate Winslet, is a familiar figure at the catwalk shows in the fashion capitals of the world, and has written Top to Toe: the Modern Man’s Guide to Grooming. His broadcast career has included the South Bank Show on John Galliano, and he was seen on television commenting on the fashions at the Royal Wedding of Prince William to Catherine Middleton.

Future Careers and Graduate Prospects

Graduates who wish to continue their education at postgraduate level are encouraged to progress to suitable courses within the College, the University or elsewhere and many from this course do go on to postgraduate work.

Many graduates prefer to seek employment as soon as they have completed their undergraduate studies. Some graduates have gone back to their home countries to build successful careers as freelance fashion photographers. Others stay here in London to establish their careers, and notable recent examples of graduates who have done this include Wendy Bevan, Rama Lee, Sean and Seng, and Neil Bedford.

Enterprise and Employability at UAL

We know what it takes to be successful in your chosen field. Your tutors are professionals in their own right and understand what you need to help you establish your career. Staff in our dedicated Centre for Student Enterprise and Employability Service (SEE) are specialists at supporting you onto the right career path and at helping you to build up work‐relevant skills, knowledge and experience throughout your time here. You will also benefit from our many relationships with industry, which give our students exclusive opportunities and access to networks and funding.

Artists and designers tell us they value UAL’s informed engagement with their career development concerns across a whole spectrum of activities and practice interests and our ability to offer them practical advice, guidance and opportunities across the possible pathways open to them - as entrepreneurs and employees. Staff value the resources and skills UAL makes available to help them deliver effective professional and career development through the curriculum.

Showing your work

All final year students are given the opportunity to profile their work online via Showtime. London College of Fashion can make no guarantee that your work (either in sum or in part) will be shown, exhibited or profiled in any way as part of your course. All student work appearing in College organised events, catwalk shows, exhibitions and other forms of showcase, is selected by a panel of senior staff and, in some instances, external industry judges.

For details of the wide range of careers support provided for students, please visit our Careers Support page.

Opportunities for All

We are committed to making university education an achievable option for a wider range of people and seek to recruit students from diverse socio-economic, cultural and educational backgrounds. We are committed to supporting all our students in achieving their potential both during and after their courses.                          

Course Entry Requirements

Entry to this course is highly competitive: applicants are expected to achieve, or already have, the course entry requirements detailed below.

Two ‘A’ level passes at grade C or above PLUS passes in three GCSE subjects at grade C or above

OR

Foundation Diploma in Art and Design PLUS passes in three GCSE subjects at grade C or above

OR equivalent awards

Preferred subjects include Art, Design, Fashion, Media Studies and Photography.

This course requires a minimum 160 UCAS tariff points.

Exceptionally, applicants who do not meet these course entry requirements may still be considered if the course team judges the application demonstrates additional strengths and alternative evidence. This might, for example, be demonstrated by: related academic or work experience; the quality of the personal statement; a strong academic or other professional reference; or a combination of these factors.

This course requires portfolio evidence.

English Language Requirements

All classes are conducted in English. If English is not your first language you will be asked to provide evidence of your English language ability when you enrol.

The level required by the University for this course is IELTS 6.0 with a minimum of 5.5 in any one skill.

Please go to:                          

http://www.arts.ac.uk/international/apply/englishlanguagerequirements/

read carefully and look at the relevant documents.

Student Selection Criteria

What We Look For

The course team seeks to recruit students who can demonstrate:

• An ability to communicate ideas visually
• a commitment to and knowledge of critical debate around the body and its representation
• An ability to cope with the academic demands of the course
• A commitment to self-motivated study
• An interest in the fashion imaging industry
• A portfolio showcasing photographic imagery indicating an appreciation of contemporary fashion image making

This might, for example, be demonstrated by: related academic or work experience; the quality of the personal statement, a strong academic or other professional reference; or a combination of these factors.

Portfolio and Interview Advice

For this course your portfolio should show evidence of: ability to generate original photographic concepts; fashion and image awareness; ability to experiment and research extensively; technical competence; and ability to edit and present work effectively.

Applicants will be expected to demonstrate the following at interview: the reasons why they want to do this course; what they think they can contribute to this course; what informs their photographic inspirations; and how they will be able to cope with the academic component of the course and the integrated critical theory with practice.

Home/EU Applicants

You apply online through the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) at   http://www.ucas.com 

Go to ‘Apply’ from the UCAS home page, where you will be able to register and create a password that gives you unique access as you complete your application form.

The University code is U65.

The UCAS code for this course is W641.

The deadline for equal consideration of your application is 15 January 2013.                         

Contact us on:

• Telephone: +44 (0)20 7514 7563 / 7582 / 7344
• Course enquiry form

International Applicants

For specific details on how to apply as an international applicant please click on the following link:

http://www.fashion.arts.ac.uk/lcf-international.htm

The International Recruitment Office at the London College of Fashion will help to guide you through the application process and answer any specific questions that you may have regarding our courses. This may include portfolio advice, the application process and fee advice. We offer a ‘drop-in’ facility for applicants who may be in London and wish to obtain further course and admissions information. Please contact us for further information on this facility. We can also arrange a tour of our facilities if we are given prior notice.

Our contact details are: International Recruitment Office London College of Fashion 20 John Prince’s Street London W1G 0BJ.

• Telephone: +44 (0)20 7514 7656/7678/7629
• Course enquiry form

Deferred Entry

Deferred Entry is normally only allowed in exceptional circumstances. Please contact us before you submit your application if you are considering applying for deferred entry.

What Happens Next?

All application forms, personal statements and references are read and considered by the course team against the selection criteria listed under What We Look For. Depending on the quality of your application, you may be asked to submit your portfolio online. If the course team wish to consider your application further, you will be invited to an interview with the course team. If you are successful at the interview stage you will be offered a place.. Applicants are not guaranteed a portfolio review or an interview.

Please note that if you are unable to attend the College may not be able to re-schedule.

If you applied through UCAS the result of your application will be communicated to you via UCAS through ucastrack. You will only receive further communication directly from the College if your application has been successful. This will be in the form of a full offer pack including details of accommodation, fees, and other important information.   

Applicants have the right to ask for feedback if their application is unsuccessful. Requests must be made in writing to the Student Administrator, and we will respond within 20 working days. 

Additional Information

Additional Costs

Some courses charge a fee for the bulk purchase of materials and/or equipment used on the course. Further details will be supplied at a later date.