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Professional Photography

MA

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Start dates: September 2026

Full time: 1 year (12 months)

Part time: 2 years (24 months)

Location: Distance learning

School(s): School of Arts

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Overview

You’ll join an online course that will equip you with the confidence and ability to progress your personal professional photographic practice, with creativity, intellectual rigour, and ethical practice at its heart. You'll also work with online platforms to establish a presence within professional fields, supporting your career aspirations.

This online-only course will enable you to pursue projects globally, regionally or locally, responding to issues you most care about, whilst receiving valuable mentorship from industry professionals. 

You’ll cover a compact structure of 5 compulsory online modules using interactive features of the virtual learning environment (VLE). All modules aim to enhance your knowledge, skills and critical abilities, while supporting your individual practice. 

Your course will follow our established campus-based MA arts degrees and meet employers' needs within the creative industries. 

Attend an open day or webinar Ask a question Order a prospectus

Andy on location taking photographs

Why Oxford Brookes University?

  • An international professional teaching team

    You will be taught by working professionals from within the creative industries from across the globe.

  • A bespoke learning journey

    You will decide what you want to photograph and set your own agenda. We will provide the professional context.

  • Career focused

    You will set your own career expectations and explore how to fulfill them through the development of best practice strategies.

  • Weekly formative feedback

    Each week you will receive formative feedback from lecturers, fellow students and mentors to support your creative progression.

  • Innovative online teaching strategies

    This course employs innovative teaching strategies and online platforms to deliver teaching that provides maximum engagement in an online environment and a supportive community of learning. 

  • Accreditation(s)

    The Association of Photographers

    • The Association of Photographers

Course details

Course structure

In Semester 1, you will be introduced to the Exploratory Photography Project module that introduces the concept of a personally instigated body of work, and a Histories, Theories and Ethics module where you’ll explore the history of the medium alongside relevant critical theory. These will include practical workshops, guest talks, and lectures, designed to build your creative output, professional self-awareness, critical awareness, and communication skills.
 
In Semester 2, you will explore the professional environment of the creative industries relating to photography within the Professional Practice module and undertake a Research and Context module in which you will complete your final dissertation. These will support you in considering research as a fundamental aspect of contemporary photography in both academic and industry contexts.

In Semester 3, you’ll complete your self-initiated Major Photography Project. You’ll explore multiple outputs including both still and moving-image creation, the self-published book, the exhibition portfolio, and the commissioned portfolio. 

Trond-Froestad

Learning and teaching

This course is usually studied over 12 months. However, a part-time option is available to complete the course over 24 months to achieve the necessary credits.

As a full-time student, you will take 5 core compulsory modules covering:

  • Exploring the Photographic Project
  • Professional Practice
  • Critical Theory: Histories, Theories, Context and Ethics
  • Critical Theory: Final Dissertation
  • Final Major Project
Students on this course will also be taught by Associate Lecturers and working professional photographers, Harry Borden and David Eustace.

At the end of the year, you will complete your studies with an online exhibition of work and a 6,000-word dissertation. 

Assessment

Your assessments will be diverse, and will support different learning styles - you’ll have a real opportunity to showcase your strengths. Your learning may be assessed by a combination of individual or group coursework, examinations, and presentations. The assessment methods chosen will be based on your learning needs, individual aims and the academic standards expected for the course.

Study modules

You will undertake 5 modules that include:

  • Exploratory Photographic Project
  • Histories, Theories and Ethics
  • Professional Practice for the Photographic Industries
  • Research and Context
  • Photographic Major Project.

Taught modules

Compulsory modules

  • Exploratory Photographic Project

    You'll explore complex topics and issues that are significant to you, through your photographic practice, and to begin producing photographic work to a professional standard. 

    Through your exposure to a range of photographic practices and methods, you'll have the opportunity to engage with different ways of working through discussions and practical workshops. You'll also have the opportunity to give formative feedback, helping you to rapidly progress your ideas and photographic style. You'll produce a substantial body of work, reflecting creative experimentation in the development of your own independent style, and using advanced technical skills, as appropriate for your individual practice.

  • Histories, Theories and Ethics

    You'll encounter and critically evaluate photographic practices from a broad range of fields, nations, and historical contexts. You'll have an introduction to some of the most crucial topics and issues in contemporary photographic practices, and you'll consider how the issues have been explored differently through different generations. 

    You'll build your skills in independent critical analysis of given topics and photographic practices, and you will be supported to express and articulate your ideas within a group seminar, responding to and building upon the ideas of your peers. 

    At the heart of this module is an engagement with the ethics of photography in global photographic careers. This confronts the ethical responsibilities of the photographer, including how ethical boundaries can alter between cultures, and the politics of representation.
     

  • Professional Practice for the Photographics Industries

    You'll further develop a broad knowledge of the diverse professional fields within the creative and photographic industries, and to encourage an acute understanding of where your work can fit within these contexts. You'll complete this module having located at least one professional field applicable for your practice, and having established within that field a social media presence, and an expanding network of contacts. You'll be supported to develop a professional website, which again conforms to the styles of your respective industries, while representing your own independent creative style. 

    This module will contain one assessed assignment supported through lectures and multiple formative feedback sessions.

  • Research and Context

    Build upon your study of Histories, Theories and Ethics, on this module you'll undertake a focused period of study of an independently defined topic relating to contemporary photographic practices. 

    You'll deeply examine a topic relating to your photographic practice,and you have the freedom to decide on the specific area of research, and the specific question under examination. You're supported to define a suitable topic and scope for the essay length appropriate to the timeframe of the module. You'll be guided to discover and exploit an appropriate range of research materials and resources. Working with an assigned tutor, you're supported through the development of your essay, while a series of workshops and masterclasses help you to further develop your advanced research and writing skills.

Major project

Compulsory modules

  • Photographic Major Project

    You have the opportunity to undertake an intensive and extended period of self-directed, practice-based work. 

    You'll define your own topic and its scope, which will culminate in the production and presentation of a resolved body of work. Research into this topic may have begun during your work on Exploratory Photographic Project, and this module will provide the opportunity to further develop your project with growing independence, and demonstrating advanced technical skills within your respective field. 

    You'll produce a substantial portfolio of original, professional standard photographic, stills and/or moving image work that showcases your creative, professional, and conceptual development during the programme. 

    You'll frame your work through the development of your public-facing professional profile and career entrance strategies, including the presentation of your work at an end of year exhibition. 

Please note: As our courses are reviewed regularly as part of our quality assurance framework, the modules you can choose from may vary from those shown here. The structure of the course may also mean some modules are not available to you.

Research

Research in Digital Media, Film and Music

Our lecturers in Digital Media, Film and Music are active researchers exploring areas as diverse as:
  • Italian cinema audiences of the fifties and sixties,
  • violence and masculinity in popular culture,
  • data-mining film reviews,
  • virtual reality and the avant-garde,
  • complex film-making in Hollywood focussing on the work of Christopher Nolan,
  • modulations in American Country-Rock,
  • audience reception for the operas of Puccini,
  • the sounds of grassroots football
  • experimental approaches to electronic composition.  
  • In the last HEFCE research assessment (REF2014) areas of expertise identified included Mediterranean Cinema, audience studies and film as spectacle. 
Particular areas of expertise identified by HEFCE include Opera studies, Historical Musicology, Popular Music and Composition. 98% of the research activity carried out in Music was considered to be worthy of International Recognition. And 26% of the research activity was assessed as World Leading (4*) – the highest possible category. 

Careers

After successfully completing this postgraduate degree, you’ll be prepared for a wide choice of career options in the rapidly transforming media industry and creative industries.

You can use the qualification as a gateway into a wide range of careers, such as the roles below: 

  • Professional photographer
  • Director of photography
  • Cinematographer
  • Publisher
  • Creative director
  • Art director
  • Photo editor
  • Curator
  • Documentary filmmaker
  • Post-production
  • Content strategist
  • Researcher
  • Digital marketing and advertising
  • Marketing communications
  • Social media management
  • Web content management
  • Teaching and education
  • Media research
  • Digital strategist
  • Brand marketing consultant.

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Student profiles

Laura Skog

"You have the privilege to learn from so many active, inspiring industry professionals, including the tutors and visiting speakers."

Read more about Laura
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Our Staff

Laura Skog

You have the privilege to learn from so many active, inspiring industry professionals, including the tutors and visiting speakers.

Read more about Laura

Grant Scott

Grant Scott, BA Photography Subject Coordinator, specialises in photography, the moving image, visual narrative and professional practices, and teaches across the course. He is a working photographer and has written three books on photography including 'The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography'. Grant is also the founder/ curator of www.unitednationsofphotography.com and the presenter/producer of the weekly podcast 'A Photographic Life'.

Read more about Grant
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Right

Grant Scott

Grant Scott, BA Photography Subject Coordinator, specialises in photography, the moving image, visual narrative and professional practices, and teaches across the course. He is a working photographer and has written three books on photography including 'The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography'. Grant is also the founder/ curator of www.unitednationsofphotography.com and the presenter/producer of the weekly podcast 'A Photographic Life'.

Read more about Grant

Related courses

Related course
Digital Media Production
Related course
Publishing Media
Related course
Creative Industries
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Entry requirements

International qualifications and equivalences

How to apply

Application process


Apply now

Tuition fees

Please see the fees note
Home (UK) distance learning full time
£9,600
Home (UK) distance learning part time
£4,800
International distance learning full time
£18,200
International distance learning part time
£9,100
Home (UK) distance learning full time
£9,950
Home (UK) distance learning part time
£4,975
International distance learning full time
£18,900
International distance learning part time
£9,450

Questions about fees?

Contact Student Finance on:

financefees@brookes.ac.uk

Tuition fees

2025 / 26
Home (UK) distance learning full time
£9,600
Home (UK) distance learning part time
£4,800
International distance learning full time
£18,200
International distance learning part time
£9,100
2026 / 27
Home (UK) distance learning full time
£9,950
Home (UK) distance learning part time
£4,975
International distance learning full time
£18,900
International distance learning part time
£9,450

Questions about fees?

Contact Student Finance on:

+44 (0)1865 534400

financefees@brookes.ac.uk

Fees quoted are for the first year only. If you are studying a course that lasts longer than one year, your fees will increase each year.

The following factors will be taken into account by the University when it is setting the annual fees: inflationary measures such as the retail price indices, projected increases in University costs, changes in the level of funding received from Government sources, admissions statistics and access considerations including the availability of student support.

How and when to pay

Tuition fee instalments for the semester are due by the Monday of week 1 of each semester. Students are not liable for full fees for that semester if they leave before week 4. If the leaving date is after week 4, full fees for the semester are payable.

  • For information on payment methods please see our Make a Payment page.
  • For information about refunds please visit our Refund policy page

Additional costs

Please be aware that some courses will involve some additional costs that are not covered by your fees. Specific additional costs for this course are detailed below.

Funding your studies

Financial support and scholarships

Featured funding opportunities available for this course.

Part-Time UK Faculty Scholarship Postgraduate Master's Loan - England

All financial support and scholarships

View all funding opportunities for this course

Programme changes:
On rare occasions we may need to make changes to our course programmes after they have been published on the website. For more information, please visit our changes to programmes page.