Progression: BA (Hons) Photography and BA (Hons) Commercial Photography - PCA

This morning before we looked around the summer show properly we had a talk from the course leader of BA (Hons) Photography and BA (Hons) Commercial Photography for Fashion, Advertising and Editorial, Tim Gundry. This was very interesting because I had actually been looking at the BA (Hons) course for Photography here but I wasn't sure about it as I thought that it may be quite a broad subject to study.

Tim said to us that the BA (Hons) Photography degree is a lot more focused on the practical work and the contextual studies behind the subject, which made me think whether this was actually something that I wanted to do as I have never really been that interested in the contextual study side of things.

He then went on to talk about the Commercial Photography for Fashion, Advertising and Editorial course. I liked the sound of this course a lot more.

Tim said that a lot of the students leave the course with a job either working for themselves or working as an assistant for someone. He also said that a lot of his students now have a contract with the store The Range to shoot images to promote their products on their website. One thing that I liked about what Tim said was that this course was all digitally based so there isn't any contextual studies involved. However, one thing that Tim did said that made me think a little bit was that if you applied for the course and you got through for an interview then they would want to see a portfolio of at least 20 images that were mostly fashion based as that is what the course is based on This made me think that if I wanted to do the course then I would now need to focus on my fashion photography as I have little fashion work. The final thing that Tim said was that it is a very competitive course so you need to want to have a career in it. The contact time of the course is 16 hours a week which is one of the highest in the country.

After the talk we went around the room to look at the work. We got set a task to take pictures of the work that we liked and that we would want to be able to produce if we did the course. I found this work that had been produced by a student called Bradley Coles. His work was so detailed and looked really professional. I always see work like his and they always make me inspired to try and do something like that one day. All of his work was based on either food or houses which obviously I was only interested in the food even though it did make me feel hungry.

I then saw this work produced by another student, Tommy Hatwell. I also liked his work because it is something like what I have always wanted to do. Travel and take photos. I love this image because it shows so many different emotions. Happy but yet desperation as well. This photo was taken in India. The four girls each show a different emotion. The girl on the far left looks as if she is trying to smile but yet she is so tired that she is struggling. The girl next to her looks as if she wants to cry out for help and the other two look as if they are quite happy but they could be hiding something.

After looking around this courses exhibition I have decided that it would give me amazing opportunities that I have only ever dreamed of before. Of course I will have to work really hard to get to where I want to get but I believe that if I went for this course then I would eventually get to where I want to be. Tim Gundry went through a list of photographic jobs that are out there and that we could try and get a job in one during the course:

- Photographic artist

- Freelance photographer

- Employed photographer

- Photographic assistant

- Digital assistant

- Digital retoucher

- Image producer

- Picture library assistant/manager

- Picture editor

- Picture researcher

- Art director

- Curator

- Educator.