1. year of study: Explore
In our modules “Image Generating Practices” and “Visual Narratives”, you will learn the technical, editorial and narrative fundamentals of image production and visual storytelling.
2. year of study: Expand
The programme content of the first year is enriched with moving images and new imaging technologies. We engage with transmedia storytelling, that is, we discuss using and reflecting on different media, moving images, found footage from YouTube and social media, archive materials and computer-generated images to help us tell a story.
3. year of study: Apply
In the third year, you will further consolidate your technical skills, with a stronger focus on new imaging technologies. At the same time, you will start researching possible topics for your BA project. A mentor will provide advice and guidance throughout the process.
Areas of competence
To ensure a successful career in photography and visual media, you will develop the following skills during your studies:
Image competence and media reflexivity
We live in a world that is ever more reliant on images. Photography is everywhere and a regular feature of our day-to-day lives. Moreover, new imaging processes as well as AI constantly expand the existing spectrum of photographic images, requiring a new and critical way to perceive them and engage with them. To develop extensive image competence is therefore extremely important. At Camera Arts, you will, on one hand, learn to produce high-quality images, to apply conceptual thinking, to master the mechanics of visual storytelling, and on the other hand, to read, classify, contextualise images correctly and to critically reflect on them. In this process, you will acquire extensive knowledge on how to engage with images. It will be of vital importance in any professional field within visual media.
Editorial/communicative skills
In addition to teaching the practical skills around realising photography and visual projects, the programme offers you the opportunity to gain an expert-level understanding of editorial processes. How can I put texts and images in relation to each other? What kinds of visual dialogues do I want to create and how do they change depending on the presentation mode? How can I translate my project into a publication, a magazine, a website, an exhibition? What do I have to watch out for, what kinds of question do I need to ask? How can I communicate my content, how do I speak about my images? Being aware of these questions and to have the skills to answer them, is a basic prerequisite for working with images and thus for all activities within the ever-changing field of visual media.
Transmedia Storytelling
How can I tell a visual story? What are the narrative strategies, what do I want to say and how? What are the visual media at my disposal and which ones should I use?
Our two core modules, “Visual Narratives” and “Transmedia Storytelling”, are dedicated to these very questions. Here, you will learn to work in series, to build images on each other and to combine them in a way that allows you to develop new perspectives and to tell stories far removed from convention. In short, you will learn to express your own point of view in a personal, reflective and multilayered way. In times when the uses and possibilities of photography are rapidly developing, we make a point of integrating the medium’s transmedia qualities, and of expanding our creative practice through video, the moving image, sound, and AI.
Accordingly, the content of our classes goes far beyond the design of, and techniques for, photography projects. You will learn to steer projects, to work in groups, to engage in discussions, to foster a constructive feedback culture and to achieve a common goal in group projects. While these are requirements for many fields, they are of particular importance in artistic and design professions.
Presentation skills
How do I present myself, how do I talk about my work? How can I engage with experts in my professional field in an empathic, friendly way without making myself too small or being self-aggrandising?
In addition to media and editorial skills, the ability to communicate and to write and talk about one’s own work and to engage with others empathically are important soft skills for any visual artist. That is why we have included a number of additional workshops on journalistic and creative writing and on self-presentation skills in our curriculum.
Ability to work in a complex team environment
Students practice working in teams in all our modules. You will learn to steer projects, to work in groups, to engage in discussions, to foster a feedback culture and to achieve a common goal in group projects. In addition to the design skills and techniques associated with photography projects, these are requirements for many artistic and design professions.
Process design
How should I approach a project, design a process suitable for my project and decide whether to complete it on my own or as a group assignment? How can I best leverage the creative potential of a process?
To understand and use the process as an important, inspiring element of one’s own creative practice is a key ability to master in today’s creative professional environment. Learning and knowledge of process design is therefore an integral part of all our modules.
These six areas define the core skills that are entrenched in each module to varying degree. The design, didactic setup and structure of our modules, which are both general and specialised in nature and offered as compulsory and required elective modules, is geared towards helping you to develop the required skills according to your personal strengths.
Throughout the programme, mentors from your team of lecturers will be available for coaching sessions. We will help and support you to make the right decisions relating to your studies and career after graduation.
