A-level photography

Iam thinking about taking a-level photography and wanted to know what kind of things you do in it?

I am not sure a pure A level Photography exists. I think it is art and design.

http://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/art-and-design/as-and-a-level/art-and-design/specification-at-a-glance

Download the spec for more details.

https://www.davidgamecollege.com/822/a-level-art-design-photography-course

Pure A level photography exists it's one of the ones I'm taking.

I'm not to sure what all colleges do and if they will be similar to my course but I'll you what the first year was like as I've just finished it.

We have three lessons of photography a week. Two lessons in a classroom with computers for editing photos and working on sketchbooks and one more practical lesson where we can use the darkroom, do mixed media work etc.

At the start of the year we researched the history of photography and learnt basic skills such as how to use the darkroom and basic camera settings/functions.

For our first project we were given a few weeks to work on one genre of photography e.g. landscape and then moved on to another one ( we did landscape, portrait, street and domestic space ).

For the second project we were allowed to pick our own topic with no restraints and do whatever we wanted really. The teacher would give us guidance and suggest photographers to look at or ideas for edits but mostly it was independent work. We had less time to complete this project but we were expected to produce the same amount of work.

Generally, it is a really fun subject that is accessible to everyone (I had never touched a DSLR before I started photography but am now predicted an A) and will develop your skills. However, it does take a lot of time so if your other options are also going to require a lot of work outside of college you might find it a bit overwhelming. We were expected to complete a minimum of 5 pages a week and have done a shoot each week. And it can also be a fairly costly subject mainly in terms of printing, my college cost 8p per page for high quality paper printing and 10p if you wanted anything on glossy paper. Also just the cost of supplies like glue sticks, fineliners (what I used to write in my sketchbook), film and paper to use in the darkroom. The cost wasn't too bad though as you just buy the stuff gradually, the most expensive thing was my camera but I didn't have to buy one as you can borrow cameras and camera equipment from my college but I wanted a camera for a long time anyway.

If you have any more questions about photography feel free to ask me.

Just interested in which exam board and are you studying at school or college. I think it must be pretty rare. Thanks for pointing it out.

Pretty sure it's WJEC and I'm studying at college. Yeah art and design may be the more common course but I'm interested in photography so I took that instead

Pure A level photography exists it's one of the ones I'm taking.

I'm not to sure what all colleges do and if they will be similar to my course but I'll you what the first year was like as I've just finished it.

We have three lessons of photography a week. Two lessons in a classroom with computers for editing photos and working on sketchbooks and one more practical lesson where we can use the darkroom, do mixed media work etc.

At the start of the year we researched the history of photography and learnt basic skills such as how to use the darkroom and basic camera settings/functions.

For our first project we were given a few weeks to work on one genre of photography e.g. landscape and then moved on to another one ( we did landscape, portrait, street and domestic space ).

For the second project we were allowed to pick our own topic with no restraints and do whatever we wanted really. The teacher would give us guidance and suggest photographers to look at or ideas for edits but mostly it was independent work. We had less time to complete this project but we were expected to produce the same amount of work.

Generally, it is a really fun subject that is accessible to everyone (I had never touched a DSLR before I started photography but am now predicted an A) and will develop your skills. However, it does take a lot of time so if your other options are also going to require a lot of work outside of college you might find it a bit overwhelming. We were expected to complete a minimum of 5 pages a week and have done a shoot each week. And it can also be a fairly costly subject mainly in terms of printing, my college cost 8p per page for high quality paper printing and 10p if you wanted anything on glossy paper. Also just the cost of supplies like glue sticks, fineliners (what I used to write in my sketchbook), film and paper to use in the darkroom. The cost wasn't too bad though as you just buy the stuff gradually, the most expensive thing was my camera but I didn't have to buy one as you can borrow cameras and camera equipment from my college but I wanted a camera for a long time anyway.

If you have any more questions about photography feel free to ask me.

would doing Biology and maths in addition to photography be too much do you think?

I don't know too much about those courses but I've heard biology has a lot of content.

Are you only taking three subjects? If so you should be fine with that combination. I did 4 subjects at AS and found that I was neglecting geography but was still doing well in terms of grades just not as well as I think I could have got. The other three were all fine. I did get some backlog in photography for a while which meant I spent less time doing work for my others subjects but I explained what was going on to my lecturers and they were fine with me doing that for a bit.

If you enjoy your subjects you will be fine as it won't be hard to do work outside of lessons. I find psychology really interesting and I want to do work for the subject so I mostly kept on top of everything.

Also use your free periods. This is when I did a lot of my photography work, especially things I couldn't do at home such as editing and high quality printing. Working during some (not all) of your free periods will significantly reduce the amount of work that you have to do at home.

Another tip is to schedule a day/time for shooting. I was expected to do a shoot (DSLR or phone camera) almost every week so I did the shoots on Wednesday afternoon as I finished college early on Wednesday. You could shoot on weekends but I often needed a film shoot for Thursday's darkroom lesson and would only be told on Monday. If your teacher is better organised than mine this shouldn't be an issue.

Thank you! That’s really helpful, could you give me an idea of what kind of phots your expected to take? Also I’m only taking three because with the new courses and everything I don’t think AS is allowed anymore? Also since everything a levels and gcse are being made ‘harder’ most places won’t allow u to take more that three, at least not round here!

Yeah I get that most places do three. My college just makes us do 4 at AS and then do a test at the end of the year because they want people to get at least a D to be able to carry on with the subject at A level. Basically we have a back up subject incase we don't get the grades in one subject.

They're isn't really a 'type' of photo they want you to take. You can take photos of anything as long as it fits in with the genre/theme you were given or have chosen. My teacher wanted to see progression with the project and wanted us to try different techniques. Most of my class start off their projects by finding a photographer that they like and use their style for their own shoots. Then they work out what they like or don't like from the shoot and their own ideas develop from there.

The one thing we were told we shouldn't take pictures of is sunsets and any similar pictures that are just 'pretty' and don't have meaning. But it's easy to work around this, just make up some stuff for some of those images or why the subject matter means something to you. I often said that my images highlight the small details that you would normally ignore but are still beautiful.