One Day - A Level Photography
Introduction and summer tasks
Side 1 of 2
If you are artistic and love taking photographs, this could be a perfect career for you.
As a photographer you would use your camera to take still photographs. You would
use your technical skills and artistic ideas to make images of people and products.
You would also take pictures of places and events. A photographer is usually a
creative person. You’ll also need to be able to make people feel relaxed.
Most professional photographers take a college or university course to develop their skills.
A Level Photography can lead to the Pre-Degree Foundation Course in Art & Design at Suffolk one or a University
Degree in Photography or Art related subjects. There are many career options which can develop from Photography,
such as Advertising, Journalism or Television. Photography skills would also be very useful in Fashion, Sports &
Fitness, Medicine, Science, Engineering, Manufacturing, and many more careers and industries.
Subject specific skills:
You don’t need any specific skills to start the course, but having experience in building a portfolio of work, week by
week, is very helpful. Courses such as GCSE Art & Design or Design Technology would give you this starting point.
Attributes for success:
Any student can achieve the highest grades in Photography, regardless of background.
The highest achieving students take on all new tasks and challenges with a positive and enthusiastic attitude. Most
importantly, our top students have all used the set work as a starting point for their own further experimental
explorations of ideas in photography.
Camera:
It is very important for you to have access to a suitable camera for the full duration of the course. The college has a
limited number of cameras for use in class but these are not for use at home. We strongly recommend that you
organize your own camera. A good starting option is a ‘Bridge’ camera. These offer many manual functions for
creative control but are still affordable, starting at around £120. The key features are a viewfinder for composing in
daylight, and optional manual control of some exposure functions, Such as Shutter Priority (S) or (Tv), Aperture
Priority (A), and Fully Manual (M). They all offer very versatile fixed lenses which cover wide-angle to telephoto focal
lengths and very close focusing, (Macro). There are a number of suitable models by Fujifilm, Canon, Nikon, Olympus.
The Fuji models are very good value and are available from Jessop’s, Tesco, Curry’s, Argos etc...
A Fujifilm
‘Bridge’ camera
Canon
DSLR
Note, if you are
taking Media you
will find the HD
video function
useful
DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) cameras offer the best picture quality and creative control. However prices start at
around £350 with just one (short) zoom lens, without macro. Entry level models are offered by Canon, Nikon, Sony,
Pentax. Students considering progressing to A2 level and beyond should start saving for a DSLR. There is a new type
of camera known as a Compact System Camera, (CSC). These are like a DSLR but smaller and lighter. (More expensive
however)
An 8Gb SD card is included in the start-up pack of all the required stationery. A tripod and camera case are very
useful, as is a spare battery (cheaper online). We will show you some cheap useful accessory options such as LED
lights, ND filter, Remote timer release. Extension tubes (for Macro), (There are excellent clip-on lenses for smart
phones available cheaply online. Especially useful for Macro!). I strongly recommend you get a portable hard drive at
some stage. (Great Christmas idea!). This gives you the safe backup of always having your files available wherever
you are, and on any computer. Note: Have it formatted in ‘FAT 32’ so it can read and write on Mac or PC.
For shooting with film, we have some college cameras for student use, or you may have a suitable family camera.
If you have any camera questions please email me: [email protected]
One Day – A Level Photography - Introduction and summer tasks
Side 2 of 2
Exhibitions: There is nothing like seeing original prints at an exhibition to really understand what photographers do.
You may be surprised to see the fine detail of original prints which is not visible on a screen or printed in a book or
magazine. Also, prints in exhibitions can be impressively large. There are many great exhibitions on over the
summer, especially if you can get to London or any major city. You can Google search for ‘Photography Exhibitions
London’ before you go, to get lists of what is on. All the Art colleges have their shows in June/July. Such as ‘Free
Range’ at the Truman Brewery in Brick Lane, (10mins east of Liverpool Street). There is always Photography on at the
Photographer’s Gallery – Ramilies Street, Just east of Oxford Circus Tube off New Oxford Street, (A little bit hidden)
Tate Modern, The National Portrait Gallery and The Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington are always
worth visiting for Photography, but there are many more other large public and smaller private galleries to find.
Photo shoot task options: Do one or two of these before September…. Start earning marks right away!
1/. A Photo a day – 30 days. For at least the whole of the month of August, if not the whole of your holiday, try to
take one photo of something every day. Just use any camera available. It could be your phone camera. You can
record anything or anyone you think is interesting, yourself if you like. But always try to shoot from an ** UNUSUAL
VIEWPOINT **. For example try placing the camera high or low or near or far, or through something or angled.
Avoid the standard eye-level shot! If a theme emerges after a few days just go with it. For example, a common shape
theme, like circles, faces, lines, a certain colour. Or something that changes over the 30 days like weeds, flowers,
crops, street fashion? Look for the photos of Jamie Livingston. eg YouTube. Try using a disposable film camera?
2/. A Day in the life of….A Place, A Person or An Object. Using interesting viewpoints, take at least 30-40 photos of
anything or anywhere over a day. Suitable subjects might be a car-boot sale field, a street market, a fun-fair, a farm,
or it could be about a person with an interesting job. Be prepared to start early and finish late and try for a variety of
approaches, near and far.
3/. Familiar things in an unfamiliar way: Shooting through a distorting bottle or mirror or using torch light, or car
headlamps at night, or from a very high or very low angle, or choosing an unusual approach to focus. Around 30-40
shots.
4/. Own choice project: If you want to try something different, go for it!
The only rule is avoid the boring shots we have all seen before. Take your inspiration from a photographer you have
seen at an exhibition or in a book or online. Around 30-40 shots.
Start a Flickr account: Its free! And now gives you 1Terrabyte of space.
Use Flickr to record your summer task shots, put in lots of tags to encourage comments and feedback. Tell me your
Flickr name so I can see your work. Don’t be afraid of using your real name for your Flickr account. Keep it for college
photography. (Keep your social stuff on Facebook or Twitter. (On Flickr use the ‘family and friends only’ and ‘not
searchable’ options if it is personal). Flickr is an excellent way to show your work and now has 1Tb space for free
(with adverts).
Print your images ready to mount in your first workbook. Printing really helps to develop shooting skills. Proper
printing using wet process photographic methods is cheaply available online or at Boots, Snappy Snaps or Jessops.
Doing photographic jobs is a good way to practice skills, but I would not recommend shooting a wedding without
experience! Try something smaller-scale first.
Enjoy your photography!
[email protected]