From September 2012, Brampton’s extremely successful Art Department will be offering Photography for the first time.
Students will be able to take Photography A level on its own or as an option alongside Fine Art, Textiles and others within Art A level. Photography offers the chance for students to learn how to express ideas and experiences to a very high technical level, to learn how to work independently on challenging projects and to feel a real sense of achievement by producing images that others can admire and be inspired by. It also equips students with highly marketable skills for our media-saturated world.
“Like other Art A level options, photography demands a lot of research, planning and reflection, specialised technical knowledge and skill, and a great deal of practice”, says Mike Wheeldon, VP for Arts and Humanities, “but the rewards are huge, not just in terms of a top grade at the end of the course, but for life: self-confidence, technical and creative ability, attention to detail, perhaps most of all the lesson of working hard to achieve something really worthwhile – you can get all this from Photography at A level”. Students will explore both film-based photography, learning about film types and speeds, dark-room techniques and image manipulation, and the use of hardware and software in digital photography. There is even a chance to work with the moving image in the Photography A level to produce one’s own film narrative or animation. Students can combine Photography with any other set of A levels, including Art itself, or may wish to experiment with it as an AS level before deciding on their A2 choices.