Photography is an excellent subject to study at Hills Road. It will develop your creativity in many ways. We are a part of a friendly art department and are committed to helping you to gain a more informed understanding and appreciation of both the photographic art form and the world around you. We will help you to develop your imaginative, experimental and expressive powers and your intellectual, analytical and technical skills. It provides an excellent foundation for students considering further education or a career in the arts, and develops valuable skills that have direct relevance to many aspects of everyday life.

All Art department staff are practising artists, and they have a wide range of specialist interests and expertise. Though you will have one main teacher we offer flexibility for you to try a range of ways of working, and we operate as a team to share knowledge and support amongst each other.

 

Entry with:

GCSE grade B in art or graphics and GCSE grade B in a subject requiring good writing skills, eg English or humanities. If GCSE art or graphics has not been studied, evidence of practical experience or a strong interest. 

• • A friendly teaching and learning environment, where individual ideas and experimental techniques are encouraged and fully supported.
• • Regular visits to galleries in London and Cambridge.
• • Practical field trips in England and overseas.
• • A programme of support for students when preparing their portfolios for application to art foundation and degree courses.

 

Awarding body: OCR

AS Level Units

Unit 1: Coursework portfolio 60%.
Unit 2: Exam assignment 40%.
The AS level course consists of two practical projects; a research project and an externally set assignment. Designed to help support and develop your skills and creativity, the course covers the following:
• 35mm black & white photography
• technical understanding of chemical and digital processes
• black & white printing
• digital image enhancement and manipulation
• experimental techniques – camera, darkroom and studio
• exploration of photography on a contextual level, with emphasis on image analysis to enrich and inform practical work.
 

Advanced (A2) Level Units

Unit 3: Personal investigation 60%.
Unit 4: Exam assignment 40%

The A2 level course consists of one practical project (which can be developed from your AS work) involving management of your own creative personal project brief and contextual study of a number of artists, and an externally set assignment. The course will cover the following:
• Alternative processes
• Advanced camera and darkroom techniques
• Advanced studio techniques.
• Colour printing
 

 

 

• • Well-qualified and experienced teachers
• • A wide range of technical resources including a photographic darkroom, professional digital cameras, computer suite
• • A professional photographic studio equipped with flash and tungsten lighting

 

“What drew me to Photography was the chance to experiment with both .lm and digital mediums and to develop our own ideas in our work. The course has allowed me to do this and more. With specific lessons in the first year for .lm, digital and looking at other photographers it gave us the background knowledge to create our own projects and photographs. In the second year, we could work in any area we wished but still with all the encouragement and guidance that we have been given throughout our time in the Photography department. The course has been great fun and really flexible so we can focus on our own interests in photography.”
Steph Ruskin