Digital Photography: Discover your Genre and Develop your Style

Created in collaboration with the UK’s leading photography organisation, the Royal Photographic Society, this microcredential will give you a broad overview of a number of photographic genres and the knowledge, skills, and techniques to create better photographic narratives.

Build your photography skills and learn how to work to a brief

This course will encourage you to explore different areas of photography to help you identify where you want to develop your creative photography skills, confidence, and knowledge.  Some of the subjects covered in this course include: 

• ‘Things’ – including product and food photography
• ‘People and events’ – exploring portraiture, sports, and photojournalism  
• ‘Environment’ - looking at wildlife, buildings, architecture, and landscapes

You will learn how to work to a brief and how to prepare and take images to create a body of work within these subjects that tell a visually cohesive story. You will discover how your approach to taking or displaying an image can affect how it is understood and explore the conventions related to particular genres.

Develop a photography project that realises its intent

Building on your basic photography skills, you’ll start to understand what it means to be an intentional photographer as well as how to think about and write a Statement of Intent that explains the purpose and objective of your portfolio. 

This course is delivered on the FutureLearn platform and you will also access a third-party image sharing site, at no extra cost.This site is used to share your images with fellow learners and develop your photographic eye by learning and practising how to give feedback on each other’s images. 

Learn from experts, with The Open University and the Royal Photographic Society  

Created by The Open University in collaboration with the Royal Photographic Society, you’ll learn from current thinkers and experimenters who specialise in particular genres and approaches to photography. 

You will share ideas and experiences with fellow learners, building skills, confidence and knowledge from peer to peer feedback and weekly challenges to experiment and explore your new creative approaches, techniques and practices, and the concept behind your intent.

The FutureLearn social learning experience is designed to encourage learners to interact and benefit from a stimulating learning community.On-course mentors encourage collaboration between learners and offer guidance. Feedback on images throughout the course will come from your fellow learners. At the end of the course you’ll receive detailed, personal feedback on your assessment from academic and subject matter experts.

This course replaces Digital Photography: Creating a Professional Portfolio (OU course code: TZFM200.) It is a completely new course, however, the assessment is similar in shape and level. If you have any questions please contact us prior to enrolling.