Why documentary photography?

Documentary photography is about finding small stories and connecting them to big ideas. It is about telling stories from first-hand experience, witnessing and taking part. It is about working with people of all walks of life, entering and engaging with a wide range of communities, and sharing your experience with others. 

But documentary is not just about sharing information, and cold, hard facts. It is about sharing your insights with passion, empathy, and dedication, and it’s about making powerful, creative images with impact. Documentary photographers can tell stories in many ways, including environmental portraits, action shots, street scenes, landscapes, details, still lifes, as well as conceptual imagery. 

Documentary photographers and photojournalists are interested in contemporary social issues, and our students produce photo essays, films, exhibitions, and photobooks on topics including environmental issues and nature, gender, race and inequality, youth culture, fashion and identity, science and technology, conflict and protest, and many more. Our students have worked on stories such as love in the age of the Internet, Jamaican dancehall culture, the UK space industry, Kurdish women freedom fighters, educational provision for dyslexic students, care homes for dementia patients, diasporic communities in the UK, or hunters and farmers based in rural Wales, England, Scotland and Ireland.

We closely mentor you to work on topics that you are passionate about; to produce powerful and visually distinctive photography. Our assignments immerse you in the worlds of fine print and photobooks, exhibition production, digital storytelling for web, documentary filmmaking, and much more.

Why study our course?