Running since 1997, the full time Photographic Studies course successfully provides an in-depth education in photography; from film to digital, darkroom to image processing, studio to street, within the context of historical and contemporary perspectives.
Students who have successfully completed the course have gone on to start their own businesses as freelancers, as wedding and portrait photographers, as photojournalists, as artists. Inspired by the course, a high degree of students also go on to study photography at Third Level, with a significant number also coming from Third Level courses to study with us based on the reputation of the course.
We provide a passionate, interactive environment for students of all ages to find their feet (and often themselves!) in our well-equipped facilities, for a very affordable fee.
‘ Thanks again for a wonderful two years of studying photography, your knowledge and passion for photography is soooo inspiring. I consider it a stroke of unbelievable luck the day I stumbled upon the course.’
Nora Quane 2020
A ‘physical’ Exhibition by students from the Photographic Studies level 6 course – Cork Vision Centre from May 31st – June 14th 2021.
The 2021 photographic studies graduate gallery ….
Daniel Hurley – To be Alive ..
Ciara Hurley – ‘ Let the Light Rewrite You’
This is a body of work about the souls shadow tinged with awareness. It’s about embracing the darkness with love instead of exiling it like religion would tell you to. It’s a reflection of the spiritual path I’ve taken and with this work, I honour the gifts it has given me. My walking across the hot coals so to speak or by embracing my own shadow I have become aware and that bit closer to wholeness.
Laura Mangan – Functional space
‘In the world of super-modernity people are always, and never, at home’
Marc Augé, p108, Non-places: an introduction to the Anthropology of Super-modernity. Verso, 1995
The work examines the concept of Functional spaces, not places of anthropological significance. They cannot be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity. They exist in a purely functional manner, devoid of memory. They are inhabited spaces only in a functional way.
Laura Mangan – Neighbourhood
“Place attachment can be defined as the cognitive and emotional connection of an individual to a particular scenario or environment, or in a broader sense, as the experience of a long-term affective bond to a particular geographic area and the meanings ascribed to such a bond, changing overtime, which develop a sense of belonging in people that makes a particular place an anchor of their identity.”
I have always had an attachment to place, as I child I had an affinity with the place I lived and create imaginary worlds within my childhood neighbourhood. But as you grow older, this attachment becomes less and less. While the sense of belonging remains to the places you one traversed daily, the memories of the place fades. During Lockdown I was able to retrace the steps of my childhood.
These landscapes reveal a personal narrative with the neighbourhood from my childhood. These photographs are part of a journey rediscovering places that I would traverse as a child. During lockdown, my inability to travel outside the 5km radius meant that I revisited places from my childhood that I hadn’t been to in years. I am looking at the child’s viewpoint of the world and the magic created by their mind.
Laura Mangan – ‘Man up’
My own father was not what people would have considered to be the ideal of what is meant to be masculine, he had a disability which meant he was really gentle and not at all seen as a typical alpha male. But he was a great leader and role model to others.
The concept of toxic masculinity has grown in the last few years to a point where it seems the only way for young boys to be seen as masculine is to partake in this ‘boys will be boys’ culture. ‘Man up’ toughen up, men don’t cry, men are not afraid, men protect, they provide, they lead, they suppress their dreams, emotions and pain to provide for their family. They do not share their emotions as it is considered a weakness reserved only for women.
In this project I am looking to represent an alternative to this narrative in men that I find on the street. I look for a gentleness and empathy in the subjects in order to represent this alternative.
Deirdre O Connell
Everything and the kitchen sink (with a picture missing)
John McDermott
Passing strangers
The hope is that the stranger contemplating the question will relax, forget for a moment he/she is sitting in front of a camera and let the photographer see something of the real person through their eyes.
The Question: “What is the most important thing in your life’
John McDermott
All Religions bother me. Not from the belief point of view but from the Organization, Money and Power point of view. The Corporate “Religion Inc.”
With Men, Money and Power you have the ingredients for Corruption, Manipulation, Control, Abuse and endless cover up to Grow the Corporation and to silence the dissenters.
The Catholic Church in Ireland today still holds power in Health, Education and in the older community. I have confidence that the people of Ireland will address this and hopefully drive change and ensure justice is served for the wrong doings of the past. I have staged a panel of four images which explore the catholic religion, control and peoples fear.
John McDermott
To me landscape image is a reflection of the photographer’s inner spirit, putting into a frame, a chosen fragment of an immense surroundings which hopefully will deliver a shared understanding and a feeling of place to the viewer.
Anna Rakocinska
Anna Rakocinska
Lost in Transit –
This project is my subjective and critical commentary on Poland’s here and now, in 2020, a personal response and expression of a concern over an increased polarisation of the Polish society, the rise of populism and fear-driven culture wars fuelled by the anti-LGBT, anti-refugee, anti-EU rhetoric by the state media, ruling right-wing, conservative Law and Justice party, its incumbent president AndrzejDuda and leaders of the Catholic Church. It is a bitter-sweet tale of a country that has undergone an extraordinary transformation over the last three decades since it shed the shackles of the Soviet communist regime and sailed into free-market democracy, yet it is frequently seen now as regressing and undermining these hard-won achievements. Is Poland a package that got LOST IN TRANSIT?
Will this photographic work encourage viewers to take an interest in Poland, its complex history and current situation? I do not know. But I do believe there are lessons to be learnt for all Western Europe. Is history repeating itself? Can you take freedom, democracy and rule of law for granted? Or is it something fragile that needs to be defended? What is my role in all of this as a citizen? Can I do something? Does my voice matter? History shows that atrocities, discrimination and persecution of fellow humans, fellow citizens can happen anywhere, the tragedies do not ‘fall from the sky’, they creep in silently, allowed by the indifference of the ‘regular folk’.
‘It is not the violence of the few that scares me. It is the silence of the many’–Martin Luther King.
Women’s voices, women’s stories, women’s issues matter. If we are to change the conversation, we must be heard. And to be heard, we need to lean into our own vulnerability, even if it is difficult. Someone wise once told me ‘do not be ashamed of your story, it might help or inspire someone’. This is something I would like to say to everyone who experienced a loss or grief that hides in a box labelled ‘things we do not talk about’. It is high time to open it up…
Mark Twomey
My first book
This work is about enjoying photography maybe more than anything else. There’s no narrative necessarily imposed, but I hope it’s arranged in a way where reading one isn’t impossible. It’s a bit of a tightrope walk, I guess.
I just wanted to take pictures and let the rest work itself out. I do think there is a lot to be said for that. It can be cathartic and revealing. It’s interesting that I had months at a time where no image even got close to what I was looking for. Why is it that? Was it just variance and luck? Mood, changes to how I think, how I perceive in minute but ultimately fundamental ways? What I was consuming in class, media and everywhere else taking a subliminal toll? I have no idea, but the question is interesting.
Mark Twomey
This still life project is an attempt to depict the still life process. In previous still life projects, the outcome didn’t reflect the effort and work that went into the attempt. The final product is so often minimal and clean, while behind the scenes is anything but.
Cork College of FET - Douglas Street Campus 