Overview of the Major

The Photography major aims to cultivate students' comprehensive development across various fields, equipping them with an international perspective, innovative consciousness, craftsmanship spirit, and practical abilities. Graduates are expected to master basic photography skills, photographic art techniques in the new media era, film and television direction and post-production, as well as artificial intelligence technology. They should possess high artistic accomplishment, aesthetic ability, and meet the training specifications for compound applied talents urgently needed for regional economic construction and social innovation in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Training Objectives

This major primarily targets the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, aiming to cultivate individuals who are comprehensively developed in moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic, and labor aspects, possessing homeland emotions, a healthy personality, an international perspective, craftsmanship spirit, and innovation ability. They should master the basic theories and professional skills of Photography, possess certain innovative abilities and good comprehensive qualities. Able to proficiently apply disciplinary professional knowledge, integrate multiple disciplines, keep up with the forefront of photography development, solve professional problems in the field of photography, and possess strong abilities in areas such as photographic lighting, commercial photography, portrait photography, new media photography, film and television direction, and post-production. They should also possess AI and AIGC generative capabilities, enabling them to engage in composite applied positions in commercial photography, visual effects, aerial photography, film and television direction, post-production, and AI.

Knowledge and Abilities

Ideological and moral abilities: Possess a firm and correct political orientation, good ideological and moral character, and a sound personality. Love the country and the people, support the leadership of the Communist Party of China. Have a scientific spirit, humanistic cultivation, cultural taste, professional ethics, and an enterprising spirit. Care about social issues and national development, possess a sense of social responsibility, and actively participate in social practice. Able to disseminate Chinese excellent culture, understand national conditions, social conditions, and people's lives, and practice socialist core values.

Subject knowledge abilities: Possess solid general knowledge, basic knowledge, interdisciplinary knowledge, professional knowledge, and professional skills. Systematically master the basic knowledge and principles of Photography, possess certain post-production capabilities, proficiently use design tools in the major, understand the history, current status, and frontiers of the major and related disciplines, and possess traditional and new media photography abilities.

Application abilities: Possess cross-disciplinary knowledge integration abilities, able to comprehensively utilize relevant knowledge and skills to analyze and solve complex problems in the major or related fields. Have good logical thinking abilities, scientific research, and practical work abilities, good at discovering problems and obtaining the status quo, feasibility, research methods, and research ideas of the research issues through necessary literature research. Possess the ability to apply professional knowledge in practical photography fields.

Innovation abilities: Possess logical thinking abilities, a critical spirit, and reflective consciousness, coupled with strong innovation and entrepreneurship awareness and social adaptability. Able to organize and conduct investigations and research using research ideas and methods in Photography, discover, analyze, summarize, and evaluate phenomena and issues in the major and related fields, form personal judgments, insights, or countermeasures, and creatively solve problems during the shooting process. Able to continuously learn and master new shooting techniques and post-production capabilities based on market requirements.

Information abilities: Able to track the forefront development trends in photography, utilize various information technologies and tools to obtain and analyze relevant information, proficiently use advanced shooting tools and post-production software, accurately understand and effectively evaluate and solve practical problems in the process of photographic creation. Master a foreign language, possess strong reading, translation, and certain oral communication abilities, and have the ability to obtain information and new knowledge through language and writing, as well as the ability to retrieve literature and query data to obtain professional information at home and abroad.

Communication and expression abilities: Possess strong communication and expression abilities in photography, able to use accurate and standardized language and writing to logically express opinions, effectively communicate with industry professionals regarding complex issues in shooting projects, and possess certain promotional and dissemination abilities.

Teamwork abilities: Possess strong organizational, coordination, and management abilities, able to assume the roles of individuals, team members, and leaders in multidisciplinary cross-integration teams formed by Photography and other disciplines. Able to harmoniously coexist with team members and collaborate to complete complex tasks.

International perspective: Understand and respect the differences and diversity of world cultures, able to disseminate Chinese excellent culture and wisdom. Keep abreast of international developments, pay attention to global major issues in the field of photography, and possess the ability to conduct international exchanges and cooperation.

Learning and development abilities: Understand the focus, industry frontiers, and development trends of photography, film and television, new media, AIGC, and artificial intelligence industries. Possess self-planning, self-management, self-learning, and lifelong learning abilities. Able to adapt to the needs of social and personal high-level, sustainable development through continuous learning. Maintain an open and learning attitude towards new technologies, methods, and market trends. Keep up with industry development dynamics through learning and adapt to an iteratively updated photography industry environment.

Characteristics of the Photography Major

This major aligns with the industries in the Greater Bay Area, following the OBE (Outcome-Based Education) philosophy of "student-centeredness, output orientation, and continuous improvement." It constructs talent cultivation programs and curricula closely aligned with industrial demands, featuring collaborative training between government, schools, and enterprises.

Establishing a comprehensive "dual-teacher" faculty team

The Photography major focuses on comprehensively improving the overall quality of the faculty team, with professional echelon construction as the key point and improving talent cultivation quality and social service capabilities as the goal. It establishes a continuous training mechanism for "dual-teacher quality" teachers, forming a working mechanism for talent cultivation, talent introduction, talent development, and talent stability.

Constructing an industry-education integration and school-enterprise collaborative talent cultivation model

Based on social and market demands, and building on a sound faculty team, the major reforms the curriculum system and teaching content according to the actual situation of professional positions and position groups, referring to relevant professional qualification standards. It actively tracks the requirements of talent cultivation based on domestic and international technological and industrial development trends, formulating talent cultivation programs and professional teaching plans. Following the principles of practicality, openness, and professionalism, it actively promotes order-based training and explores task-driven, project-oriented teaching models, ensuring that students have more than half a year of on-the-job internships in enterprises and employers during their school years to enhance the relevance and adaptability of talent cultivation.

Artificial intelligence empowering professional education

The major focuses on the forefront of the discipline, pays attention to artificial intelligence technology, continuously explores and practices the integrated innovation of AI+education, virtual reality+education, and platform+education, empowering professional education, and cultivating future design innovators.

Core Courses of the Major

Fundamentals of Photography, Portrait Photography, Product Photography, Photography and AIGC Creation, Non-linear Editing, Film and Television Special Effects Production, Cultural Thematic Documentary Creation, Film and Television Direction and Screenplay Creation, Photographic Special Topic Creation.

Practical Teaching Links

Sketching/Color Sketching, Photographic Composition, Photographic Lighting Training, Aerial Photography, Film and Television Advertising Shooting, Documentary Photography, Brand Marketing, Photographic Ethics, News Photography, Mobile Phone Photography, Enterprise Practice (Production Internship, Graduation Internship, Graduation Design, etc.).

Teaching Conditions

Teaching equipment

Relying on our school's overall design plan for building a "digitalized" and "intelligent" campus, the Photography major possesses advanced and complete teaching equipment, which can well satisfy students' needs for classroom learning and extracurricular practice.

Laboratories

The Photography major boasts well-equipped and fully functional professional laboratories such as digital photography laboratories, digital design laboratories, VR virtual simulation photography laboratories, portrait and product photography studios, film and television studios, digital creative studios, computer-aided design rooms, art design project studios, art studios, course design rooms, and art design interactive laboratories. These facilities can fully meet the teaching needs of all experimental courses in Photography.

Practice bases

The Photography major attaches great importance to the construction and planning of practice bases. It has established cooperation with over 20 photography companies and large, medium, and small enterprises, establishing stable off-campus teaching and research bases. It has also established long-term off-campus internship base partnerships with numerous high-quality well-known enterprises such as Guangzhou Jin Furen Wedding Photography, Kadoria Photography, Guangzhou Huimei Fashion Group Co., Ltd., Guangzhou Focus Media Co., Ltd., Guangzhou Intelitech Technology Co., Ltd., Guangdong Mingxing Creative Animation Co., Ltd., and Guangzhou Yuanchu Animation Design Co., Ltd., which can well meet the needs of students' on-the-job production internships and graduation internships during their fourth year of study.

Employment Prospects

The Photography major targets the advertising and commercial photography, film and television direction, film and television production, and media and communication-related industries, cultivating compound photographic professionals who master commercial photography and new media photography techniques and possess cutting-edge concepts and an international perspective. Graduates can work in positions such as commercial photography, advertising creative planning, aerial photography, art direction, film and television direction, film and television planning, film and television supervision and operation, new media operation, and brand cooperation consulting, with good career development prospects.

Faculty Team

The Photography major currently has 6 full-time teachers, including 2 associate professors, 2 lecturers, and 3 teaching assistants. All teachers hold master's degrees or above, with several having returned from overseas studies. Additionally, several part-time teachers with associate professor or higher titles are employed. The full-time teachers possess professional backgrounds in areas such as photography, visual communication design, fine arts, digital media arts, film and television animation, among others. They possess disciplinary backgrounds related to photography, videography, design science, fine arts, communication science, drama and film studies, computer science and technology. Furthermore, the major invites renowned domestic professors and industry experts to serve as mentors, establishing a mentor team with optimized structure, strong practical abilities, and high professional standards. This integration of theory and practice comprehensively enhances students' comprehensive practical abilities.