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PHOTO by Oleksii FurmanPhoto by Yevhen MaloletkaPHOTO BY Yurko DyachyshynPHOTO BY Serhii KorovaynyPHOTO BY Oleksii FurmanPHOTO BY Yevhen Samuchenko / Q-lieb-inPHOTO BY Serhii SkrynnikovPHOTO BY Yurko Dyachyshyn

A three-month foundation program where you move from scattered images to a body of work with its own voice — guided by mentors, real critique, and Ukraine's professional photography community

Apply for the Photography as a Medium programme — starts 8 September 2026

PHOTO by Oleksii Furman

A three-month foundation program where you move from scattered images to a body of work with its own voice — guided by mentors, real critique, and Ukraine's professional photography community

Apply for the Photography as a Medium programme — starts 8 September 2026

A body of work

A finished photographic series with its own voice — not a hard drive of scattered images.

An eye you trust

The judgment to know your own work holds up, built through real critique.

A place in the profession

Step into Ukraine's photography community, and a direct line to its opportunities.

PHOTO BY Cary Fukunaga

PHOTO BY Cary Fukunaga

We've spent years in the room with photographers like you.

UAPP represents Ukrainian photography to the world. We're an official member of the Federation of European Photographers (FEP), which speaks for more than 50,000 professionals across Europe. For years we've run the mentorships, microgrants, portfolio reviews and lectures that move Ukrainian photographers forward.

Foundation Level is everything we've learned from that work, built into a single path you can follow.

Meet the faculty

OFFICIAL MEMBER · FEDERATION OF EUROPEAN PHOTOGRAPHERS

50,000+ PROFESSIONALS REPRESENTED

We've spent years in the room with photographers like you.

UAPP represents Ukrainian photography to the world. We're an official member of the Federation of European Photographers (FEP), which speaks for more than 50,000 professionals across Europe. For years we've run the mentorships, microgrants, portfolio reviews and lectures that move Ukrainian photographers forward.

Foundation Level is everything we've learned from that work, built into a single path you can follow.

Meet the faculty

OFFICIAL MEMBER · FEDERATION OF EUROPEAN PHOTOGRAPHERS

50,000+ PROFESSIONALS REPRESENTED

PHOTO BY Cary Fukunaga

PHOTO BY Cary Fukunaga

  • VII FOUNDATION
  • Room 8 Group
  • Fritt Ord Foundation
  • Frontliner
  • Studio 72

This is more than a course. It's where a photographer is made.

UAPP School is an educational platform that brings systematic education, work on an author's project, professional feedback, mentorship, community and international opportunities into a single trajectory for a photographer's development.

  • Not lectures you forget, but work that becomes yours.

    An education built around your project
    PHOTO BY Mstyslav Chernov
  • Working practitioners read your work closely — and tell you what actually moves it forward.

    Mentors who give you real feedback
    PHOTO BY MSTYSLAV CHERNOV
  • Regular crits train you to see your own frames as honestly as anyone else's.

    Critique that sharpens your eye
    PHOTO BY Garry Efimov
  • Guest lectures and ties to the institutions shaping photography today.

    International faculty and partners
    PHOTO BY Roman Pilipey / AFP via Getty Images
  • After the program you stay inside UAPP's professional community.

    A community that doesn't end at graduation
    PHOTO BY Anastasiia Vlasova
  • Open calls, residencies and reviews come to those already on the community's radar.

    A direct line to opportunities
    PHOTO BY GEORGE Ivanchenko
An education built around your project
PHOTO BY Mstyslav Chernov

How

The UAPP School of Photography and Visual Culture develops around three directions

the school is structured

The UAPP School of Photography and Visual Culture develops around three directions

01

Education

  • Foundation Level
  • Core Program
  • Specialised programs

02

Community

  • Portfolio reviews
  • Mentorship & microgrants
  • Consultations & support

03

International context

  • Lectures & partnerships
  • Residencies
  • Global experts & exchange

FOUNDATION LEVEL IS YOUR ENTRY POINT INTO ALL THREE

From the First Idea to a Completed Series

Your path is simple

Three months of learning, regular meetings, practical assignments, critique sessions, and dedicated work on a single authorial series—from the very first week to the final presentation

01

Enrol

Claim your place in the first cohort. It begins 8 September 2026.

02

Develop Your Authorial Vision

Over three months — hybrid online + offline — you develop your own photographic series through lectures, practice, mentorship and critique

03

Present Your Completed Series

You graduate with a finished body of work, the start of a real portfolio, and a place inside the UAPP community.

3 MONTHS

COHORT 01 · 08.09.2026

HYBRID

Your entry into contemporary photography

The first level of UAPP School, and your way in to the professional community. It's built for the move from individual photographs to a meaningful project of your own — and a foundation you can keep building on for years.

Five modules, built around one project

28+ sessions, two evenings a week across three months — every lecture and crit feeding the series you build from week one.

08.09 — 04.12HYBRID28+ SESSIONS

The project

Your own series

From a first idea in week one to a finished series, you spend the whole course building one body of work — researching, shooting, editing and structuring a series of 8–15 images, supported the whole way through. Every module feeds it; the project is the spine the program is built on.

01

Art, photography & Ukrainian photography

What art is and how photography earns its place within it — through to the history of Ukrainian photography.

  • Halyna Hleba

02

Technique as a tool for visual decisions

Cameras, optics, light and processing — the technical craft treated as deliberate visual choices, not just settings.

  • Valentyn Kuzan

03

Composition, colour & visual literacy

How images are built and how we perceive them — from the golden ratio and rhythm to colour and digital colorimetry.

  • Kinder Album

04

Professional practice, ethics & trauma-informed work

Practice across genres — portrait, documentary, reportage and conceptual work — with ethics and building a career.

  • Kateryna Radchenko
  • Tetiana Lysun
  • Ivan Chernichkin
  • Dmytro Prutkin
  • Serhiy Polezhaka
  • Oleg Petrasiuk

05

Reading the image & contemporary art

What photographs tell us, and how contemporary art reshapes documentary photography and the way we read it.

  • Kseniya Malykh
  • Tetiana Lysun

How the Program Works

Education

  • Duration3 MONTHS
  • FormatHYBRID — ONLINE + IN PERSON
  • Cohort01 · BEGINS 08.09.2026
Lectures and practical sessions

By the end, you will have:

A finished photographic series of your own

The eye to analyse and edit your own images

Professional feedback on your work

The foundation of a real portfolio

A project you can confidently present

A path to continue inside UAPP's programs

You'll learn from photographers whose work you already respect.

Click any name for a full biography →

Take your place in Cohort 01.

  • First cohort starts8 SEPTEMBER 2026
  • Early bird until25 JULY
  • Enrolment closes25 AUGUST
  • FormatHYBRID · 3 MONTHS
  • Places15

Early bird · until 25 July

UAH 25,000

Standard price UAH 29,000

  • Pay in fullUAH 27,000
  • Monthly3 × UAH 11,000

All prices are for the full course. The early-bird rate applies to payment before 25 July.

Download the syllabus

What every place includes

  • Six modules, 24+ live sessions

  • Professional critique on every project

  • Mentorship and regular portfolio reviews

  • A finished photographic series of your own

  • The foundation of a real portfolio

  • A place inside the UAPP community

Your development doesn't stop when the course does.

Finishing Foundation Level keeps you inside the UAPP ecosystem. From here, the door stays open to:

International Portfolio Reviews

Mentorship & Microgrants

The International Program

Open Calls

Lectures, events & the UAPP community

Frequently asked questions

  • Tuition is announced together with the full syllabus, and payment plans are available — reach out and we'll walk you through the options.

  • The core program is taught in Ukrainian. Selected guest lectures by international faculty are held in English with moderator support.

  • Lectures and crits run online two evenings a week. Practical sessions, shoots and the final review happen in person in Kyiv, with remote participation available if you're in another city.

  • No. Selection is based on motivation and your images: basic camera skills and the will to spend three months working systematically on your own series are enough.

  • Yes. Foundation Level offers the option of staged payment. Detailed terms and the payment schedule are available upon request — please contact us at the email address provided.

Or you can keep going the way you have been.

Photography can be more than a single image or a reaction to what you see. It can become a way of thinking, researching, shaping your perspective, and communicating with an audience. Photography as a Medium will help you move from intuitive image-making to a conscious authorial practice: develop a theme, build a coherent series, receive professional feedback, and discover how your work can continue to grow through the UAPP community, projects, and opportunities.

THE FIRST COHORT STARTS 8 SEPTEMBER 2026. TAKE YOUR PLACE IN IT.

Not ready? Download the syllabus