We value your privacy

We use technology such as cookies on our site to enable videos, personalise content, provide social media features, and analyse our traffic. Click below to consent to the use of this technology across our website.

You can change your mind and change your consent choices at anytime.

Manage
Updating Preferences
Your Cookie Settings

A cookie is a small text file created by a website and stored on your computer. Cookies help websites to function correctly and can identify users to provide a more personalised experience.

Please select your preferred option below and click ‘Save and Close’. Remember that you can change your preferences at any time.

  • Remember cookie consent choice
  • Embed videos from YouTube and Vimeo
  • Track user interaction and detect potential problems
  • Help us improve our services by providing analytical data
  • Remember cookie consent choice
  • Embed videos from YouTube and Vimeo
  • Track user interaction and detect potential problems
  • Help us improve our services by providing analytical data
  • Remember cookie consent choice
  • Embed videos from YouTube and Vimeo
  • Track user interaction and detect potential problems
  • Help us improve our services by providing analytical data
Find Out More >
Updating Preferences
Cookie Policy

Questions about studying with IDI? Join our Online Open Day.
A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that is stored on your browser or the hard drive of your computer. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we’ll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies on our website. However, if you would like to, you can change your cookie settings at any time.

Cookies enable us to identify your device, or you when you have logged in.

You can find more information about the individual cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them below.

The cookies we use and why we use them

We use cookies for various purposes, including Google Analytics tracking, interest based advertising such as remarketing (these cookies allow Google and others to show our adverts when you visit other websites in networks such as the Google Display Network after you have visited our website, adwords conversion tracking and advertising on social media sites.

  • Strictly necessary cookies. We use cookies that are strictly necessary for the operation of our website, for example, to enable you to move around the site or to provide certain basic features. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website.
  • Functionality cookies. We use cookies to enhance the functionality of our website by storing your preferences, for example. These are used to recognise you when you return to our website. This enables us to personalise our content for you.
  • Analytical/performance cookies. We use analytical/performance cookies to help us to improve the performance of our website to provide you with a better user experience. They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.
  • Targeting cookies. We also use targeting cookies. These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make our website and the advertising displayed on it and other websites more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose.

A cookie is either a:

  • session cookie which is erased when the user closes their web browser; or
  • persistent cookie which remains on the user’s computer/device for a pre-defined period of time unless manually deleted.

You can find more information about the individual cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them in the table below:

MUID, MUIDB, SRCHD, SRCHUSR, _EDGE_V, _uetsidBingWe use Bing cookies to help us analyse our web traffic. These cookies gather anonymous information which we use to help us to improve the performance of our website to provide you with a better user experience. We also use Bing targeting cookies. These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make advertising you may be served from us on the Google Search and Display networks more relevant to your interests.Analytical/Performance/Targeting

Cookie Name Purpose Type
cookie_consent_level, cookie_consent_time, cookie_consent_hash IDI These cookie allows us to record whether you’ve opted in to non-necessary cookies, and stores your preferences. Necessary
APISID, HSID, NID, OGPC, SAPISID, SID Google These cookies allow us to embed videos hosted on YouTube on our website, for a better user experience. Functionality
Vimeo Vimeo cookies allow us to embed videos hosted on Vimeo on our website, for a better user experience. Functionality
1P_JAR, AID, OTZ, SIDCC, SSID, _dc_gtm_UA-6234239-1, _ga, _gid, DSID, IDE Google We use Google Analytics to help us analyse our web traffic. These cookies gather anonymous information which we use to help us to improve the performance of our website to provide you with a better user experience. We also use Google targeting cookies. These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make advertising you may be served from us on the Google Search and Display networks more relevant to your interests. Analytical/Performance/Targeting
act, c_user, datr, dpr, fr, presence, sb, wd, xs Facebook We use Facebook tracking to help us link our web traffic and Facebook audiences. These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited, the links you have followed, and the forms you’ve filled out. We will use this information to make advertising you may be served from us on Facebook more relevant to your interests. Targeting
dtCookie, lpv107002, pardot, visitor_id#, visitor_id#-hash Pardot Pardot cookies help us to integrate visitors’ actions on our website with our user database. For example, Pardot will maintain a record of forms you may have filled out on our website (contact forms, newsletter forms) and when you’ve opted in and out of these. Analytical/Performance/Targeting
adxs, cean, cean_assoc, _ceg.s, _ceg.u, _ceir CrazyEgg We use CrazyEgg to help us analyse our web traffic. These cookies gather anonymous information which we use to help us to improve the performance of our website to provide you with a better user experience. Analytical/Performance

Please note that third parties (including, for example, advertising networks and providers of external services like web traffic analysis services) may also use cookies, over which we have no control. These cookies are likely to be analytical/performance cookies or targeting cookies.

It is not advisable to use cookies if your computer is shared by other people. You should clear ‘cookies’ stored by the web browser when using another person’s computer to avoid your e-mail address or other details being displayed in the login field to a subsequent user of our website.

How to block cookies

You block cookies by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies. However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of our website.

You can find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them by visiting www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org.

How long cookies last

Except for essential cookies and targeting cookies, all cookies are session cookies will expire after you have finished your browsing session.

Manage
Updating Preferences
  1. Home
  2. Student Stories
  3. Graham Watson

COVID-19 update: All online teaching and learning is proceeding as normal

Graham Watson

Photography Courses

With his time already split between three jobs, Graham Watson thought that he would never become a professionally accredited photographer. However, after researching his options, he decided that an online course that would allow him to study in his own time presented the perfect opportunity. Now working towards a fully accredited BA (Hons) in photography with IDI, Graham has managed to find a place for Higher Education in his busy life.

Graham’s interest in photography was first sparked when his parents gave him a camera for his 13th birthday and he hasn’t looked back since. Recently, with his good friend (and fellow IDI student), Deborah Priestly, Graham started up his own photography business: NY Images UK. It has proved a successful venture, enrolling over 300 people onto its workshops in the last two years. However, Graham felt he could achieve even more by furthering his own photography skills and decided to become qualified with a BA (Hons) Photography to help him realise his ultimate goal:

“I have one ambition: to be one of the best photographers in the North of England, so having a degree will help me perform at the very top of my game with weddings, portraits and commercial photography.”

As well as co-directing the photography business, Graham works full-time as a bus driver and helps his wife run a busy bed and breakfast. Such a hectic schedule would deter most people from taking on more, but Graham is determined to succeed in photography and simply states, “I don’t want to be driving a bus when I’m 70 years old.”

Initially, Graham had little interest in education, admitting he was, “purposefully stupid at school.” He was offered a second chance to study during an apprenticeship in customer service set up by his employers at the bus company. It was then Graham decided, if he followed a strict regime, he would be able to free up enough time to study photography. He chose IDI due to flexibility of the course and the ease of access to resources:

“I thought that it was certainly worth the risk and, as there are many ways to access the internet, I thought that it shouldn’t be too difficult to juggle everything about.”

With great results so far he is confident he made the right decision:

“I have thoroughly enjoyed dusting down my books, researching images and writing about them. I have suddenly found that I am looking at photographs with a more understanding mind and I have become quite critical about them too. I want to be getting top grades so that I can put this degree to good use with my photography business.”

More Students