Launch of Expanded Practice – Book arts introductory course. May 2025!
More than Looking: photography, book arts, therapeutic approaches with Lynne Connolly
Expanding your Practice:Book Arts for Therapeutic Photography
8-29 May 2025 Online. Thursday 4-6.30pm UK time
Cost: join the pilot course at a heavily subsidised rate of £125-£200. This is a sliding scale to support access to all. Please email me to reserve your place and make your booking payment info@lynneconnolly.co.uk
Course – Expanding your Practice:Book Arts for Therapeutic Photography
An introductory four-week course for practitioners who use photography as part of their practice. This course will introduce you to approaches and skills in making book and paper structures. It is a short introductory course and is hands on, each session will explore a structure or set of booklets and their application to Therapeutic Photography. It includes a weekly live making session where I will guide you with a demonstration on the making of each structure. Each week you will have 1-3 pieces of work as blank structures for you to take into your own practice and adapt with clients and groups. I will also offer printable sheets where appropriate.
Who is this for? Anyone who already uses photography in a therapeutic way for themselves, clients, or community groups.
Why book arts? Making book structures and ways to incorporate photographic images made through mindful and therapeutic practice brings the work into the physical realm of materiality and haptic experience. Bringing photos off the screen and out of the digital realm gives a physicality to the work and use of images. Material structures and use of paper is a sensory experience and this haptic element helps to become part of the process from visualising, creating, making and holding. Some structures can be made using preprinted materials, or blank to then add images, others can have interchangeable elements where photos can be added to or replaced, we will make a range of structures.
What will I learn? The course will introduce you to the utterly absorbing practice of book arts and making structures for photographs using simple elements of paper, thread, and sometimes glue. You will learn hands on skills in crafting book structures that hold images and/or writing. The course is designed with you in mind to expand your practice of using photography for mindfulness and therapeutic engagement.
The course will cover the following themes: simple narrative structures, creating connections, text and image, narrative and pauses, folded and stitched booklets, adding secret pockets, pop up elements, a changeable photo album structure.
How will I learn? The course is delivered online through Zoom, participants will be sent a materials and tools list. This will be easily accessible and items/materials you may well already have. Each week we will have a short overview to introduce that weeks theme, the connection with therapeutic photography and making book forms. There will be live demonstrations and making together. I use an overhead camera on my worktop as well to help show the steps. Although these sessions are quite short there will be ongoing discussion throughout to make the practice element as relevant as possible to the application of mindful and therapeutic photography.
Sessions will be recorded and relevant information sent out between sessions as needed.
Who is running this course? More than Looking is an umbrella company established by Lynne Connolly to offer courses in well-being through photography and book arts. More than Looking started as a photographic mindful activity with students in 2014, before I realised it had a name!
About me:I am an established photographer and educator and have worked in community, further, and higher education in the UK and Ireland for many years. I have run workshops in photography, mindfulness, and book arts, online and in person. I currently teach in H.E in the UK, and also run workshops for the Royal Photographic Society, The Society of Bookbinders, as well as many voluntary and funded workshops for community events in well-being.
I have been lucky enough to use education as a route out of a troubled city and difficult family background, this undoubtedly features highly in my continued relationship with education, teaching, sharing and supporting others to develop in their own areas of interest. I’m delighted at this stage in my life to move into a more holistic approach to learning and sharing knowledge, not just through traditional means. I look forward to sharing and learning with you.
As well as academic qualifications at graduate and postgraduate level in arts and also social sciences, I have a PGCE in adult education, Mental Health First Aider, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy UK, and am just about to submit my PhD thesis in the use of memory, photography, and book arts in post trauma conflict of the troubles in Northern Ireland!
I have recently undertaken professional development training with Ruth Davy of Look Again Mindful Photography Practitioner training, and have completed the PG Cert in Therapeutic Photography (with Distinction) at RGU. That along with my passion for photography and book arts, and just life experience is what I have to offer …
When is it? The introductory course will run several times throughout the year, there will also be a further advanced course to continue building skills and approaches.
This pilot course will run in May 2025, Thursday afternoons 4-6.30pm UK time, on the 8th, 15th, 22nd, 29th May. It is online and we will meet on Zoom.
What are the costs? You are invited to join the pilot course at a heavily subsidised rate of £125-£200 pp. This is a sliding scale to support access to all. Please email me for details to reserve your place and make your booking payment info@lynneconnolly.co.uk
You will also need to provide some basic materials and tools, most of which you will have at home but further details will be provided.
Please note refunds are not available as it is subsidised and would be untenable to run otherwise. Recordings and guidance notes will be made available to all participants.
Why is it subsidised? This is a pilot session, although I have many years experience of teaching photography, mindful photography, and book arts, I want your feedback to help refine how this can be as useful as possible for practitioners in this field. I also want it to be accessible to as many as possible and appreciate that every additional expenditure is a big decision for many. If you are struggling to do so please get in touch, if you feel able to pay more you will also be supporting others.
What if I miss a session? Ideally you will be able to attend the sessions each week and engage in the activities as a group together. Sessions will be recorded and made available for participant’s individual use. A materials and tools list will be provided on registration, along with a detailed weekly structure. Guidance notes are also provided each week. There will be an optional WhatsApp group for ongoing discussions between sessions.
All questions welcome please email me at info@lynneconnolly.co.uk
To secure your place please email with your name, email address, and chosen amount and I will invoice accordingly.
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Website: www.lynneconnolly.co.uk
