Exploring Grief Through Photography -
Online Course
Your grief story is one of a kind. It’s unique to you, your relationship with the person who has died, how you learn to live with your grief, and how you carry your loved one with you into the future. This course is specifically designed to help you tell your grief story by focusing on you, your deceased loved ones, and how you continue to honor, love, and remember them.
The coping benefits of photography:
Coping comes in all shapes and sizes. It can be big – like taking the initiative to see a therapist – and it can be small –like exercising for 30 minutes a day or journaling for 10 minutes every night. We love photography as a grief coping tool because it’s a versatile medium that can be healing in many different ways. Consider the following:
- Photography provides a respite from grief.
- Photography can be used to explore and express emotion.
- Photographing symbols and reminders of deceased loved ones can help maintain closeness.
- Photography keeps memories alive.
- Photography can capture symbols of hope and strength.
You guys run a grief website, what experience do you have with photography?
The course instructors are Eleanor Haley and Litsa Williams, founders of What’s Your Grief, PhotoGrief, and Grief in Six Words. Both Litsa and Eleanor have experience with photography and have written extensively on the topic of using photography to explore grief. They are mental health professionals who collectively have nearly twenty years of experience working in grief and loss. If you want to get a feel for their work please check out PhotoGrief, What’s Your Grief on Instagram, or Eleanor Haley’s ‘Mother Daughter Life’
General concepts covered in this course will include:
- How to explore, express, and communicate your experiences using photography
- Ideas and inspiration for photographing grief
- Basic photography tools and techniques
Please see additional FAQs below.
Frequently Asked Questions
Your Instructor
Hello, we are Litsa and Eleanor, the co-founders of the website, What's Your Grief. Thank you for joining our online learning community. We hope some of what you find here will help you understand grief an grief coping a little bit better.
We are what we like to refer to as 'grief friends.' We both have backgrounds in mental health and plenty of experience working in the field of grief and bereavement. But what we ultimately bonded over was our shared experience of losing a parent to cancer in early adulthood. All our webinars and online courses are based on the ideas and information we've found most helpful in our personal grief, and in our daily work with grieving people.
We teach all our webinars and courses, so we should probably tell you, we prefer to talk about grief and loss in realistic and regular ways. If you're looking for transformative butterflies and sympathetic head tilts, I'm afraid you've come to the wrong place. Sometimes we're serious, and sometimes we joke, sometimes we're matter of fact, and sometimes we're philosophical. No matter what, though, we believe your experience with grief should always be recognized and respected, not patronized.
Course Curriculum
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StartIntroduction to Section One
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StartExample One: Photographing Reminders
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StartExample Two: Photographing Signs
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StartExample Three: Photographing Markers and Memorials
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StartExample Four: Photographing Your Continued Bond
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StartExample Five: Photographing Their Legacy
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StartHow-To: Photographing Symbols
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StartHow-To: Your Symbol as a Recurring Theme
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StartSection One Assignment
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StartIntroduction to Section Two
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StartIdentifying Emotion
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StartNumbness, Avoidance, and Opening Up
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StartThe Influence of Perspective
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StartPhotographing Faces
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StartSelf-Portraits
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StartLandscape and Atmosphere
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StartSymbolism
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StartColor
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StartLighting
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StartAngles
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StartMovement
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StartSection Two Assignment