Digital Photography Fundamentals – One Day Workshop
Learn everything you need to know about getting your digital camera off automatic mode and take your photography to the next level!
Concept to Publication 2025 Workshop
photo access
Concept to Publication is an inspiring, year-long program designed to explore experimental publishing and guide you in creating innovative publications like photobooks, zines, and other printed works. Perfect for image-makers who want to push the boundaries of traditional storytelling, this program offers a blend of hands-on experimentation and structured mentorship from two experienced tutors and collaboration with workshop peers.
In 2025, the program will be co-taught by Louise Allerton and Denise Thwaites, whose combined expertise brings a rich and diverse perspective to experimental publishing.
Louise Allerton is an Australian artist and arts worker with over 20 years of experience facilitating cross-cultural collaborations with Australian Indigenous communities. Her work emphasises cultural protocols, decolonial methodologies, and the role of art in cross-cultural storytelling. A Master of Fine Arts graduate and current PhD candidate, Louise’s research explores Pitjantjatjara Sign Language through creative mediums such as photobooks, zines, and digital storytelling. She has facilitated numerous workshops in experimental printmaking, including screen printing, linocuts, and collaborative zine production, and her hands-on experience making accessible printed works and immersive installations ensures a practical and dynamic learning environment for participants.
Denise Thwaites is a curator, writer, and researcher specializing in contemporary cultural economies. Her work examines the intersections of text, image, and technology, with a particular focus on expanded and hybrid forms of publishing such as zines, posters, and artist books. With over a decade of teaching experience at institutions like UNSW, the National Art School, and the University of Canberra, Denise offers a blend of academic experience and creative insight, encouraging participants to experiment and innovate within their practice.
Concept to Publication will function as a collaborative studio, with regular group sessions from March to October. Participants will explore experimental forms of publishing, delve into the history and techniques of photobooks and zines, and learn how to curate and sequence images into compelling printed works. The program emphasises creative freedom while providing a structured framework to help you develop your ideas into dynamic, process-driven creations. Both Denise and Louise will offer one-on-one guidance throughout the course, complemented by the shared insights of your peers.
This program is ideal for artists and photographers of all levels who are eager to explore innovative publishing practices. Whether you already have a body of work or plan to create one during the course, you’ll leave with fresh skills, a deeper understanding of experimental publishing, and a network of creative connections. Throughout the course, photo accessstaff will be available for any additional assistance needed.
While there is no pressure to produce a polished final product, participants will have the opportunity to showcase their work in a short collaborative display in the photo access gallery in November 2025. Please note that costs associated with final production, such as printing, are not included in the workshop fee.
2025 Sessions
Concept to Publication meets once a month on a Sunday morning, 9:30 am – 12:30 pm Canberra time at photo access and online via Zoom
| Session 1 | March 16, 2025 | Introduction & Conceptualisation |
| Session 2 | April 13, 2025 | Concept Development & Ways of Publication |
| Session 3 | May 25, 2025 | Creative Planning/Review of First Images |
| Session 4 | June 29, 2025 | Mid-Project Review |
| Session 5 | July 27, 2025 | Selecting Images & Sequences |
| Session 6 | August 24, 2025 | Finalising Your Work |
| Session 7 | September 21, 2025 | Printing and Presentation |
| Session 8 | October 26, 2025 | Final Presentation & Feedback |
| Short Display Exhibition | November 2025 |
Tutors
Louise Allerton
Louise Allerton is an Australian artist and arts worker. A Master of Fine Arts graduate of the National Art School, and currently undertaking a PhD at University of Canberra, she has been an active Arts practitioner since 2002. A been a finalist in a number of awards including the National Photographic Portrait Prize (2013), Head On (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010), the Citigroup Photographic Awards (2004), the Iris Award (2004), the Ulrick Schubert Award (2004, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012), the Olive Cotton Award (2005, 2006, 2015), and the Great Southern Art Award (2010). She spent 20 years living in indigenous remote communities which has profoundly shaped her relationship to landscape, community and culture. Much of her photographic work explores the human dimensions to landscapes and environments and the visceral energy of place. It displays a deep engagement with Western Australian landscape.
As an arts worker, she has over 20 years experience working in remote indigenous communities, facilitating arts practice and managing relationships between indigenous arts practitioners and non-indigenous organisations. In this time she has developed deep experience in, and knowledge of, indigenous arts practice, cultural protocols and the successful development of arts in remote community contexts. She has deep knowledge of cultural protocols, approaches to respectful and successful collaboration between indigenous and non-indigenous organisations, and the development of arts practice. Louise also has strong experience of regional arts practice, the support systems available to sustain its development and approaches to community engagement in regional contexts.
Denise Thwaites
Denise Thwaites is a curator, writer and researcher specialising in contemporary cultural economies. Her transdisciplinary research (re)configures text and image to examine contemporary networked life, as it implicates technological, ecological and affective systems.
Denise is Senior Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Arts and convener of the Masters in Creative Industries at the University of Canberra. Over the past twelve years, Denise has developed and taught courses at The University of New South Wales, The National Art School, Sydney, The University of Wollongong and University of Canberra. She has led and co-led curatorial projects for MoneyLab (Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam), Artspace Ideas Platform (Sydney), This Is Not Art Festival (Newcastle), New Beginnings Refugee Culture and Arts Festival (Sydney), Firstdraft (Sydney) and Next Wave Festival (Melbourne). She previously held the position of Associate Director at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, having also worked at the Australia Council for the Arts and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. Her creative and writing has been featured in Cordite Poetry Review, Meniscus Literary Journal, Writing in the Expanded Field, Runway Journal of Experimental Art, Performance Paradigm, Artlink, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, Culture, Theory and Critique and Derrida Today.
In 2014, Denise was awarded her PhD through The University of New South Wales (Australia) and l’Université Paris 8 (France). She now supervises PhD students exploring theoretical, creative and practice-led approaches to examining the relationship between culture, technology, economy and social change.
Upcoming workshops
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