First Exposures staff and advisory board members, along with SF Camerawork board and staff, are pleased to announce that First Exposures has become a project of the Tides Center. Since 1976, Tides has worked with individuals and institutions committed to positive social change. Over the past 36 years this national organization has fiscally sponsored more than 800 nonprofit projects and launched a number of important organizations.

First Exposures strives to make a major long-term difference in the lives of high-need, underserved Bay Area youth by providing an accessible venue for them to enhance their self-confidence, develop their creativity, and gain a passion for learning. Cited as a model program by the State of California, First Exposures will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2013.

Inaugurated by Eye Gallery in 1993, First Exposures was transferred in 1996 to SF Camerawork, a 39 year-old nonprofit dedicated to encouraging and supporting new directions in the photographic arts. Since 2005, Erik Auerbach has managed First Exposures for SF Camerawork; in 2010, he was promoted to Director of Education. Chuck Mobley, SF Camerawork's Executive Director, says: "Having fostered First Exposures' development over the last 16 years, the board and staff of SF Camerawork are thrilled that this vital program has reached a point where it can thrive as an independent organization."

Transfer of First Exposures to the Tides Center will open up new partnership opportunities and give First Exposures access to the resources and professional expertise of a national organization The transfer to a new fiscal sponsor was endorsed by SF Camerawork’s Board of Directors and effected by Erik Auerbach, now First Exposures Director, and First Exposures advisory board members Alicia Nogales and Hal Fischer.

For more information, please visit: www.firstexposures.org