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San Francisco, CA 94105-4104
TEL: 415 512 2020
FAX: 415 512 7109
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    More About First Exposures

    SF Camerawork
    Mentor Brian working with student Melany.


    "My mentor taught me how to develop pictures and use an enlarger. He works hard with me to help finish the pictures that I like. I hope I will be able to work with him again next semester."
    First semester student,
    age 14
    First Exposures: Youth Opportunities Through Photography is a special interest mentoring program where academic skills and life skills are developed by combining the benefits of mentoring relationships with art education.

    The volunteer mentors are commercial and fine art photographers with a commitment to youth and to education. Their students are creative young people, aged 11-18, with backgrounds which include homelessness, transitional living, foster-care or low-income living situations. The students and mentors work together in one-to-one partnerships in a group setting. First Exposures fosters supportive intergenerational relationships in a stimulating environment of active learning.

    First Exposures is a demanding program. Both the students and their mentors agree to attend each Saturday class from 10:30 to 2:30 PM for at least one academic semester. Most students and mentors stay in the program for one year. Students develop photographic skills and get exposed to a larger world than they may otherwise know.

    We meet at either SF Camerawork or Rayko Photo Center (an excellent community darkroom). We reinforce our class time spent in experiential learning environments: field trips to local newspapers, major museums, alternative art spaces, commercial photography studios, and local colleges or universities.

    Once each semester we go on a "Photo Safari" field trip to locations like Hidden Villa Ranch, the Randall Museum, the Cliff House, the Marin Headlands, or the Presidio. The students use their cameras to explore and interpret these places along with sites and people closer to home.

    First Exposures was initiated at Eye Gallery in 1993 and was redeveloped under SF Camerawork's sponsorship in 1996. The program was inspired by the traveling exhibition and book of photography by at-risk youth in the Washington DC based project called Shooting Back. In 1995 the Eye Gallery closed but First Exposures sustained itself through the efforts of its volunteer mentors until SF Camerawork became the new sponsor in 1996.

    SF Camerawork is the base of a support network for the partnership between the student and his or her mentor. This network includes the support of the youth service providers who work collaboratively with SF Camerawork and First Exposures, Bay Area mentoring organizations, professional child care workers, and the student's families or guardians.