657 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
TEL: 415 512 2020
FAX: 415 512 7109
sfcamera@ sfcamerawork.org
Contacts:
Erik Auerbach 415.374.6657 firstexposures@sfcamerawork.org
Chuck Mobley 415.512.2020 c h u c k @ s f c a m e r a w o r k . o r g
SF CAMERAWORK PRESENTS
"FIRST EXPOSURES"
Edited by Erik Auerbach, Foreword by Dave Eggers
Publication Date: November 1
ISBN: 0-9762747-8-7
Price: $19.95
112 pages
Book Release Party/Book Signing
Friday, November 17, 2006 7:00 to 9:00 PMSan Francisco, October 23, 2006 – SF Camerawork, the Bay Area’s only nonprofit photo gallery, is pleased to announce the publication of First Exposures, a collection of photographs by local at-risk youth. The book, which features a foreword by author and 826 Valencia founder Dave Eggers, will be accompanied by an exhibit from January 5 to February 24, 2007, at SF Camerawork’s new gallery location at 657 Mission St. First Exposures is a product of the long-running mentoring program of the same name.
In 1993, First Exposures was created by a group of concerned photographers working out of San Francisco’s Eye Gallery, who wanted to use their artistic skills to help their community. Based on Washington, DC’s Shooting Back project, First Exposures paired homeless, foster, and at-risk youth with qualified adult mentors in order to teach them photography in a one-on-one setting. The program flourished for three years but was put on hold by the closure of the Eye Gallery in 1996. Later that year, SF Camerawork brought in First Exposures and created its own educational programming to complement it. Over the course of a decade, the program has grown to become one of the nation’s most respected art mentoring programs. Each year students are given the opportunity to work on a large-scale project, ranging from exhibitions in galleries and museums to 2004’s critically acclaimed Billboard Project, in which students designed billboards that were displayed throughout San Francisco and San Jose.
The book, which features new and archival work by students, includes essays by family therapist Matt Carges; photographer Michael Rauner, who took charge of First Exposures when it first came to SF Camerawork; Sarah Kremer, one of First Exposures’ original mentors at the Eye Gallery; and the program’s former coordinator Whitney Grace, who led the Billboard Project. Editor Erik Auerbach served as a mentor with First Exposures prior to becoming its Program Coordinator in February 2005. He has taught photography at the college level at the Academy of Art University, UC Extension, and the San Francisco Art Institute.
About SF Camerawork
Founded in 1974, SF Camerawork has historically been an artist-driven organization focused on supporting emerging and mid-career photographers. Its mission is to push the boundaries of what constitutes photography and image-making while serving as a launching pad for careers in the photographic arts. While SF Camerawork has been offering exhibitions and programming for the past five years in a gallery space it formerly shared with New Langton Arts at 1246 Folsom Street, the decision to relocate began in 2001 after leaving their previous long-term site at 115 Natoma. SF Camerawork’s 6,500-square-foot new location on Mission at Third Street, designed by Donna Schumacher of X: architecture/Art and with lighting design by Rebecca Foster, features a new 3,000-square foot gallery space, which can be divided into several separate gallery areas depending on the exhibition schedule, nearly doubling SF Camerawork’s previous exhibition and programming spaces.
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