EVER FANCIED LEARNING ABOUT PHOTOGRAPHY, DIGITAL IMAGE EDITING OR DESIGN?

DO YOU ALREADY DO PHOTOGRAPHY OR OTHER VISUAL ARTS IN YOUR SPARE TIME?

ARE YOU INTERESTED IN GETTING A PORTFOLIO OF WORK TOGETHER?

MAYBE YOU JUST WANT TO GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR PICTURES?

If any of these questions apply then SNAP (SohoBoyz Nominal Arts & Photography) Project may be for you?

SohoBoyz has teamed up with Manchester’s Blue Room to produce a visual arts project about your experiences in London. We are looking to gather a group of men/trans who are keen to work with one another to create an exhibition that explores a shared theme devised by the group. You don’t have to have experience or any fancy equipment, all we ask is that you are keen to create something in your spare time and are willing to work with each other along the way!

The Blue Room works with men who sell sex in Manchester to help plan and realise creative projects, as a form of advocacy, education and expression. In April 2007 they produced a street based visual Arts Exhibition based on the groups experiences of the gay village in Manchester - see examples BLUEROOM BOOK online version (3).pdf (downloads as pdf). Blue Room members combined striking screen printing, photography and light installation to depict a very different side of the gay village.

We thought it would be exciting to allow the men of SohoBoyz a similar opportunity to create materials that communicate something about your life. Work could be about you, your experiences selling sex, or your take on the people and places around you. We would like to create a group that could provide support, materials and creative feedback that will encourage and help you make the most of your ideas. We are also open to receiving submissions of work already completed that you would like help exhibiting. However before we get the ball rolling we need to know from YOU what outcomes you would like from the project.

We appreciate your patience and input in the projects planning and hope this continues in the coming months. So far there are a number of things that we want to offer, most of these will depend on people wanting to take part. First we want to hold a series of training workshops in which people can develop skills using images in their professional and personal lives. This might be how to use a camera, or setting up simple studio lighting. We are open to peoples suggestions regarding the content of these workshops...TELL US WHAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO LEARN ABOUT!!

The last meeting was on Monday 23rd November 2009 where we covered the basics of Photoshop to help enhance your photographs. Whether it be to improve your own or someone else’s image for a website or profile, or to create spectacular digital effects you can usually do it in Photoshop. In this session we gave you a brief introduction to the software, and then showed participants how to digitally ‘airbrush’ skin in order to give a smooth yet natural look to your images.

DOWNLOAD - a copy of the workshop handout by clicking Sohoboyz Photoshop Tutorial.pdf

Our next workshop will be - Monday 14th December 6-7pm

So, if you fancy coming to a safe, informal and non-judgmental environment, where you can learn something new, show your work and meet people who share some of your interests please come along!

Email Justin for further details or if you have any questions.