Finding Fab Faces. The Fab Collective’s first time out in Liverpool. The idea was simply to capture as many fab looking people as we could with our cameras. Liverpool is a goldmine for this sort of thing.

The photos from our day can be seen in the gallery.

“What is the world coming to? Local artists and local photographers doing work in Liverpool! It’s just beyond me… brilliant.” – Simon O’Brien talking about the Fab Faces day on City Talk radio.

Some words from the Fab Collective about their experiences on the day.

“Four months ago there was an invite from the Liverpool Flickr group for anyone interested in joining in on working on an exhibition to display the beautiful images of Liverpool that were in the group page.

Over those four months a group of about 35 photographers have been working on this exhibition, which will be taking place in St Lukes Church in August, and yesterday we did an event to promote the group.

We spent the day walking around Liverpool and asking people if we could take pictures of them to put on the website www.fabcollective.com and those who had their picture taken were given a card so they could download their image.

It’s been a lot of work but it’s been lovely to meet such a lovely, creative and wonderful group of photographers.

A grand day was had by all and the weather was wonderful, as my sunburn will testify.”

- Brian Roberts

“Well being out of my comfort zone I embarked on the inaugural Fab Collective exercise Fab Faces. I’m no stranger to pounding the streets of Liverpool looking for an interesting face to ‘pop’ out of the huddled masses so I can snap them from a candid perspective, they move on, unaware and oblivious to my attention.

I always wonder what their stories might be, what they do and where they are going, the majority of the time these questions go unanswered however yesterday was an entirely different story.

Going up to random strangers in the street and asking them for a moment of their time so you can take their photo is an experience in itself, actually taking a photo of them that does the subject matter justice is an entirely different story. I met a multitude of people from different backgrounds races and religions however what I was most surprised at was the amount of people I met from different parts of the world, Steven from South Africa, Rosa from Italy, Torsten from Norway and Amir from Algeria to name just a few.

After hearing the soundbite Liverpool, Capital of Culture 2008 you can’t help but be cynical and think it is just a ploy by the council to sell the city to tourists but after today I realise how culturally diverse Liverpool actually is. It isn’t just a city obsessed with football neither is it only famous for the Fab Four but rather it is a city that accepts people from all parts of the world and the world is reflected in Liverpool.”

- Zaki Grant

“At lunchtime on Saturday 2 May while most of the fab collective were gathering outside the Philharmonic ready to find some fab faces on the streets of Liverpool, one of their members was freaking out quietly inside. I had never attempted any kind of street photography before and the very idea of it terrified me. I don’t even own a ‘proper’ SLR camera and had borrowed one for the day in the hope that looking like a real photographer would give me the confidence to act like one.

I was lucky to be paired up with Mark for the day, as I’m a big fan of his street photography. It was comforting to know that he was also trying something new, as he usually shoots candids rather than asking people for portraits. He approached the first people we saw and got some great shots. Then he held back to allow me to approach people. At first I just couldn’t do it, so a few potential subjects passed us by unphotographed.

Eventually I plucked up the courage to ask somebody, then someone else, then another person and before I realised it I discovered I was actually quite enjoying myself. The response I had from people was really positive and I was even taking some half decent photos, a few of which I’m quite proud of.

At the end of a long day when some weary photographers collapsed into the comfy seats back at the Phil I was buzzing with excitement and confidence. My throat felt like I’d gargled razor blades after talking so much but a large part of me just wanted to get out there and do it all again.

I now consider myself to be a fearless street photographer thanks to the support and encouragement of my fab friends in the collective. It was therefore a bit of a shock to see the group photo outside the Phil, which I missed because I dashed inside in a panic, as I’d genuinely forgotten how scared I’d been beforehand. It was only then that it hit home what a journey I’d been on that day and just how much I’d achieved.”

- Sam Bytheway

This post is tagged