An evening of celebration and fundraising for Urban Strawberry Lunch and St Luke’s (bombed out) Church

On Friday 9th September , 6.30-9.30pm, the Fab Collective will play host to One Night Only – a gala evening of fundraising in support of Urban Strawberry Lunch and their work at St Luke’s (Bombed Out) Church.

USL have worked closely with the Fab Collective since 2009, when we held our first exhibition at St Luke’s. Since then we have returned for two more exhibitions, and been a major contributor to USL’s Hollywood Homeless project. See the photo below called “Dialing Dali” shot by Mick Jones, who was one of the participants in Hollywood Homeless.

When it was announced in March 2011 that USL were to receive a 100% cut in Arts Council England Funding the Fab Collective decided that action was needed, and instead of holding our annual exhibition at St Luke’s offered instead to auction the work that would have formed the exhibition. All the money raised from the auction will be donated to USL – the Collective having also paid for the production costs.

The auction will be undertaken by Nick Bray of Partridge Bray Auctioneers, Liverpool’s newest auction house and sale room. Nick has agreed to donate his time for free to the event, and he is inviting his partner Adam Partridge (Flog It!) and former colleague Cathy Hawkes (who has also worked with USL in the past) to join him.

And word of the event has spread, with John Head (Shack) donating a performance. John, local music legend with a loyal and strong fan base, will be appearing with special guests.

USL’s funding cut amounts to £35,000; and together the Fab Collective, Nick Bray and John Head aim to raise in excess of £1,000 towards this target.

The gallery of images for sale is below.  All images are A3 in size and are mounted and framed ready for hanging.  If you can’t come, but are still interested in making a bid, then we can accept bids by email.  Simply send an email to  info@fabcollective.com with your contact details, maximum bid and, of course the title of the photo you are bidding for.  Commissioned bids must be received by 23.59 hours on Thursday 8th September. 

We have also just received this fantastic original acrylic on canvas painting of St Luke’s from local artist, Bernie Howden. Not that we aren’t keen on our photos, but this is a stunning piece.

On 6th August 2011 Liverpool was definitely the place to be for the wonderful Pride march and Summer Of Love event. Photographers from The Fab Collective captured the colourful spirit of the occasion and a broad selection of the beautiful people who, in their multifarious costumes and makeovers, brought a genuine rainbow sparkle to the day.

The atmosphere amongst the crowd was warm and celebratory and the Radio City main stage delivered a stellar line-up of talent to a buoyant crowd of proud Scousers and visitors from all over Europe, united in celebrating Pride. The day was a massive success for the city and is testimony to the ability of its people to create a unique atmosphere celebrating diversity.

The date of the festival, chosen by the community, occurs on the anniversary of the death of Michael Causer; a young gay man who was murdered in 2008. His death united the community and Liverpool city council, leading to the revival of the festival. This event will develop and become a key date in the free music festival calendar in Europe, the success of this has lead to the approval of Stanley Street being designated the city’s gay quarter.

Enjoy the sparkle of the crowd, the wonderful performers, the rainbow colours of the costumes and the glitter and glam of Pride as captured by The Fab Collective in our gallery of Liverpool Pride photos.

The Fab Collective have set out to do a photographic version of the parlour game Exquisite Corpse.

Invented by the Surrealists, this is a game in which players draw in turn on a sheet of paper, fold it to conceal part of the drawing, and then pass it to the next player for a further contribution.

In the photographic version each person takes a photo that the next photographer will be influenced by and respond to with a new photo, eventually building up a body of response images.

The first photos in the series so far are in this Exquisite Corpse gallery and more will be added over time, so check back to see how this develops.

Are you fab? Do you have a face? Then you could be part of our Fab Faces 2010 online gallery – and maybe even see your photo in our summer exhibition.

On Saturday 22nd May we’ll be hitting the streets of Liverpool to take portrait photos of the people we meet. A selection of these photos will be included in a montage in our summer exhibition at St Luke’s (the bombed out church).

If you’d like to be photographed then you can find us at the following places and times:

2pm Chinese Arch
4pm Lyceum, Bold Street
6pm Albert Dock entrance, near the Pumphouse

We hope to see you there.

On Saturday 27 February photographers from the Fab Collective hit the streets of Liverpool ONE to raise money for Haiti by taking street portraits for a donation of £1 or more.

A huge thank you to everyone who had your photo taken – and also to the many generous but camera shy people who just made a donation. With your help we have raised more than £400 for ShelterBox, the disaster relief charity currently working to alleviate the suffering of those in Haiti who were made homeless by the recent earthquake.

The portrait photos are being added to the Help for Haiti gallery over the next few days. If you would like a high res version of your photo you can email the photographer using the contact details below the image or email info@fabcollective.com.

The Fab Collective went back to basics to attempt to answer these questions. Each armed with a cheap disposable camera we hit the streets of Liverpool for a couple of hours on an overcast November afternoon to see what shots we could get. You can see the results in our disposable camera day gallery.

Some people shot to a theme or focussed on a particular subject. Aidan decided to take advantage the covert nature of the small cheap plastic camera and took candid images. Pete shot all his photos from the perspective of a dog. Alan chose a subject very close to his heart. Sam took photos of herself with strangers, as using the camera reminded her of taking disposable cameras on nights out with friends, when they would always take similar portraits at arm’s length.

The day ended where it began, in the pub – after a quick visit to get our prints developed with the fastest service available as, being used to the instant gratification of being able to review shots on our digital cameras, we couldn’t wait to see how we had done. Over a sociable pint we agreed that it had been an interesting exercise that had made us all think again about the way we take photos. None of us have since abandoned our usual cameras in favour of disposables though…

In October 2009 the Fab Collective left the familiar confines of Liverpool and hit the streets (and beach and ever-so-long pier) of Southport. We hoped to capture a slice of this seaside town on a typical autumn Sunday.

Some particularly keen members of the Collective got there first thing in the morning, while others arrived in time for fish and chips by the carousel at lunch. Throughout the day we met an interesting bunch of people, including fishermen, ice-cream vendors, bikers, fairground ride attendants and a lady with a large bible.

Most of us were armed with digital cameras to document the day but a few people only used film. Have a look at the highlights of our trip in the Southport Fun Day gallery.

Don’t forget that ‘Up to something’ – the book of the exhibition is now available.

If you had your photo taken in the exhibition then see if you can spot yourself in the ‘Up to something’ portrait gallery (we are adding your photos as quickly as we can but it may take a few days for yours to appear). We’d also love to see your photos if you took any in the exhibition. Please add them to the Flickr ‘Up to something’ group.

The photographs in the exhibition were all either inspired by or chosen in response to quotes about Liverpool. The title ‘Up to something’ is taken from this quote:

“You know what scousers are like, they’re always up to something. Please do not repeat that to anyone from Liverpool.” Jack Straw 1999

In response to this we would like to say that yes, we are scousers and we are up to something – something fab!

Read reviews of the exhibition by the Daily Post and Art in Liverpool or watch a video about the exhibition on YouTube.

The Fab Collective will be back with more projects and hopefully another exhibition. To find out what we are up to you can follow us on facebook or twitter.

Fab people do fab things. It’s not just Magnum that have all the fun.

The Fab Collective are currently entirely self funded. However if you would like to sponsor any of our activities or future exhibitions then we would love to hear from you. Please contact info@fabcollective.com

We would like to thank Urban Strawberry Lunch, c3imaging and the Ship & Mitre pub for their support for the ‘Up to something’ exhibition. Thanks also to the many people of Liverpool who we have photographed.

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