What is Redeye?

Redeye, the Photography Network, is based in North West England. It aims to make life easier for photographers and photography in the region and beyond, by providing information, opportunities, events, training and professional development. It is a voluntary sector non profit company. Anyone can become a subscriber free of charge.

Programme

Redeye provides a number of services which are free to all subscribers. An email update bulletin is sent out every month, containing news and opportunities for photographers. It's worth subscribing as a lot of the information is in the update before it's on the web. Advance warning of major events is sent to all subscribers who supply their postal address details, also an occasional newsletter, The Bigger Picture. This website holds an archive of these publications and also all sorts of other useful stuff (see the Advice & Info and Archive sections). Redeye's free public meetings are in Manchester and Liverpool every six to eight weeks. Finally anybody can email or phone Redeye for help and advice on any photographic subject.

Redeye also puts on paid events. There are several talks each year by well-known photographers; workshops at beginner, intermediate and advanced level; monthly portfolio viewing & advice sessions, called Critique/Surgeries, with curators, picture editors and experienced photographers; and other events such as forums, masterclasses and a large-scale annual national symposium.

Redeye is very pleased to work with a large number of partner organisations, such as galleries and other photographic organisations, across the region and beyond.

Structure

Redeye is run by an active voluntary management group, most of whom are board members, and also has two paid part-time workers: Director Paul Herrmann and Co-ordinator Richard Evans. The board meets eight times a year and also forms small sub-groups to plan particular events and aspects of the programme. Redeye particularly welcomes and encourages anybody to suggest events and get involved in organising them. Redeye receives regular funding for its core activities from the Arts Council of England (North West); and has also had project funding from ACE, RALP, CIDS, AGMA and a number of other organisations. Its head office is in Manchester.

Beginnings...

In 1998 a group of photographers met upstairs in a Manchester pub to discuss some North West Arts research into what the region's practitioners needed. The answer was more complex than it first appeared; while some needed darkrooms, others wanted digital facilities, exhibition space, talks by photographers, help with business and legal matters. Most importantly they wanted to talk and listen to each other, to learn from the experience of others about an industry which can sometimes seem closed and impenetrable. By the beginning of 1999 these meetings had become regular; some of those photographers, chaired by Len Grant, volunteered to help run the organisation, and Redeye had a name and a newsletter. October 99 saw its first events, six talks starting with Paul Hill. The first paid worker was appointed in 2001, and the co-ordinator began working in 2002.