The Young Photographers’ Alliance (YPA) arts charity has now formally been
established in the UK. The new website gives details of the YPA Membership scheme and calls for entries for this summer’s 2011 Mentoring Programme.
YPA helps young photographers aged between 18 and 29 bridge the gap between their passion for photography and professional success. Led by industry professionals, YPA provides young photographers with access to practical industry knowledge, resources, and contacts in order to help them to build successful and sustainable careers.
Its main focal activities are its Mentoring Programme and Folio Review. The Mentoring Programme links small teams of promising young photographers
with established photographers and picture editors. The young photographers are assigned a common creative brief and they work with their mentors over the course of 2-3 months to produce a cohesive final project. This year there’ll be two teams in London and one team in Glasgow working to an “Energy” brief. Mentors include award-winning fashion, portrait, and advertising photographer, John Wright , Independent on Sunday Picture Editor Sophie Batterbury, and leading reportage photographer, Justin Sutcliffe.
The closing date for applications to the 2011 YPA Mentoring Programme is 25 June, but even if you miss that deadline, there are still lots of advantages of taking up YPA membership.