We're very pleased to welcome Simon Roberts, one of the UK's most highly praised and respected photographers, for an evening talk and a daytime masterclass in Manchester. Having worked extensively in Russia and England to produce the books Motherland and We English, he was commissioned by the UK parliament to be the official election artists of 2010, resulting in The Election Project, a newspaper and touring exhibition with accompanying contributed images from members of the public.

For the evening talk Simon will present an overview of his career, and a selection of work from his main projects. A seat at the talk is reserved for all masterclass attendees.

The masterclass will be for a maximum of 20 participants who would like the chance to find out more about Simon; he will discuss his research, motivation and working methods, mention his work in progress, and also touch on critical areas such as marketing and presentation, working with galleries and publishers, getting breaks, and other dos and dont's.

Later in the day there will be the chance for participants to present their own work for discussion by Simon and the group. This will be limited to the first 12 people to apply. If you would like to show your work, please tick the box when you book your ticket, and bring a selection of 6 - 10 images, ideally from a single project. These should be in jpeg format on a USB flash drive or CD, and ideally named and numbered in the order they should be projected, eg smith01.jpg, smith02.jpg etc.