OUR STORY
Frame 1A is a 150-square-foot artist-run photography space in Alameda.
Frame 1A began with a friendship.
Westeigh and Jeff Heyman met through the de Young Open in 2023, where each had work included in the exhibition. Their photographs hung in the same museum, but it was the conversations that followed—about photography, artists, exhibitions, and the value of smaller places to gather around images—that eventually led to Frame 1A.
Friends, photographers, and co-founders, they each bring different experiences and instincts to the space. Frame 1A grew from that friendship and from a shared desire to create a place where photographs could be looked at slowly, ideas could be tested, and people could meet through the work.
Photographer and friend Ken Banks has been part of the room from the beginning. Affectionately known as Frame 1A’s Director of Analog Affairs, Ken was one of the first people to help paint the space, regularly arrives with vinyl and a camera in hand, serves as a guest juror, and remains one of the people Westeigh and Jeff turn to when an idea needs another set of eyes.
In July 2025, they opened the doors at 2500 Central Avenue in Alameda.
THE ROOM
Frame 1A is a 150-square-foot photography space inside a shared building, behind a large front window with a tree fern draping the glass.
People sometimes wander in while visiting another suite. We like that photography can be discovered unexpectedly, in the middle of everyday life.
The room is intentionally small. It creates a different kind of encounter, one where visitors can spend time with the work, notice details, exchange ideas, and have conversations that might not happen in a larger or more formal setting.
Maybe a photography salon, maybe a visual laboratory or maybe Frame 1A is just a conversation with four walls.
One hundred and fifty square feet, a large window, and a tree fern outside.
HOW THE NAME BEGAN
First, we are in Suite 1A. That is literally the number above the door.
But the name quickly gathered more meaning.
When the space in Alameda appeared, Westeigh thought back to a childhood memory. Her best friend’s father served at the Alameda Naval Air Station, and on family days she walked through aircraft carriers, following narrow corridors marked with yellow rectangles containing numbers and letters.
She remembered being told that the markings were part of the ship’s navigation system, identifying the location of each compartment…the frame numbers.
With Alameda, the former naval base, and photography all intersecting, Frame 1A felt like a quiet nod to place, history, and the image itself.
Jeff then pointed out another connection: in film photography, Frame 1A can refer to the first usable exposure on a roll, the place where the photographs begin.
The connection was immediate. We had a name.
WHY THE ROOM EXISTS
Frame 1A is a small, artist-run photography space dedicated to sustained attention to photographs, close looking, conversation, and experimentation.
Through intimate exhibitions, guest-curated presentations, open calls, Challenge Labs, and community-built projects, the space creates opportunities for photographers working across different approaches and stages of practice to share work, test ideas, and connect with others.
Frame 1A is committed to treating artists and their work with care, reducing barriers to participation where we can, and creating space for unexpected connections.
The goal is not simply to display photographs, but to support the people behind them and encourage thoughtful exchange around the images we make and encounter.
Frame 1A remains committed to giving photographs—and the people who care about them—the time and room they deserve.