Take a photography class, then have your work in an art show (that's not in the classroom)? Sounds like an art-school fantasy, but it happened to eight people who took filmmaker and photographer Sergio Goes' summer Pacific New Media class, "The Edge of Truth: A contemporary approach to documentary photography."

Goes approached the University of Hawai'i Outreach College about his project.

"I told them I wanted to teach a class that would send students on assignment and the result would be a show at thirtyninehotel," says Goes, whose photography has been featured in The Contemporary Museum, and whose documentary, "Black Picket Fence," has made the film festival circuit.

Pacific New Media went for the idea and, in July, Goes found himself with eight students — all serious amateur photographers who needed direction.

"That's what this class is about," says Goes, who will teach the course again in spring 2007. "I'm not teaching anyone about f-stops; I'm trying my best to send them in the right direction."

Three months later, their edited work hangs in "Unguided Tour: Food for Thought and Visual Candy," at thirtyninehotel.

Goes devised assignments with the students. "I wanted it to be a sort of portrait of Honolulu's transition to an urban place," he says.

After the first sessions, the students' work was "very random," Goes says. But if you take a lot of photos, "you start to find threads within the work. The class is about finding that thread. It becomes a cohesive body of work."

Alecia Hoyt, who has a degree in psychology but has been taking pictures since she picked up her mom's SLR at age 14, started her own photography business a year ago. She shoots mainly weddings and portraits, and took Goes' class "as an excuse to go out and photograph something different. I thought it would enhance my work."

The result is a voyeuristic look at wee-hour Waikiki, with many of the images of prostitutes.

Hoyt originally had wanted to take portraits, and although she began to gain peoples' trust, it was clear that a three-week course wouldn't allow enough time for a Nan Goldin-like delving into the lives of streetwalkers.

"I saw her blurry shots taken from a distance and I thought that was an interesting esthetic," Goes says. "So she started trying not to mingle anymore."

Her series fits Goes' classroom goal: "Let's tell a story. It wasn't a 'Day in the Life of Hawai'i' kind of thing, which I was really trying to stay away from."

For Hoyt the project "got me out at a time when I'm usually sleeping. Most of my photos were taken between 2 and 5 a.m. It taught me to see Honolulu differently. Sergio encouraged us to try new things."

A classmate, Alison Beste, captured Honolulu at 5 a.m., from the United Fishing Agency auction to the elderly man who tends the garden along Diamond Head Road overlooking Kuilei Cliffs beach. Another classmate, Tim Llena, probes into Filipino-American lives.

Their images hang not only in the Chinatown gallery but are also on Goes' Web site, unguidedtour.com.

"This is something I've wanted to do for a long time — publish an online magazine of visual content. It's food for thought for people to get inspired," Goes says.

He hopes the exhibition will spur people to submit their own unguided tours to the Web site. While he has friends in places such as New York and Sao Paulo, Brazil, who are sending in work, Goes wants to highlight local efforts.

"The beauty of doing this online is you don't need a space, it's cheap, it's instant — like shooting Polaroids," Goes says. "It's a lot easier than opening a gallery."

Reach Lesa Griffith at lgriffith@honoluluadvertiser.com.