The Top 8 Photography Festivals You Should Know About

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Photography festivals are an exciting way to immerse yourself in the scene, offering an opportunity to see, and even purchase, some of the best works available today, from the classic to the contemporary, the traditional to the avant-garde. Crave Online presents a handy guide to 8 of the best photography festivals around the world today.

AIPAD Photography Show New York

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Every April as the cherry trees come into bloom, the AIPAD Photography Show New York presents the crème de la crème from the world’s leading photography galleries at the historic Park Avenue Armory. The show attracts a posh mix that allows you to peruse photo-based art, video, and new media in the company of Chris Rock, Gary Oldman. Jessica Lange, Lee Friedlander, and Elliott Erwitt, among others. The festival is filled collectors, curators, critics, and artists, alike, enjoying New York’s most beautifully produced photography show.

Paris Photo

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Held at the historic Grand Palais every November, Paris Photo asserts the City of Lights’s dominance in the photography world. Hosting over 140 galleries and publishers from more than 30 countries around the world, Paris Photo is one of the most prestigious festivals to attend. In recent years, the festival has partnered with the esteemed Aperture Foundation to host a Photobook Award that has quickly become one of the most desirable honors in the world.

Paris Photo Los Angeles

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With the overwhelming success of its flagship edition, the festival has launched Paris Photo Los Angeles, held annually each spring at Paramount Picture Studios. Held on the studio’s legendary soundstages and on movie set replicas of New York City streets, Paris Photo Los Angeles was an instant hit with photography lovers around the world. The festival has made public programming an integral component of the fair, bringing the public into a dynamic discourse with artists, collectors, and professionals about photography in the 21st century.

Photo L.A.

James Welling ”7690” 42” x 63”, 2015 Inkjet print on rag paper Courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects

Now entering its 25th year, Photo L.A. shows classic, established, and emerging artists from around the world. Now being hosted at The REEF, located in the historic LA Mart building in downtown Los Angeles, Photo L.A. presents galleries and institutions from around the globe, with extensive focus on California and New Mexico organizations.

PHotoEspaña

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The largest cultural event in Spain, PHotoEspaña takes over the city of Madrid every June with a series of exquisitely curated exhibitions and events organized around an annual theme. Museums, galleries, and other institutions have graciously extended their space as the site of these installations that are seeded throughout the city. PHotoEspaña also honors the photography book with a series of awards in recognition of the year’s best work, making it one of the premier venues for the illustrated book.

Photoville

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Held for ten days and nights in mid-September, Photoville is New York City’s largest annual photography festival. Located on the Brooklyn waterfront with a stellar view of the downtown Manhattan skyline, the fair is envisioned as a pop-up photography village made from repurposed shipping containers. Featuring more than 60 exhibitions, 45 artist talks and workshops, and nighttime slide shows, Photoville is free to the public, drawing more than 75,000 visitors each year.

Rencontres d’Arles

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In 1970, Arles photographer Lucien Clergue, the writer Michel Tournier and the historian Jean-Maurice Rouquette launched the Rencontres d’Arles, a one-of-a-kind photography festival held in the south of France in July. Organized in collaboration with French and foreign museums and institutions, the festival takes place in various historic sites, including 12th-century chapels and 19th-century industrial buildings. At nights, slide shows are held in the town’s open air Roman theater, accompanied by performances and concerts.

Visa Pour L’Image

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Every year, the city of Perpignan, France, is transformed for a period of 15 days to host Via Pour L’Image, an annual festival dedicated exclusively to photojournalism. Beginning in late August and running through mid-September, Via Pour L’Image includes exhibitions and screenings, as well as meetings, making it a place where photographers, editors, and agents will meet to discuss, debate, and work together to solve issues that arise working in photojournalism in the digital age.


Miss Rosen is a New York-based writer, curator, and brand strategist. There is nothing she adores so much as photography and books. A small part of her wishes she had a proper library, like in the game of Clue. Then she could blaze and write soliloquies to her in and out of print loves.

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