24 Photography Festivals Across the World with Open Calls
A Guide to Photography Festivals from The Open Call List
Hi,
Welcome to the first bonus guide for paid subscribers to The Open Call List!
This guide outlines 24 photography festivals across the world with internationally open calls, including calls for exhibitions, grants, awards photobooks, portfolio reviews, and more.
Why Festivals?
Photography festivals bring together venues, organizers, sponsors, artists, marketing teams, and other contributors. As a result, the scale of their exhibitions, events, and open call opportunities are often much larger than individual exhibitions or solitary open calls. Generally, festival benefits include…
Large Audiences. Festivals attract visitors from both inside and outside of the photography community. In fact, several festivals in this guide exhibit work to hundreds of thousands of visitors each year, which makes them fantastic opportunities to exhibit your work to new, large audiences.
Support and Funding. Photography festivals combine industry support (from galleries, museums, and other photo organizations) with funding (from local, private, and corporate sponsors). Organizers often produce extremely high quality exhibitions in esteemed venues, as well as offer opportunities for funding and other awards for participating photographers.
Connections. Most photography festivals convene industry professionals, including gallerists, photographers, curators, publishers, museum directors, and more. Further, festival programming often includes dedicated opportunities for artists to connect with these industry professionals, above all in the form of portfolio review sessions. These are unique opportunities to introduce yourself and your work to some of the industry’s most important people. (In this guide I have indicated which festivals offer dedicate portfolio review sessions - most do!)
Ad-free bonus guides like this one are released once a month for paid supporters of The Open Call List. In contrast with The Open Call List’s weekly, time-sensitive content, paid bonus guides such as this one are evergreen and focus on recurring open calls that will best serve your practice, your ongoing projects, and your photographic goals.
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24 Photography Festivals Across the World with Open Calls
This guide lists festivals chronologically to help you prepare to submit work throughout the year. Please note: Submission deadlines for each festival vary. Generally, submissions close several months prior to the festival.
Note: Due to its length, I had to split this guide into two posts. See the second half of the guide here.
1. Exposure Photography Festival
Location: Calgary, Alberta, CA
Month: February
Open Calls: International open call for exhibition (+ funding) and Emerging Canadian Photographer Showcase
Portfolio Reviews: Yes
Website: exposurephotofestival.com
Instagram
Exposure Photography Festival is the largest photo festival in Canada. It takes place annually in Calgary and across Alberta, Canada. In its most recent year, the Exposure Festival received over 450,000 visits to 48 exhibitions and 29 events.
The festival hosts two annual open calls: one for emerging Canadian photographers, and another open to international artists. From the international call, the festival typically exhibits one work per selected artists. Exhibiting artists receive a production stipend and are eligible for several Exposure Awards.
2. Month of Photography Denver
Month: March (every other year)
Location: Denver, CO, USA
Open Calls: Exhibitions, events, awards, and more
Portfolio Reviews: Yes
Website: denvermop.org/
Instagram
The Month of Photography Denver is a biennial festival that hosts exhibitions and photography-driven events in Denver and across Colorado. The festival is organized by the Colorado Photographic Arts Center with community involvement from galleries and organizations across the state.
The festival offers an extensive and wide range of open calls, including opportunities for exhibitions, events, awards, and more. The Month of Photography website maintains a list of open calls in advance of each edition of the festival. The list of open calls for MOP Denver 2025 has just now begun populating here, and will continue to have opportunities added to it between now and March.
3. Format Festival
Month: March (every other year)
Location: Derby, UK
Open Calls: Exhibition (with stipend and accommodation), commissions, and awards
Portfolio Reviews: Yes
Website: formatfestival.com/
Instagram
Format is a festival in Derby, UK, that celebrates contemporary photography. The festival invites wide international participation in the form of foreign artist commissions, open calls, residencies, conferences, and collaborations. Each edition of the festival draws over 100,000 visitors.
Format Festival hosts several open calls, including for a open call for photographic projects for exhibition. Winning photographers receive artist stipends, funding for travel, accommodation during the opening weekend, a production budget, exhibition at the festival, and are eligible for additional awards of up to £2,500.
Additional open calls include calls for paid artist commissions which take place during the Format Festival, as well as varying open calls for residencies.