Belfast Photo Festival 2023

Belfast Photo Festival 2023: Belfast Photo Festival 2023, Northern Ireland’s international premier visual arts festival and biennial event once again celebrates some of the finest national and international contemporary photography and visual culture inviting all photographers, artists, curators, archives, collectives around the word to participate.

Described as “One of the best photography festivals in the world” (Capture Magazine), the annual Belfast Photo Festival provides the perfect platform for gaining exposure to an international audience, with previous editions having welcomed over 150,000 visitors from all over the world.

Belfast Photo Festival is offering artists/photographers the opportunity to exhibit their work in the main Festival gallery alongside some of the biggest names in the field of photography and have their work taken on tour to be exhibited at the 2023 Photo Schwiez (Zurich, Switzerland), with a number also having the opportunity to be featured in the arts magazines Abridged and Aesthetica. The winners will be eligible for a number of awards, including a cash prize of £2,000 (e.s.t $2,712 / €2,321).

The theme has been left open to remove any restrictions; submissions must be photographic or lens-based but can include incorporations of other art forms with the photographic medium (i.e. performance, painting, sculpture, music, literature etc).

Individuals and collectives are welcome to apply; individuals should select and enter between 1 and 15 photographs from a particular series or body of work AND/OR submit their Photo-book for exhibition by providing a link to a single PDF (stored on for example: Google Drive or Dropbox)

(Note: You can submit both a photo-book and photographs of the same project, but a fee will need to be paid for both. If submitting only a photo-book and not photographs, it will be your photo-book that will be selected for presentation and not photographic prints for exhibition)

Collectives are also welcome to apply; as a collective, you can submit up to 15 photographs (a €23 / €29 submission fee will apply for every 15 images submitted)

Eligibility

The International Belfast Photo Festival 2023 is open for submissions to all photographers, artists, curators, archives, collectives from anywhere in the world.

Prize

The main award for 2023 is the Spotlight Award, is £2,000. In addition the Aesthetica Editorial Award and Abridged Editorial Award will also be awarded. The best works will also be exhibited at the 2024 Photo Schweiz (Zurich, Switzerland).

Entry fees

✤ Early Bird (by 30th November 2022) – 23 Euro
✤ Standard – 29 Euro