Although photography initially emerged as a technological invention, it quickly evolved into an expressive artistic practice. Pictorialist photographs from the nineteenth century were crafted to resemble paintings, while proponents of straight photography in the early twentieth century aimed for a purely photographic approach to conveying meaning. Street photographers dedicated the medium to capturing fleeting moments, and in the latter part of the twentieth century, many photographers embraced staging and directing to employ photography as a means of artistic visual communication. Straight photography derives expressive meaning from the observed scene, while directorial, or staged photography involves creating a scene based on a preconceived notion. Art photography today encompasses various genres and creative practices, ranging from portraiture, landscape, and still life to staged, abstract, and conceptual photography. More recently, AI-generated photo-based images have also asserted their presence in the art photography scene. In this call, we invite contemporary photographers to demonstrate their understanding of photography as an expressive fine art practice in the twenty-first century. Please note that this PH21 Gallery exhibition will be presented in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, in collaboration with Valid World Hall Gallery, a renowned centre for the visual arts.
