For sixteen consecutive years, the Hereford Photography Festival has presented a broad range of quality international photography.   The UK’s only annual photography festival, its aim has always been to promote work that comments on and raises questions about cultural and social issues.

Under the directorship of Paul Wombell, who was recently appointed, the festival opens on Saturday 30th September until Saturday 28th October.  Much of the work from the festival’s recent publication SO NOW THEN will be exhibited.   Edited by Paul Seawright and Chris Coppock, the book features an extensive range of contemporary photography from key international documentary photographers working today, nominated by a number of eminent figures working in photography. 

Photographers from the publication exhibiting in this year’s festival include Shelby Lee Adams  Appalachian Lives, Chien-Chi Chang  Double Happiness, Weng Peijun  Bird’s Eye View & On the Wall, Julio Grinblatt  People Facing Their Birthday Cakes, An-My Lê  US Military Exercises, Trent Parke  Dream/Life and Beyond, Paul Shambroom  Meetings,  Massimo Vitali  Italian Beaches,  Michael Wesely  Berlin.  Also exhibiting will be Moyrah Gall Shooting the Past and Susete Almeida  Guirlandia.

A One-Day International Conference on Tuesday 10th October (9.30-17.30) at Hereford’s Courtyard Centre for the Arts will review ideas proposed in SO NOW THEN. Chaired by Paul Wombell, speakers will include Shelby Lee Adams, Simon Norfolk, Weng Peijun, Paul Shambroom, Michael Wesely and David Campany, artist and Reader in Photography at the University of Westminster and contributor to SO NOW THEN.

Supported by Arts Council England and The Elmley Foundation, the festival takes place in venues around the rural city of Hereford for the month of October.

All within an easy walking distance of each other, venues include The Courtyard Centre for the Arts, the City Art Gallery, the Left Bank’s Gwynne Warehouse and Hereford city’s newest arts centre ‘Watershed’, an extraordinary glass structure beside the River Wye.

Other exhibitions this year will include photography from young people in Herefordshire and an exhibition entitled The Mayors, The Councils and The Parliament.   Inspired by Paul Shambroom’s exhibition Meetings (observations of local council meetings in American towns), it looks at the British tradition of portraying local politicians, with some fascinating images unearthed from Hereford City’s council archives.