Helsinki Photography Festival
Helsinki Photography Festival is a triannual event organised by the Union of Artist Photographers. The festival presents a wide range of photographic art through changing themes. Apart from exhibitions, the festival also includes seminars, meetings with artists, workshops and portfolio meetings.

The most recent festival was held in Helsinki in autumn 2005:
Helsinki Photography Festival 2005, to be continued.../jatkuu...
08.10. - 06.11.2005


History of the festival
The precursor of the Helsinki Photography Festival, the Valokuvataide - Arkitaide festival, the oldest and most traditional photographic event in Finland, was organised nine times. The first festivals in the early 1980s were the result of voluntary work by activists in the then Finnish Society of Photography. The aim was to make photography, still largely a marginal art form, known to the public at large. The Arkitaide festivals, Valokuvaus ja valta (Photography and Power, 1993) and Saksalaisia teemoja (German Themes, 1996), had already targeted more specific audiences interested in the problems and issues of photography.

The last Valokuvataide - Arkitaide festival, Joitakin Osia Maailmasta (Some Parts of the World), was the largest and most international exhibition and event of contemporary photography ever organised in Finland.