BELFAST PHOTO FESTIVAL 2027 OPEN SUBMISSION

Belfast Photo Festival’s 2027 Open Submission is open to photographers and lens-based artists everywhere. There’s no set theme: our jury welcomes work of any subject, concept or approach, from documentary to conceptual, and from photographic series to photobooks. We’re looking for original, distinctive bodies of work for public exhibition.

Every eligible entry is reviewed and scored by jurors from Tate, MoMA, PhotoVogue, The New York Times, Centre Pompidou, IPFA and Belfast Photo Festival. 10–15 selected artists will exhibit across Belfast, 3–27 June 2027, at the largest annual photography festival in the UK and Ireland and will benefit from press exposure, social media promotions with a chance to win the £2,000 Spotlight Award. 

Early bird: £22 per entry, until 11:59pm GMT on 11 December 2026

Standard: £26 per entry, until 11:59pm GMT on 5 February 2027

“The UK and Ireland’s largest photographic festival is back.” (British Journal of Photography)

“One of the best photography festivals in the world” (Capture Magazine)

Every eligible entrant receives:

• Review of your work by an international jury
• A chance to be featured to our 30,000+ followers while the call is open, as part of our Instagram residency scheme
• A discount on our 2027 International Portfolio Review

10–15 selected artists receive:

• Exhibition: your work produced as large-format prints by Belfast Photo Festival and exhibited across Belfast, 3–27 June 2027. Seen by over 100,000 people in 2026, as verified by our evaluation team
• Travel support: a contribution towards travel to our festival opening, with visa invitation letters provided where needed
• Partner exhibition: produced by Photo Schweiz 2027 in Switzerland
• Online: a dedicated artist page and gallery on the festival website, which had 39,000 verified visitors during the 2026 festival
• Email: your selection sent to 13,000+ engaged subscribers worldwide
• Social media: your selection announced to 30,000+ followers across Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. Our 2026 selected-artists announcement was the festival’s best-performing social post, reaching a confirmed 26,900 people
• Instagram residency: a guaranteed place in our residency scheme
• Press: your name in our press campaign. In 2026 the festival received 61 pieces of coverage with 5.59 million views, including The Guardian, BBC, Creative Review, PetaPixel and many more
• Print: a listing in the festival programme, with 10,000 copies distributed across Belfast
• Reach report: after the festival, we’ll send you figures showing how many people saw your work

Awards and additional opportunities:

• Spotlight Award: £2,000 cash prize (approx. US$2,700 / €2,300), awarded by the jury to one outstanding selected artist. In 2026 the jury shared the award between two photographers
• Spotlight Interview: a public conversation, in person or online, between the Spotlight Award winner(s), a member of the jury and the festival team
• Royal Photographic Society: one year’s membership
• Mentoring: three one-to-one sessions with the Belfast Photo Festival curatorial team

Who can enter?

Open to photographers, artists, curators, archives and collectives worldwide, aged 16 or over. Entrants aged 16 or 17 need the consent of a parent or guardian. Entry is open at any career stage, and no membership or affiliation is needed.

What to submit

Entries must be photographic or lens-based, and can be combined with other art forms such as performance, painting, sculpture, film, music or literature. 

Previously exhibited, published or awarded work is welcome, and so is work in progress.

• Projects: individuals and collectives can enter 1–15 images from a series, a completed project or a body of work in development. Installation shots are welcome but count towards the 15 images.
• Photobooks: authors and publishers can enter a photobook by uploading a PDF proof, plus a cover image.
• More than one entry: you can enter as many projects or photobooks as you like. Each is a separate entry with its own fee.

How entries are selected

1. Eligibility. Our team checks that every entry meets the entry rules and terms and conditions.
2. Independent scoring. Every juror sees every eligible entry and scores it independently on originality, quality of image-making, strength of concept and suitability for public exhibition, drawing on their own professional expertise.
3. Shortlist and final selection. The highest-scoring entries are shortlisted and discussed by the full jury, who select 10–15 artists together.
4. Fairness. Jurors declare any conflict of interest and do not score work by people they know personally. All scores and decisions are recorded in Picter. The jury’s decision is final.

About us and where your fee goes

Belfast Photo Festival has been a registered charity in Northern Ireland since 2015 (NIC102819). We exist to advance public education in and access to photography, bringing free exhibitions and events to audiences in Northern Ireland and internationally, and creating opportunities for photographers at every level.

Entry fees are one of a broad range of income streams, alongside core funding from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Belfast City Council, project grants, partnerships and earned income.

Every entry fee goes directly into the Open Submission and the festival: exhibition production and printing, artist travel and support, jury fees, the submission platform, and promotion of selected artists.

The festival has also invested over £100,000 in artists’ fees since 2024, alongside support for artists’ travel and the production of their exhibitions.