Exposure Photography Festival 2026

Held annually in February, the Exposure Photography Festival is a month-long celebration of photography across Alberta, Canada.

Overview

The Exposure Photography Festival cultivates participation and dialogue across photographic communities, bringing together photographers, art professionals, and audiences to explore the medium’s evolving past, present, and future. To provide Alberta with an internationally renowned photography festival that includes exhibitions, events, public art, community engagement, and learning opportunities, offering dynamic programming to Calgary’s arts-engaged audiences while reaching out to and nurturing new audiences for photography.

The North West Showcase exhibition will open on February 5th and run through March 5th, 2026 at Contemporary Calgary. It provides the city and its visitors with a significant visual arts destination dedicated to modern and contemporary art. Since 2020, Contemporary Calgary has hosted Exposure’s open call exhibitions, as well as a solo exhibition featuring the previous festival’s Emerging Photographer of the Year.

Lana Collins, Exposure Emerging Photographer of the Year 2025, presents All My Sisters, a love letter to sisterhood in all its forms, the chosen, the inherited, the accidental, and the fleeting. It honours the bonds that grow between friends, collaborators, strangers, and everyone who quietly participates in communal care.

Additionally, the International Open Call welcomes diverse and innovative submissions from photographers and visual artists around the world who incorporate, celebrate, or challenge the photographic medium within their practice.

Among the exhibiting artists are April Neuhaus, Brandon Leung, Brody McQueen, Carey Shaw, Elisha Lozares, Jonathan Van Elslander, Kathryn Audet, Madison Chow, Melika Forouzan, Melissa Naef, Michael de Haan, and Sarah Neumann.