Photograph by Andy Day

October 2011 will see the return of the UK’s longest running photography festival featuring over 75 artists and documentary photographers from across the globe in 40 exhibitions. Running from Friday 28^th October to Saturday 26^th November, Hereford Photography Festival will see over 200 works featured in exhibition halls, churches, museums, art galleries and in public spaces, building upon the success of last year’s event which saw over 99,000 visitors over the four week period.

Now entering its 21st year, this year’s festival highlights include an exhibition at Hereford Museum and Art Gallery. The exhibition, entitled ‘Time & Motion studies: New documentary photography beyond the decisive moment’ features work from six leading artists; Donald Weber, George Georgio, Manuel Vasquez, Robbie Cooper, Tim Hetherington and Vanessa Winship who demonstrate the decision process between seeing a potential photo and making the conscious decision to take it. The exhibition will launch on Friday 28th October with a panel discussion and Q & A with the artists.

This year’s festival also sees the return of the highly popular open submission exhibition, ‘Open Here’. Organisers of this year’s exhibition have seen over 300 entrants from across the globe which they have had to whittle down to just 22 submissions. A winner will be chosen on Friday 28th October and will then be commissioned to create an exhibition of their own for the 2012 festival.

Jason Larkin, winner of the 2010 Open Here competition will premier his commission at this year’s festival, exploring the changing face of business premises in Hereford which features living rooms that have been converted into cafes and phone booths which are now public libraries.

2011 also marks the launch of the exhibition entitled ‘Transit’ , a body of work by 8 Polish artists curated by Krakow Photomonth for HPF which is broken down into a number of segments exploring transit populations within Eastern European communities. One particular strand of this exhibition re-stages photos taken from online profiles, looking into how Moldovian women deem they have to present themselves in order to find a Western husband.

Hereford Photography Festival runs from Friday 28th October to Saturday 26th November at venues across Hereford. To find out more details about the festival please visit www.photofest.org