Anyone been to the Arles Photo Festival?

[Bridges]

This was actually one of the reasons I signed up to this forum, to ask if anyone else has been. We went recently, as we decided to break our stay in Marseille because the rugby hordes from Britain were descending on the place. So we stayed a few nights in Arles, which we'd been planning to visit anyway, because of the famous photo festival that's held there every year. We actually didn't really get to see that much, because its good to just enjoy a few things, rather than rush round and not end up seeing much anyway. Highlights were Søsterskap (Sisterhood), which included the poster image by Emma Sarpaniemi; Diane Arbus, Saul Leiter, Ahlam Shibli and Gregory Crewdson. There was a strange (but excellent) litle film by Garush Melkonyan. The festival is spread over many venues throughout the town, including parks, public buildings and churches, as well as fantastic galleries. Some amazing photography, some not so amazing, but great variation and diversity. Something for everyone, I thought.

 

[welshwizard645]

I've heard of it and a visitor at our club pre-covid made a presentation about it, made a positive impression.

 

[Bridges]

I would strongly recommend it to anyone into the more 'art' side of photography, certainly. It's extremely well curated, and some fantastic work. And Arles is a lovely town; soaked in history, with good food and a very relaxed atmosphere. Our visit also coincided with a local festival, there was bullfighting and bull running, which we found quite alarming as we had no idea of such things, but very traditional, and away from the needless torture and slaughter of animals for human sport, was a really lively, exciting and fun experience.