Fri 11/18 @ 5-9PM
The Cleveland Photo Fest debuted in the fall of 2019, founded by three local photographers, Herb Ascherman, Laura D’Alessandro and Jim Szudy, who performed the astonishing task of putting it together in seven months.
Its inaugural year in 2019 enjoyed remarkable success, especially for a fledgling event, bringing something new to a local arts scene that seems to be growing its number of arts festivals every year. It featured ten exhibitions in 15 venues and helped to promote a total of 21 photography exhibitions. The 250 participants were primarily Cleveland and Ohio photographers, along with contributions from across the country, Canada, England, Belgium, the United Arab Emirates and India.
The organizers and their volunteers were preparing for a more leisurely second edition in the fall of 2020 when Covid brought plans to a halt. Instead, PHOTOTHON 2021 took place in the spring of 2021 with five simultaneous shows at the Bostwick Design Initiative gallery, featuring more than 200 local, regional, national and international photographers.
With the pandemic in the rear view mirror, the Cleveland Photo Fest is ready for its third edition, kicking off this weekend and running through the end of December, also at the Bostwick Gallery.
This year’s theme is One Million Photos. Starting in early 2022, the festival began soliciting photos — any photos of any type — from photographers all over the world, to be uploaded to their website and assembled as tiny images on giant wall panels. The panels are now up in the gallery, ready to be viewed. Did they get to 1,000,000? There’s a large bowl of free mini magnifying glasses as you enter the gallery. Grab one and count them yourself!
In another space at the Bostwick, you can see several hundred images created by area high school students. Longtime music photographer Randy Norfus has filled one of the small galleries and another features photos by Cleveland Photo Fest organizers, staff and volunteers.
The festival opens with a reception Friday November 19 @ 5-pm, with music by The Prom Queens. Gallery hours are noon-9pm Fridays, noon-6pm Saturdays and noon-5pm Sundays through the end of December.
Special programming takes place (mostly) on Friday evenings, with Anastasia Pantsios talking about her career in music photography and showing some of her favorite images on November 25, Nihil Omnia playing image-enhanced “Noiseadelic” music on December 2, travel writer/photographer team Irene & Alex Shaland sharing an interactive photo experience on December 16 and Jackie Bertolette, editor of fashion magazine Haute Ohio, presenting a photographic fashion show on THURSDAY December 29.