The history of photography is a chronicle of continuous invention and renewal of technical processes and the expressive repertoire of creative photographic communication. These changes in photographic practices have given rise to numerous distinctive approaches, styles, and genres. Some genres rely on staging and directing, while straight photography and street photography seek to create photographic meaning without prearranging the world in front of the camera. Genres such as portraiture and still life may incorporate both major approaches. Photomontage, double exposures, lomography, and recently AI-generated photo-based images rely on the unexpected, the accidental, and the glitch to create photographic meaning.

This exhibition is designed to celebrate photographic diversity. In the spacious Valid World Hall Gallery in Barcelona, we intend to devote separate sections to 19th-century alternative processes, straight photography (including traditional landscapes, cityscapes, portraiture, etc.), photographs capturing the “decisive moment” (including street photography and other images capturing fleeting moments in any captivating situation), staged photography (including both conceptually driven staged art photography as well as still life, and other staged genres), and experimental photography (including photomontages, double exposures, lomography, photographic glitch art, AI-generated photo-based images, abstract photography, etc.). In your submission, please indicate the section you think your work fits best or let us know if it belongs to another category.

PH21 Gallery invites photographers to submit their work for a group exhibition themed From Heliography to AI: Celebrating Photographic Diversity. We are seeking submissions from all photographers who are interested in photographic genre and style traditions and would like to share their work with a wider international audience through the exposure of PH21 Gallery. The theme is broadly defined; we welcome submissions from all photographic genres and styles, including abstract compositions. We are interested in all possible creative interpretations of photographic genres and styles.

​ Please note that this PH21 Gallery exhibition will be presented in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, in collaboration with Valid World Hall Gallery, a renowned centre for the visual arts. ​ One curator’s choice and up to three honourable mentions will be announced. The curator’s choice receives three free entries for any upcoming themed group exhibition calls at PH21 Gallery. (Each free entry includes up to 15 images.) Curators: Zsolt Bátori and Borbála Jász