November has always been THE big photographic month in Paris, but this year is looking like it will be a record breaker. Here's a list of some of the big events happening in Paris this month. I don't know how I'm going to make my way to all of these, let alone blog about all of them, but hopefully I'll manage something.
- Mois de la Photo. The month of photography kicks off today with 50 exhibitions around the city (including a contribution by yours truly, an Eikoh Hosoe exhibition at the Photo4 gallery on the left bank). This year is the Month's 30th anniversary and the theme is the MEP collection (yawn), but there are some good exhibitions to look out for in there.
- Mois de la Photo Off. These days it seems you can't have a festival without their being a side event and with twice as many exhibitions as the Mois de la Photo itself the 'Off' will be giving the main event a run for its money.
- Fotofest Paris. The good people behind Lens Culture are organising the first edition of this portfolio review event, in collaboration with the renowned Houston Fotofest (yours truly will be be making an appearance here too as a portfolio reviewer).
- Paris Photo (18-21 Nov.): One of the best attended photo art-fairs in the world, this has become a passage obligé for most of the photoworld. Expect too many people, lots of moody black and white images (this year's spotlight is on the Central European photo scene), no natural light, too much looking over shoulders, too many parties with too many cigarettes, WAY too many photographs... and yet you wouldn't want to miss it.
- Offprint Paris (18-21 Nov.): In parallel to Paris Photo, this will be the first edition of Paris's very own photobook fair, which is an interesting reflection of the current growing excitement around photobooks. While we're on the topic of photobooks there's an interesting exhibition opening next week at La Monnaie de Paris on the photobook svengali, Gerhard Steidl, which looks like it'll be worth a look.
If you love photography and you weren't planning to be in Paris this November... what were you thinking?