Competitions & Contests

Bay Area Photography Open 2026 Exhibition at The Image Flow

Entry Dates	2026-07-12T23:59:00+00:00 - 2026-05-11T00:00:00+00:00 66 Days Left

Description

Photo © Gina Basso, BAPO 2025 Artist

CALL FOR ENTRY: 2nd Annual Bay Area Photography Open Exhibition

Exhibition Dates: September 19, 2026 – January 8, 2027Juried by: Nelson Chan (Associate Professor, Rhode Island School of Design & Co-Founder of TIS Books), Ann Jastrab (Executive Director, Center for Photographic Art), and The Image Flow Staff

The Image Flow is proud to announce its 2nd Annual Bay Area Photography Open exhibition, a juried call for entry that seeks to showcase the exceptional creative talent of photographic artists in the extended Bay Area region.
From digital images to alternative processes, and everything in between, this exhibition is open to all styles and disciplines that utilize a photographic element. This will be an open theme show; all subject matter and media explorations are eligible for consideration (with the exception of AI generated images).
Participants chosen for exhibition will receive a softcover catalog detailing all selected works, and will also be showcased in our online gallery and on our social media.

Eligibility

This call for entry is open to all photographers based in the extended San Francisco Bay Area. This will include each of the 9 Bay Area counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma counties. All entries must be original works of art and entirely the work of the entrant.All accepted artwork must be framed to professional standards. For details, see our Terms & Conditions.Registration & Fees
$40 non-refundable registration fee. Artists may submit up to 3 images for review.
Registration fees help us to provide an honorarium to our jurors for their time and expertise, and to compensate our gallery team handling shipping/receiving, installation/deinstallation, gallery promotion, and publication of exhibition catalogs for participating artists.Image File Requirements

2500 px on the longest edge, 72ppi, JPG saved at 80% quality in sRGB colorspace.File size must be limited to 5MB.When listing physical dimensions, please include dimensions for the full, framed artwork, even if this is an estimation. For more information about submission policies, liability, and criteria please visit our Terms & Conditions. Call for Art Calendar

• Submissions Open | Monday, May 11, 2026• Submissions Close | Sunday, July 5, 2026 at 11:59PM• Selections Announced | Monday, July 20, 2026• Last Day to Receive Artwork | Tuesday, September 8, 2026• Exhibition Dates | Monday, September 21, 2026 - Friday, January 8, 2027• Opening Reception | Saturday, October 24, 2026 - 5-7PM• Uninstall & Artist Pickup | Week of January 11, 2027

Thank you for your interest and we look forward to seeing your work!

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Jurors

Nelson Chan (Associate Professor of Photography, Rhode Island School of Design) was born in New Jersey to immigrant parents from Hong Kong and Taiwan and has spent most of his life between the US and Hong Kong (colonial and post-Handover eras). Having grown up on two continents with unique and shifting cultures, this immigrant experience has influenced the majority of his work.
Nelson is a graduate of RISD, where he received his BFA in Photography, and a graduate of the University of Hartford, Hartford Art School, where he received his MFA. He has been exhibited nationally and internationally at institutions such as the Museum of Chinese in America, New York, NY; Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA; The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA; Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany; and 798 Space, Beijing, China. His books are collected in the institutional libraries of the MET, the Guggenheim, SFMOMA, the Whitney Museum, the Harry Ransom Center, and MoMA, among others.
Along with his photographic work, book publishing is another focus of his studio practice. Nelson is co-founder of TIS books, an independent publisher that concentrates on limited-edition photobooks. He was production manager at the Aperture Foundation from 2016–19, and prior to his appointment at RISD, was an associate professor of photography at the California College of the Arts.

Ann M. Jastrab, MFA, is the Executive Director at the Center for Photographic Art (CPA) in Carmel, California. CPA strives to advance photography through education, exhibition and publication. These regional traditions—including mastery of craft, the concept of mentorship, and dedication to the photographic arts—evolved out of CPA's predecessor, the renowned Friends of Photography established in 1967. While respecting these West Coast traditions, CPA is also at the vanguard of the future of photographic imagery.
Before coming onboard at CPA, Ann worked as the gallery director at RayKo Photo Center in San Francisco for 10 years until their closure in 2017. While being a champion of artists, she created a thriving artist-in-residence program at RayKo where multiple residents received Guggenheim Fellowships. Ann was also the gallery manager at Scott Nichols Gallery in San Francisco where she incorporated contemporary artists with the legends photography.
During her tenure at the Center for Photographic Art, Ann has created important artist grant and scholarship programs to support creatives and students. She has also taken the organization from a regional arts center to one with members on 6 continents. She most recently launched a photography festival called PhotoCarmel that celebrates the medium on the central coast of California. Ann is a juror and reviewer for numerous organizations and institutions. She also taught for more than a decade at the Maine Photographic Workshops (now Maine Media Workshops) in Rockport, Maine.

The Image Flow aims to celebrate photography in all its forms and to provide a platform for photographers of all levels to create work, exchange ideas, and to innovate the medium of photography. Our staff and instructors are deeply engaged with photographic practice in their daily lives and bring that same dedication to our space each day. We remain committed to making photography accessible to the community by providing public exhibitions, free lectures, workshops, and imaging services.

Today, our workshops and services continue to be in support of The Image Flow founder Stuart Schwartz's mantra - "It's not a photograph until it's a print" - driving toward photography in print form. We possess the tools and expertise needed to help bring your vision to life.

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