Currently there is no London-wide photography festival and no organisation in the UK dedicated to preserving street photography as an accessible art form, important tool for communication and method to document and reflect on society and human behaviour. Enter the London Street Photography Festival 2011, to change all that.

Aiming to give street photography a home in the UK and provide Londoners with a celebration of their city through the essential tradition of Street Photography, the festival will questions, supports and provides a platform for dialogue around street photography, raising the profile of photographers and their work.

Flying the flag of street photography

The London Street Photography Festival is an exciting new event in London’s cultural calendar which will champion the best contemporary street photographers, honour past masters and provide a space for discussion, debate and appreciation of the current relevance of this time-honored genre.

The festival takes place over 10 days (7-17 July) with a diverse programme of exhibitions, events, talks, walks and workshops.

There’s also a couple of competitions running, including a Student Award and an International Award. Unfortunately, it appears that the awards are run by Shoot Experience – who did the photographic treasure hunt which the editor and deputy editor of Small Aperture participated in back in 2008. ‘Unfortunately’, because the judging at the event we were at seemed haphazard at best, as described in a post from back then. Let’s hope they’ve improved their judging since then: if they haven’t, the cynical among us could conceivably start thinking that the £30 entry fee is simply a way of making a ton of cash…