Expand and Contract: AI and Alternative Processes ends 17 April 2025

Deadline: 17 April 2025. This call invites submissions that consider AI technologies as the most recent addition to the world of alternative processes, and works that explore the connections between AI, camerawork, analogue technologies and visual storytelling, whether while capturing images or printing them. The selected works will be featured in a virtual exhibition on LACP’s website, and selected works will be featured in an in-person exhibition that will open at our DTLA gallery on June 11, 2025.

Technological developments hasten pronouncements regarding the death of photography every few decades, with the most recent trigger being digital innovations, such as digital cameras and image editing software. And yet, photography persists. In fact, it continues to re-define how we engage with one another, imagine ourselves and our position in the world. Most recently, AI caused an uproar among visual practitioners, as machines have been trained to create images using images produced by humans who were not paid for services unknowingly provided. Moreover, AI seems to pose a threat to human agency.

From a creative standpoint, this exhibition considers such conflicts and wonders whether AI is another tool that will expand alternative means to create images, or another step toward the end of photographic creativity as we know it.

Prizes:

1st Place winner will receive $1,000; 2nd Place winner will receive a $500 LACP gift card; 3rd Place winner will receive $250 LACP gift card. Top 3 Winners will also be invited to show their work in our in-person show!
Honorable Mentions: Other artists will receive honorable mentions and have their work shown in our online gallery + up to 3 will be invited to show their work in our in-person show!

Photo Contest Website: https://lacphoto.org/exhibition/expand-and-contract-2025/