Embrace the Odds
Somerville Toy Camera Fest is a city-wide celebration of lo-fi analog photography that happens bi-annually. In odd-numbered years, we get things rolling in the spring with an international call for entries, and mount 2-4 concurrent juried gallery shows, plus workshops, artist talks, and other related programming (mostly free!) throughout the month-long festival in September.
The Festival will return in 2027!
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*feel free to call it a biennale if you’re feeling fancy
What’s a toy camera?
Toys have come a long way since we started this Festival in 2013, but our north stars remain the plastic toy cameras that started it all back in the 1960s-70s. For our exhibitions, we welcome photos made with any camera that:
shoots film, or exposes images directly onto to photosensitive paper
has a plastic lens (or no lens — hello pinhole)
offers very minimal (or no) exposure control
See our FAQ for more info…