Paris Photo 2025: A Living History of Photography in the City That Defined the Medium
Paris has always been the heartbeat of photography. Long before the fairs, the crowds, and the global influx of collectors each November, the medium itself began here in this city that has never stopped looking at the world through a lens. As Paris Photo 2025 opens at the Grand Palais Éphémère, it becomes more than an international gathering. It is a reminder that photography’s past, present, and future all continue to pass through Paris.
In 1839 Louis Daguerre introduced the daguerreotype in Paris, crystallizing the city as the birthplace of photographic innovation. That legacy carried forward through the eyes of Eugène Atget, Brassaï, and Cartier Bresson, whose images transformed Paris into both muse and memory. Today, Paris Photo extends that lineage. Since its founding in 1997, the fair has become the most influential platform dedicated entirely to photography, assembling a panoramic view of the medium’s evolution. Vintage prints, rare processes, contemporary experiments, large scale works, and emerging artists all converge here, creating a cross section of where photography has been and where it is heading.
More than one hundred fifty galleries and publishers participate each year, bringing together collectors, artists, curators, and institutions from around the world. It is a place where early silver gelatin prints sit alongside monumental chromogenic works, where handmade processes like platinum palladium meet digital compositions that push the limits of scale, color, and narrative. The conversations feel slower in Paris and the crowd more studied, creating an atmosphere where photography is not treated as an accessory to contemporary art but as a full language of its own.
Beyond the walls of the fair, the entire city becomes an extended exhibition. Museums and foundations across Paris shape the week, from the Jeu de Paume to the Maison Européenne de la Photographie to independent galleries on both sides of the Seine. Paris in November, with its crisp light and cinematic atmosphere, sharpens the eye. Artists have been drawn here for nearly two centuries because the city offers what photography craves. Texture, contrast, architecture, and visual rhythm live at every corner.
Paris Photo continues to matter because it centers photography as both art and artifact. Works that debut here become touchstones in private and institutional collections. The fair often sets the tone for which artists are being rediscovered, which processes are gaining momentum, and how collectors are approaching the medium. It is a place where the history of photography feels alive, where the next chapter reveals itself in real time, and where the relationship between image and memory continues to evolve.
As Paris Photo 2025 unfolds, it stands not only as a renowned fair but as a living archive. It honors the origins of photography while celebrating its constant reinvention, reminding us why Paris remains the city where the story of the medium is continually being written.
