This is your source for information on San Francisco Bay Area exhibitions, talks, artist receptions, and workshops for people interested in photography. Our focus is on events that are free or are sponsored by non-profit/educational organizations.
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Meanwhile ... last chance to see these events! They will end within the next 2 weeks:
Event Type: SHOW
2025-03-01 to 2025-07-06
de Young Museum
50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, San Francisco, CA 94118
adults $20.00, 65+ $17.00, students $11.00
Hours: Tue - Sun 9:30 AM-5:15 PM;
For more information:
In Eyes of the Storm, recently unearthed photographs by Paul McCartney provide a rare time capsule of The Beatles' world at the moment of their extraordinary rise to fame,” remarked Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. "Well known as one of the world's most famous musical stars, it is a revelation to discover McCartney's proficiency as a photographer, documenting everything from the band’s quieter moments and friendships to the ‘Beatlemania’ of the time. We’re honored to present this exhibition here in San Francisco, where The Beatles left an indelible mark on our city's musical and cultural history."
Eyes of the Storm captures a period from December 1963 through February 1964 when The Beatles performed in concert halls across England and toured in the United States. McCartney’s images reveal the intensity of life on tour, as The Beatles were whisked from concerts to hotels, trailed by enthusiastic fans from New York to Miami. Photographs of screaming crowds and paparazzi illustrate the sheer magnitude of the group’s superstardom. In stark contrast, behind-closed-doors images captured by McCartney highlight the humor and individuality of the band members on their days off. Eyes of the Storm invites visitors to witness The Beatles' journey to stardom, from local venues in Liverpool to the Ed Sullivan Show and worldwide acclaim. McCartney’s photographs of the four band members existed as unprinted negatives and contact sheets for 60 years. Rediscovered in the artist's personal archive in 2020, these images offer new insight into the band, their fans, and the early 1960s, as seen through the eyes of Paul McCartney.
Event Type: SHOW
2025-02-13 to 2025-07-06
San Francisco Public Library
100 Larkin St., San Francisco, CA 94102
Event is Free
Hours: Mon 10:00 AM-5:30 PM; Tue - Thu 9:00 AM-7:30 PM; Fri 12:00 PM-5:30 PM; Sat 10:00 AM-5:30 PM; Sun 12:00 PM-4:30 PM;
For more information:
Until the 1990s, skateboarding was perceived as a suburban, niche activity in Southern California, surfing on sidewalks. Today, it has surged into a global, urban, youth culture phenomenon. Defying easy definition and traditional classifications, skateboarding can be both a sport at the Olympics and an underground subculture, a way to connect with other skaters and surfaces, and also a means of self-discovery through movement in space. Much of skateboarding’s 21st-century appeal – embracing diverse communities, creative approaches to the city’s built environment, music, fashion, slang, trick choice and style – come directly from San Francisco. Skateboarding San Francisco explores how a local activity made global impact. San Francisco has always been and remains a lodestar for skateboarders worldwide, where challenges are seen as appeals, surfaces beckon play and whose lore is celebrated through the city’s characteristic concrete and evolving, vibrant communities.
Event Type: SHOW
2025-05-03 to 2025-07-12
6th on 7th
105 7th Street, in the historic Hotel Isabel, San Francisco, CA 94103
Event is Free
Hours: Thu 1:00 PM-4:00 PM; Sat 12:00 PM-4:00 PM;
For more information:
website: www.6thon7thgallery.com
Photography is often described as the art of painting with light, but it’s the interplay between light, shadow, and shade that gives an image its depth, its mystery, its soul. Light reveals. It sharpens edges, draws the eye, and brings subjects to life. But without shadow, light would be flat, and without shade, we would have no place to rest our gaze,
In life, we tend to chase the light—moments of clarity, joy, insiration. But the shadows are just as essential. They shape our understanding, define our growth, and remind us of what the light truly is. Shadow is not the absence of light—it is its contrast, its partner. It allows us to find meaning.
Shade, softer still, is a place of pause. In photography, it calms harshness and adds mood. In life, shade offeres refuge. It is the shape in between extremes—the quiet, the contemplatice gray between black and white.
To do photography well, it is to honor all three: to let light illuminate, to let shadow define, and to let shade soften. And perhaps, to live well is much the same.
Opening on May 3, 2025, Noon to 4:00PM
Event Type: SHOW
2024-07-17 to 2025-07-06
Cantor Arts Center
328 Lomita Drive at Museum Way, PATRICIA S. REBELE GALLERY (207), Stanford, CA 94305-5060
Event is Free
Hours: Mon 12:00 AM-12:00 AM; Wed 11:00 AM-5:00 PM; Thu 11:00 AM-8:00 PM; Fri - Sun 11:00 AM-5:00 PM;
For more information:
A San Francisco-based filmmaker and multimedia artist, Lynn Hershman Leeson is widely recognized for her prescient work in media-based practices and commentary on the relationship between people and technology. This single, small-gallery installation features a selection of videos, photographs, and ephemera related to select projects from the 1970s from the Lynn Hershman Leeson papers to consider the genesis of Hershman Leeson’s career-long exploration of ideas of personhood and identity, as well as her consistent challenge to rethink what and where art can be.
Stanford acquired Hershman Leeson’s archive (Special Collections, M1452) starting in 2004, with additional material arriving in subsequent years.
Event Type: CALL FOR ENTRIES
2025-05-11 to 2025-07-05 11:59 PM
The Image Flow
328 Sir Francis Drake Blvd, San Anselmo, CA 94960
Up to 3 images $40.00
For more information:
The Image Flow is proud to announce its inaugural 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 the exhibition will automatically 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.
Juried by: Allie Haeusslein, Shana Lopes, Nathan Lomas, and The Image Flow Staff.
Event Type: SHOW
2025-05-14 to 2025-07-12
Chung 24 Gallery
698 Pennsylvania Ave, San Francisco, CA 94107
Event is Free
Hours: Tue 12:00 AM-12:00 AM; Wed - Sat 1:30 PM-6:00 PM;
For more information:
This solo exhibition of work by Edinburgh-based artist Kayhan consists of large-format photographs united by a single word: balance. Each image captures a state of suspended animation—a delicate tension before movement, transformation, or dissolution. Crafted through slow, intuitive methods, these photographs are material traces of touch, time, and light. They bear witness to the uncertain equilibrium of our collective condition, speaking to the fragility and strength of that which endures.
Event Type: SHOW
2025-06-06 to 2025-07-12
Mercury 20 Gallery
475 25th Street, Oakland, CA 94612
Event is Free
Hours: Thu - Sat 12:00 PM-6:00 PM;
For more information:
MERCURY 20 presents the 2025 Juried Show Award winner, whose work was chosen for this solo exhibition from over 500 entries.
Further Into The Place is a photographic project rooted in 1960’s – 1980’s sci-fi art and incorporating Afro-Surrealist motifs. It is a nod to the artists Sun Ra, Funkadelic, Digable Planets, Deltron 3030; to the universes they created and the journeys they took their audiences on. Using items only found in the homes of black grandmothers and aunties, each character is accompanied by the avatars of their prayers in the form of the statues that line their homes. Wilhelm, who is followed and protected by the Black Madonna, learns to harness the abilities that his grandmother saw in him from the day he was born. Avalon was charged to be the ferryman of spirits to the next chapter from the end of the universe. Each being started off as a person but was taken into space just as Sun-Ra was once before. Each is given a chance to grow far beyond the influence of earth as we know it. Further Into The Place invites viewers to explore the polylithic nature of black diasporic galaxies.
Opening reception June 7, 2025, 3:00PM - 5:00PM
Event Type: OPENING
2025-07-12 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Richmond Art Center
2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond, CA 94804
Event is Free
For more information:
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Bay Area emerged as a powerful center of grassroots resistance, where vital political coalitions united to confront racial inequality and social injustice. During this time, Kenneth Green Sr., a young photographer and Laney College student, was honing his craft while actively engaging with the movements unfolding around him.
This exhibition highlights three moments from the Kenneth P. Green Sr. Photography Archive: a Black Panther rally in Richmond following the police killing of Denzil Dowell; the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Laney College’s March Against Repression; and the 19-month Occupation of Alcatraz asserting Indigenous land rights. Through his camera, Green documented these pivotal and interconnected events, plus many others, telling a story of self-determination and the ongoing fight for justice – when individuals across different communities mobilized, organized, and stood together.
Exhibit on view July 9 – September 6, 2025.
Event Type: SHOW
2025-05-31 to 2025-07-19
Catharine Clark Gallery
248 Utah Street, North Gallery, San Francisco, CA 94103
Event is Free
Hours: Tue - Fri 10:30 AM-5:30 PM; Sat 11:00 AM-6:00 PM;
For more information:
Alejandro Cartagena’s In Between Spaces – Entre Espacios is a survey of major photographs and photocollages.
Alejandro Cartagena's projects are primarily documentary-based, utilizing landscape and portraiture to examine social, urban, and environmental issues in Latin America. His work also engages the broader history of photography, reinterpreting how poignant issues have been addressed or represented in the past. This approach has expanded his work's aesthetic and conceptual scope, adding layers of meaning to his complex interpretations of our society. Born in the Dominican Republic, Cartagena lives and works in Monterrey, Mexico, creating photo-based works that reflect on migration patterns and their interrelationship with local and global economies.
His debut exhibition at the gallery features selections from his now-iconic photo series "Carpoolers" (2011–2012). Cartagena writes that the "inception of ‘Carpoolers” was born in the 1980s, in the back of my grandfather's F150 truck. A construction worker all his life, he was the 'maestro' with a crew of workers carpooling to construction sites early in the mornings of Monterrey. Thirty years later, those memories became images on an elevated highway of this northeastern city at the height of Mexico’s housing boom. From an overpass, I photographed laborers riding to work in the beds of pickup trucks; anonymous workers like my grandfather and his crews, suspended between the promise of suburban homeownership and the reality of precarious labor.”
Opening Reception May 31, 2025, from 3 – 5pm; remarks at 3:45pm.
Event Type: SHOW
2025-06-07 to 2025-07-12
Jack Fischer Gallery - Minnesota St
1275 Minnesota Street Project, San Francisco, CA 94107
Event is Free
Hours: Tue - Sat 11:00 AM-5:00 PM;
For more information:
The work by Lauren Davies consists of photos taken at the now closed Ohio State Reformatory. This work explores through photography the culture which has this country as the largest jailer in the world. The work bears a painful and painterly reminder of our carceral tradition. After inmates filed a class action lawsuit they successfully caused the closure of the reformatory. The images are of isolated objects that were left behind to degrade and rust. The photos have been reconstructed and deconstructed into photo weavings. The weavings are now large digital woven photos that have been reworked via hand dying, sewing, cutting, and unraveling. This degrading of the images leaves us with tatters and remnants as a sad grim reflection of the effects this prison and others have on the psyche and body of the incarcerated population.
Opening Reception for the artists June 7, 4-6 p.m.
Event Type: ONLINE ARTIST TALK
2025-07-16 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Center for Photographic Art
San Carlos at 9th Avenue, At the Sunset Center, Carmel, CA 93921
General Admission $10.00, CPA Members $.00
For more information:
Click HERE to register before July 15 at 6:00pm. You will receive a zoom link the evening before the talk.
Don't miss the chance to hear devoted film photographer and the 2025 Jack Wasserbach Award winner from the CPA Members' Exhibition talk about her decades long career, her photographic journey, the treasure trove of the archive, and her first monograph, You've Loved Me Before (TIS Books, 2024). She'll be signing copies of her book the weekend before at the SF Art Book Fair, but you can learn all about her journey in this exciting online talk on July 16!
To learn more about Shane or purchase her book, Click HERE to visit her website.
Event Type: ONLINE EXHIBIT
2025-06-12 to 2025-07-12
Scott Nichols Gallery
450 1st Street East, Suite G, Sonoma Square, Sonoma, CA 95476
Event is Free
For more information:
Event Type: ONLINE EXHIBIT
2025-06-12 to 2025-07-12
The Image Flow
328 Sir Francis Drake Blvd, San Anselmo, CA 94960
Event is Free
For more information:
The Image Flow is proud to present the results of our Photo of the Month – Self-Portrait contest! We evaluated all submissions based on composition, color, contrast, and overall quality. In addition to technical components, we considered the subject of interest, point of view, and whether the image tells a story aligned with our theme. Under the theme, Self-Portrait, this monthly competition was open to photographers globally.
Event Type: OPENING
2025-07-17 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM
Fairfax Library
2097 Sir Francis Drake Blvd, Fairfax, CA 94930
Event is Free
For more information:
website: marinlibrary.org/about-fairfax-library/
Art Show, Fairfax Photo Club: A photo exhibit showcasing a range of perspectives through the eyes of 14 photographers.
Reception Thursday, July 17, 5:30-7:30pm. Come meet the artists and celebrate the opening!
Fairfax Photo Club is a community for photography enthusiasts of all levels. We host regular events featuring photographers from our local community and from major cities like New York and Paris, who share their work and creative process.
On view July 2 – August 28, 2025.
Event Type: SHOW
2025-06-20 to 2025-07-05
an.a.log SF Gallery
886 Capp St, San Francisco, CA 94110
Event is Free
Hours: Sat 12:00 PM-5:00 PM;
For more information:
website: analog-space.org
Analog Gallery presents pioneering work in photography: two artists explore imagined and fabricated landscapes to investigate values attached to the real and the simulated. In different media, though grounded in a shared lineage of fine art photography, Kristen and Sophia both question the mythic tradition of landscape imagery via personal and psychological spaces. Their works situate the landscape tradition squarely in the 21st century, with 3D-wanderings and macro-explorations. The products of their investigations are wholly modern and visually stunning.
Opening Friday, June 20th, 5:30pm-8:30pm
Join us for an Artist Talk Saturday, June 21, 2025, 2pm
Event Type: SHOW
2025-06-13 to 2025-07-07
Random Posts
Black Bird Bookstore and Café, 4541 Irving St, San Francisco, CA 94122
Event is Free
For more information:
website: blackbirdsf.com
The year was 1977, and San Francisco was in the grips of intense social change. Harvey Milk was elected the nation’s first openly gay official, the nascent tech industry was just warming up, and the free love era had given way to a booming counter cultural scene.
But none of this was apparent in the slow-moving outer reaches of the Sunset.
There, Richard Sexton was photographing a working-class neighborhood still bound by tradition.
For six months in 1977 and 1978, Sexton captured the neighborhood on Kodachrome and Ektachrome color transparency film. Endless rows of candy-colored houses, empty streets, and moody skies suggest a Hopperesque quality of unsettling solitude.
Open 9AM - 7PM daily.
Event Type: OPENING
2025-07-05 12:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Oceanblue the Art Vault
643 Main Street, Half Moon Bay, CA 94019
Event is Free
For more information:
There is a new configuration for summer, a few new artists, and many old favorites, from Friday, July 4, 2025, running through Tuesday, September 30, 2025.
This is a gem of art and an incredible source of creativity. It is in a beautiful location with a courtyard between the two gallery buildings. Food and drink will be provided, and you can meet and discuss art with the talented artists.
Our mission is to offer more than just an art gallery—OBV is a gathering place for creativity and inspiration, where both artists and visitors can connect and engage with the artistic process.
Event Type: ONLINE EXHIBIT
2025-06-19 to 2025-07-19
Scott Nichols Gallery
450 1st Street East, Suite G, Sonoma Square, Sonoma, CA 95476
Event is Free
For more information:
Event Type: LECTURE
2025-07-12 6:00 PM - 4:00 PM
PhotoAlliance
1275 Minnesota Street, The Lounge, Minnesota Street Project, San Francisco, CA 94107
Event is Free
For more information:
Join us during the San Francisco Art Book Fair for a special presentation with Datz Press, an acclaimed art book publisher and bookmaking studio based in Seoul, South Korea. Dedicated to the craft of photobooks, Datz collaborates closely with photographers, designers, and bookmakers to create hand-bound, thoughtfully designed artist books that honor the intimacy and power of photographic storytelling.
Datz was founded by Sangyon Joo, an artist, bookmaker, and curator whose artistic journey is deeply rooted in the Bay Area. While studying in San Francisco, Sangyon discovered her passion for photobooks, drawn to their tactile presence and narrative possibilities. This pivotal experience became the foundation for what she would later build in South Korea: a vibrant creative community that merges bookmaking, publishing, education, and exhibition. Since its founding, Datz has grown into a cultural hub for artists around the world, committed to a process that is both collaborative and deeply personal. This special event will feature a group of Datz-affiliated artists sharing their work, including Sangyon Joo, Linda Connor, Lonnie Graham, Chris McCaw, Hendrik Paul, and moderator Anne Birle-Veh.
Event Type: JOB OPENING
2025-06-21 to 2025-07-05
FootHill College
12345 El Monte Rd, KCI Gallery Bldg 4000, Los Altos Hills, CA 94022
Event is Free
For more information:
The Foothill Photography Department is looking for a part-time instructional assistant to support our Fall 2025 Darkroom I Class! If you are interested and/or if you apply, reach out to Judy Walgren walgrenjudith@fhda.edu so we can keep an eye out!
Event Type: OPENING
2025-07-11 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Haines Gallery
2 Marina Boulevard, Building C, San Francisco, CA 94123
Event is Free
For more information:
Haines Gallery proudly presents Elemental II: Photography and the Hand of Nature, a group exhibition bringing together photographs by John Chiara, Linda Connor, Binh Danh, Chris McCaw, and Meghann Riepenhoff.
The second iteration of Haines’ eponymous 2023 exhibition, Elemental II brings together new and recent works taken across the American West and as far as the Arctic Circle, and explores themes including landscape and memory, place and belonging, ecological trauma and environmental stewardship. The exhibition’s title is meant to evoke the active role that nature plays — physically and chemically, as natural forces and natural elements — in composing the works on view.
On view July 11 - September 5, 2025.
Event Type: WORKSHOP
2025-07-10 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
O Hanlon Center for the Arts
616 Throckmorton Avenue, Mill Valley, CA 94941
General Admission $65.00
For more information:
website: www.ohanloncenter.org/
Click HERE to purchase tickets
Slow down, look closer, and discover the beauty in impermanence and imperfection.
In this one-day photography workshop inspired by the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi, students will explore how to capture the quiet poetry of the world around them through a contemplative photographic lens.
We’ll begin with a brief introduction to the principles of wabi-sabi, followed by a guided photo walk on the grounds of the O’Hanlon Center for the Arts.
The class emphasizes mindful seeing, intuitive framing, and embracing the imperfect or unexpected. Towards the end of class, we will gather for an informal group discussion and photo review.
Students are encouraged to bring previously taken images to explore whether they reflect wabi-sabi qualities.
This class is open to photographers of all levels. Whether you’re new to photography or seeking a deeper, more meditative creative approach, you’ll leave with a refreshed eye and a deeper appreciation for the imperfect beauty of the world around us.
What to Bring:
Any camera you’re comfortable with — DSLR, mirrorless, point-and-shoot, or smartphone Previously taken photos (digital or printed) for group review Fully charged battery and memory card, or phone storage Notebook or sketchbook and pen for reflections Weather-appropriate clothing, walking shoes, and some water to drink.
Event Type: SHOW
2025-06-05 to 2025-07-19
Transmission Gallery
770 West Grand Ave. Suite A, cross street West St., Oakland, CA 94612
Event is Free
Hours: Thu - Sat 12:00 PM-5:00 PM;
For more information:
Transmission Gallery is pleased to present Framing Identity, photographs from Jeannie O'Connor's Creative Growth Artists' Chalkboard Drawings Self-Portrait Project.
Setting the scene while letting go of the photographic moment, O’Connor handed her subjects control of their identity in this series of self-portraits with chalkboard drawings by Creative Growth Artists.
Completed in 2016, O'Connor invited the participation of Creative Growth Artists in making a series of Chalkboard Drawing Self Portraits. Expressively exuberant, the drawings form the back drop for each Artists' portrait, capturing their sense of self and providing a glimpse into their creative experience, largely free from self judgement and oppressive expectation.
Three Photo Tex prints, including an unusual 96" x 4" image strip, anchor the exhibition, setting the scene of the self portrait experience O'Connor developed. Other photos include Platinum Palladium prints on watercolor paper and eight Archival Pigment prints on Baryta Photographique, with a selection of 4x5 photos available, printed on Hahnemule watercolor paper.
Mark your calendar for the Artist's talk, Saturday, June 28th at 3:15PM!
Event Type: EXPERIENCE
2025-07-12 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
East Bay Photo Collective
312 8th St, Oakland Photo Workshop, Oakland, CA 94607-4210
Event is Free
For more information:
website: www.ebpco.org
Announcing a free & fun new event - PROJECTIONS! A place to share our collective history.
Join us at Oakland Photo Workshop on Friday, July 12th for an evening of memories, stories and surprises—all told through vintage 35mm slides and Super 8 film. Share your family photos or found images, or simply come and enjoy the show. We will provide slide and movie projectors, you provide the images! Participation is free and open to all. Click HERE if you plan to present.
Event Type: OPENING
2025-07-11 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Random Posts
464 9th Street, Oakland, CA
Event is Free
For more information:
Join us on Friday, July 11, from 5 to 8 PM for the opening reception of Street Stories: Oakland in Focus, a group photo exhibition featuring the work of 39 photographers.
Each participant was invited to submit a single image, with one simple guideline: it had to be made in Oakland.
The result is a diverse mix of perspectives. Some are deeply personal, others quietly observational, all capturing fragments of a city.
Street Stories is both a celebration of Oakland and an honest reflection on a place many of us call home, used to call home, or have simply passed through.
We’d love for you to experience it with us.