New York city is continuing its quest to be at the forefront of contemporary photography with the 2nd New York Photo Festival to be held next month.

Held in the up-and-coming DUMBO neighbourhood (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass), the festival is aiming to compete with the more established International festivals of Europe and Canada. Featuring the four curators William A. Ewing (Director of the Musée de l’Elysée), Jody Quon, Chris Boot, and Jon Levy of Foto8, it follows on from last year’s inaugural festival.

Organisers Daniel Power and Frank Evers feel that New York, being the ”world capital of photography” deserves a festival of it’s own. After the relevant success of the inaugural festival last year, the plan was originally to stage it over 10 days. Perhaps an overly ambitious statement, this has since been reduced to four days in line with 2008.

With a photographic eye focused very much to the future, the organisers aim to explore how images are viewed on a daily basis through websites such as Flickr, blogging and the plethora of social media issues; linking in with how “the classic photojournalism paradigm is fast fading”.

Running from 14-17 May, the event will feature hundreds of photographers and artists, seminars, workshops, book signings and the 2nd New York Photo Contest running alongside. For further information visit www.nyphotofestival.com.