Photo London marked its tenth edition at Somerset House in May 2025 with a 30-photographer exhibition on the city it was made in.
Photo London held its tenth edition at Somerset House in Covent Garden from Thursday 15 to Sunday 18 May 2025. It came a decade after the fair returned to the courtyard on the Strand.
Daniel Newburg established Photo London in 2004, and it was held at the Royal Academy until 2006. It moved to Old Billingsgate for 2007, then stopped.
The fair was relaunched in 2015 at Somerset House, drawing 20,000 visitors and 70 galleries from more than 20 countries that year. London had no fair dedicated to photography before it.
A photograph exists in an edition, and its value depends on when the print was made and by whom. None of that is legible from a screen, so the trade is built on standing in front of the object.
London Lives, curated by the critic Francis Hodgson, brought about 30 image-makers together on the city. They included David Bailey, James Barnor, Nadav Kander and Mary McCartney. New commissions came from Heather Agyepong, Jermaine Francis and Hannah Hughes.
Polka Galerie gave its booth to platinum palladium prints by Sebastião Salgado, the fair’s first Master of Photography. The edition added Positions, for artists without a gallery, and a Book Market.