Somerville’s Toy Camera Festival is back with a change from years past: Unframed submissions will be accepted.
“We think that might allow people from other countries and farther away to submit work,” said Lee Kilpatrick, festival organizer. “Especially in the context of the tariffs, there might be higher expenses for being able to send framed work.”
Low cost is baked into the festival: Toy cameras are often low-quality and lo-fi, which result in flaws and quirks that give a unique quality to their photos. The fest website lists as criteria for eligibility: “film cameras with plastic lenses (or no lens) and lack of reliable exposure control.”
“Generally, people who are photographers want to accurately capture what they’re seeing in front of them, but toy cameras have sometimes unpredictable effects, and also flaws that make it seem more interesting in different cases to different people,” Kilpatrick said. “There might be lens flares, or glares. Or instead of it being all sharp, it might be more fuzzy or soft focus just through the construction of the camera.”
The festival originated in 2013 from a toy camera photography exhibition at the Nave Gallery in Somerville. It was popular enough that the current director of the Nave, Susan Berstler, suggested a recurring event dedicated to the idea, Kilpatrick said. After several years of being held annually, the festival now occurs every two years – for logistical reasons, not because of a decline in submissions.
This year’s festival is judged by Somerville photographer Mary Kocol, a fine arts photographer at the Harvard Art Museums. “She does great work and has been around for many years in the community,” Kilpatrick said.
The festival garners submissions – and sometimes visitors – from across the country and around the world.
“People will come from quite a ways away. We have a guy that comes regularly from the Netherlands, we had, last year, a whole group of people that came from the middle of the country,” Kilpatrick said. “We have people that come from California, and New York, and we have people that just come regularly to be a part of it, when they’ve gotten in.”
The call for entries opened May 2 and will close June 15. The exhibition takes place Sept. 6-27.
The event has a website at somervilletoycamera.org.
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