Vancouver’s Capture Photography Festival has put out an open call for photographers interested in conducting exhibits as part of the month-long event, which returns to the city this April.

The annual celebration of locally produced, lens-based art features public installations, tours, artist talks, and panel discussions at various venues across the Lower Mainland. Next year’s event, which takes place from April 1 to 28, 2017, marks the first time that the fete will include a range of self-submitted projects.

Interested artists are welcome to submit photography or lens-based showings of all subject matters in one of two categories online: the selected program or the open program.

Proposals in the selected program will be assessed by a jury, and chosen projects will headline the festival and receive priority placement online and in Capture magazine. Participating photographers may also contribute to Capture-led events such as artist talks and gallery hops.

Proposals in the open program, meanwhile, will not be subject to a jury evaluation. Projects that do not make the cut in the selected program will automatically be offered a place in the open program.

All submissions must include a secured venue at submission time. Probable exhibitions in the selected program must take place in “professional” spaces, such as artist’s studios or galleries, while those in the open program may take place in public spaces, such as coffee shops or retail stores.

Capture encourages artists to “think beyond the boundaries” by considering out-of-the-box themes, displays, and venues. Photographers do not have to be from or based in the Lower Mainland, but their exhibitions must take place in the area sometime during April 2017.

The introduction of the open program, the festival notes, is meant to build and engage all facets of Vancouver’s lens-based community while exposing the public to a wider scope of art.

This year's Capture Photography Festival featured lens-based exhibitions at over 50 galleries and spaces throughout Vancouver, including installations at nine Canada Line stations, travel pieces by photographers Josema Zamorano and Valerie Durant, and the results of a photographic, cross–North America road trip concerning the meaning of love.

For more information about the Capture Photography Festival, or to submit your own exhibition proposal, click here.