Festival Photo de Florac

ℹ️ Festival stopped in Florac. The Florac Photo Festival, born in 2019 in the streets of Florac-Trois-Rivières, has not been organized in this form since 2020. After an interruption linked to a disagreement over the cost for the municipal cultural budget, the concept was relaunched in 2021 in Mende under the name of Mende Festival Photo, which is now in its 5th edition (September 2026).

Nature photography in the heart of the Cévennes

The Florac Photo Festival was born in 2019 from a desire to highlight nature photography in an exceptional setting: the streets and squares of Florac-Trois-Rivières, in the heart of the Cévennes National Park. The Florac Festival Photo association offered to discover photographic works dedicated to fauna, flora, and natural landscapes, exhibited outdoors and accessible to all, free of charge and without barriers.

A prestigious patron

The first edition of the festival benefited from the patronage of Alain Bougrain-Dubourg, president of the League for the Protection of Birds (LPO), highlighting the festival's commitment to raising awareness of nature and biodiversity. This patronage immediately placed the Florac Photo Festival in an approach of valuing natural heritage and dialogue between photographic art and ecology.

Outdoor exhibitions accessible to all

The festival's approach was radical: all exhibitions were installed outdoors, in Florac's public spaces, accessible 24 hours a day for several months. Approximately 25 national and international photographers, amateur and professional, presented their works in 5 exhibition venues spread throughout the town. Visitors had several months to discover the images during their walks in Florac, making the town itself an open-air gallery.

A festive highlight in September

While the exhibitions were visible for a long period (from June to September in the first editions), the festival organized a three-day highlight in September, bringing together photographers, enthusiasts, and curious visitors for meetings, screenings, guided tours of the exhibitions, and exchanges with the artists. This festive weekend was an opportunity to discover the behind-the-scenes of the images and deepen one's knowledge of nature photography. The 1st edition thus took place from September 13 to 15, 2019, in Florac.

The end of an adventure in Florac, a rebirth in Mende

After the first edition in 2019 and a disrupted start to the 2nd edition, the festival could not be maintained in its Florac form in 2020, as the cost was deemed too high for the commune's cultural budget. The association then chose to transform the event: in 2021, the concept was relaunched in Mende under the name of Mende Festival Photo, with an open-air gallery installed along the Lot and a three-day highlight in September. The 5th edition will be held from September 9 to 11, 2026, in Mende, and the open-air gallery will be visible from June 1 to September 30, 2026, on the banks of the Lot in Mende — not in Florac.

The Florac Festival Photo association

The festival was organized by the Florac Festival Photo association, whose objective was to promote photography and all forms of images, to support and create an annual photographic festival in Lozère. The association wished to satisfy photography enthusiasts as well as nature lovers, and to awaken everyone's sensitivity to this art. The association's headquarters were located at Florac town hall, Place Louis Dides.