The collection is the outcome of many of years of close collaboration and mutual trust between the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie and the photographers whose work is shown at the festival. It now includes nearly 3,500 pictures ceded by over 470 photographers since 1976, when the practice was established of having each photographer participating in the festival donate one of his or her exhibited works for the collection.

For the festival’s 50th anniversary, a participatory platform was created where anyone can upload photographs, videos, sound recordings, digitized documents
(newspapers, posters, letters, etc.) and testimonies.
Contribute to the Rencontres d’Arles album by posting your photographs and memories of the festival online. They are the archives of tomorrow and will tell a story, your story, about the festival.