Visionaries Converge in Liepāja for “Vision and Voices 2025: Photography For a Connected World”

On 29 and 30 August Liepāja played host to the international photo conference, “Vision & Voices 2025: Photography For a Connected World”, gathering an assembly of worldwide celebrated photographers, visual arts specialists, and luminaries from the creative industries.

Over the course of two days, participants were engaged in a series of incisive lectures, discussions, and master classes. The agenda was dominated by pressing inquiries into the very nature of photographic culture in the age of artificial intelligence with debates over how to safeguard the timeless values of the craft for posterity, focusing on the medium’s significance in our rapidly changing times.

The centrepiece of the conference was a lecture delivered by the legendary American photojournalist, David Burnett. Drawing from a storied career spanning half a century, his oration transcended the technical aspects of photography to offer a poignant meditation on life, humanity, and the relentless march of time as captured through a lens. The master photographer shared personal encounters with personalities and posited that the true enchantment of photography resides in its capacity to immortalise human narratives, allowing their stories to endure long after the shutter has closed. He urged his peers never to sever the umbilical cord connecting them to their work and the lives it portrays.

This gathering is a prelude to the city’s role as a European Capital of Culture and forms a part of the Liepāja 2027 launch programme, serving as a precursor to the photographic campaign, “One Day in Latvia / One Day in Europe,” slated for 27 August 2027.