InterFoto was the largest festival

Festival

A festival or gala is an event, usually and ordinarily staged by a local community, which centers on and celebrates some unique aspect of that community and the Festival....

 of professional photography

Photography

Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...

 in Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, the Baltic States

Baltic states

The term Baltic states refers to the Baltic territories which gained independence from the Russian Empire in the wake of World War I: primarily the contiguous trio of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania ; Finland also fell within the scope of the term after initially gaining independence in the 1920s.The...

 and CIS

Commonwealth of Independent States

The Commonwealth of Independent States is a regional organization whose participating countries are former Soviet Republics, formed during the breakup of the Soviet Union....

 countries from 1994 to 2004. It was founded by two American photojournalists, Washington Post photographer and Pulitzer Prize

Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

 winner Lucian Perkins

Lucian Perkins

Lucian Perkins is an award-winning American photojournalist, who is best known for covering a number of controversial conflicts with profound compassion for his photograph's subjects, including the war in Afghanistan, Kosovo and the 1991 Persian Gulf War...

 and freelancer Bill Swersey and during the years established an excellent reputation within the Russian photographic community

Community

The term community has two distinct meanings:*a group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, and often refers to a group that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household...

, bringing together local, regional and international communities of photographers, photo editors, curators, and industry leaders to exchange ideas, inspire, educate, and provide career opportunities.

InterFoto, a Russian-American non-profit organization, was designed to foster the development and international exposure of Russian photography through the production of an annual InterFoto International festival for professional photographers in Moscow and the annual all-Russian contest Press Photo Russia.

The festival brought many prominent international photographers to Moscow to present their work and review local photographers' portfolios. Among those who participated: Josef Koudelka

Josef Koudelka

Josef Koudelka is a Czech photographer.-Biography:Josef Koudelka was born in 1938 in Boskovice, Moravia, town of about 10,000 inhabitants. He began photographing his family and the surroundings with a 6 x 6 Bakelite camera...

, Anthony Suau

Anthony Suau

Anthony Suau , is an American award-winning photojournalist.-Life:He worked for the Chicago Sun Times, and Denver Post....

, Douglas Kirkland

Douglas Kirkland

Douglas Kirkland is a prominent photographer based in the United States. At age twenty-four, Kirkland was hired as a staff photographer for Look magazine and became famous for his 1961 photos of Marilyn Monroe taken for Look's 25th anniversary issue...

, Antonin Kratochvil

Antonin Kratochvil

Antonin Kratochvil is a Czech-born American photojournalist. He is a founding member of the VII Photo Agency. He received his BFA in Photography from Gerrit Rietveld Academie which is located in Amsterdam, Holland...

, Mikhail Evstafiev

Mikhail Evstafiev

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Evstafiev , is a Russian artist, photographer, and writer.He began painting and photographing at an early age. His mother, grandmother and great grandfather — all prominent Russian sculptors — inspired him to develop his own style in art...

, Lauren Greenfield

Lauren Greenfield

Lauren Greenfield is an American artist, documentary photographer, and documentary filmmaker. She has published three monographs of her photographic work, directed four documentary films, exhibited her photographic prints in museums throughout the world, and had her work published in a variety of...

, Donna Ferrato, Martin Parr

Martin Parr

Martin Parr is a British documentary photographer, photojournalist and photobook collector. He is known for his photographic projects that take a critical look at aspects of modern life, in particular provincial and suburban life in England...

, Michael "Nick" Nichols, Steve McCurry

Steve McCurry

Steve McCurry is an American photojournalist best known for his photograph, "Afghan Girl" that originally appeared in National Geographic magazine.-Early life:...

, Larry Towell

Larry Towell

Larry Towell is a Canadian photographer, poet, and oral historian.Towell grew up in a large family in rural Ontario and studied visual arts at York University in Toronto where his interest in photography first began...

, Pedro Meyer

Pedro Meyer

Pedro Meyer is a well-known photographer based in Mexico. He is one of the pioneers of the digital revolution in contemporary photography...

, Gerd Ludwig

Gerd Ludwig

Gerd Ludwig is a German-American documentary photographer and photojournalist.- Biography :...

, William Klein

William Klein

William Klein is a photographer and filmmaker noted to for his ironic approach to both media and his extensive use of unusual photographic techniques in the context of photojournalism and fashion photography...

, Gueorgui Pinkhassov

Gueorgui Pinkhassov

Gueorgui Pinkhassov is a photographer, born in Moscow in 1952. He began his interest in photography in his teens, and enrolled at the Moscow Institute of Cinematography in 1969....

, Micha Bar-Am

Micha Bar-Am

Micha Bar-Am is a renowned Israeli journalistic photographer. His most prominent pictures are from when he covered the Six Day War. His pictures are not so much of direct combat, but more of wartime life....

, Letizia Bettaglia, Burt Glinn

Burt Glinn

Burton Samuel Glinn was an American professional photographer who worked with Magnum Photos. He covered revolutionary leader Fidel Castro's entrance into Havana, Cuba, and photographed people such as Andy Warhol and Helen Frankenthaler...

.

In addition to bringing foreign photographers to Russia to share the work and meet their Russian colleagues, the InterFoto festival served as an important place for Russian photographers to meet international and local photo editors. Among the Russian and CIS photographers 'discovered' by Western editors at InterFoto festivals: Vladimir Syomin, Ljalja Kuznetsova, Igor Mukhin

Igor Mukhin

-Biography:After graduating from college, Igor worked in a project institute. From 1985 to 1986 he attended classes at the studio of prominent Moscow photographer Alexander Lapin...

, Vladimir Velengurin, Andrey Chezhin, Vadim Gippenreiter.

Over the 10 years that the festival was held, InterFoto received significant funding from Canon as well as support from Nikon

Nikon

, also known as just Nikon, is a multinational corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, specializing in optics and imaging. Its products include cameras, binoculars, microscopes, measurement instruments, and the steppers used in the photolithography steps of semiconductor fabrication, of which...

, Kodak, Fujifilm

Fujifilm

is a multinational photography and imaging company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.Fujifilm's principal activities are the development, production, sale and servicing of color photographic film, digital cameras, photofinishing equipment, color paper, photofinishing chemicals, medical imaging...

, Polaroid

Polaroid Corporation

Polaroid Corporation is an American-based international consumer electronics and eyewear company, originally founded in 1937 by Edwin H. Land. It is most famous for its instant film cameras, which reached the market in 1948, and continued to be the company's flagship product line until the February...

 and other companies. The organization also received grants from the Soros Foundation

Soros Foundation

A Soros Foundation is one of a network of national foundations, mostly in Central and Eastern Europe, which fund volunteer socio-political activity, created by George Soros, international financier and self-proclaimed philanthropist, and coordinated since early 1994 by a management team called the...

, British Council

British Council

The British Council is a United Kingdom-based organisation specialising in international educational and cultural opportunities. It is registered as a charity both in England and Wales, and in Scotland...

and assistance from numerous local organizations and media companies.