Capture Photography Festival is back and taking over the Vancouver art scene for the month of April. Stumble upon a public installation at any of the Canada Line stations or make your way to a free gallery exhibit for incredible local and worldwide photography. This non-profit festival is devoted to promoting “thought-provoking and challenging” artists who slay the photo game. Over fifty galleries around the city are participating. Here are our top ten reasons to scope the event, but by all means get out there and see for yourself! Checkout the website to make your own gameplan here.

Best in Canada | Get a peek at this year’s nominees for the National Pictures of the Year. Head to the Pendulum Gallery to see the selection of heart wrenching photographs competing in the largest photojournalism competition in the country.

Publicly Provoking | Make sure to stop by the Yaletown-Roudhouse Station at some point for a glimpse of the public installation by the Toronto-based artist Jérôme Havre. Perhaps our favorite of the bunch, this bold work urges internal reflection on the ways in which our seemingly progressive society still perceives Black culture.

Classic: Vancouver & Paris | The Street Photographs of Alan Jacques displays an array of black and white uniquely positioned camera angles of two of the world’s greatest cities. These old school photographs span over three decades of the photographer’s career. Rookies, take note!

Hopeless Romantic | If you’re a sucker for romance you’ll fall hard for Angela Fama’s What is Love exhibit. She sat down in over 20 locales across North America to photograph and record strangers and their personal definitions of love. Grab a date or brave this love fest alone.

Another Realm | Get out of your head by looking at some trippy cubist photographs of the streets of Japan as local artist Josema Zamorano investigates, “the reunion of the visible, the invisible, and imagined worlds” in his exhibit Sandokai: Grasping at Things Is Surely Delusion at the Back Gallery Project on East Hastings. Expect to see overlapped gazes of the same city scene (as pictured above).

Spotlight on Chinatown | Brilliant photographer Louise Francis-Smith looks at the ever-changing essence of our beloved Chinatown as its 1960’s spirit fades and gentrification continues.

Artist Talk | South Main Gallery hosts an artist’s panel discussion on April 2nd for Intervals: Photography in Flux — an extremely diverse exhibition of local and international artists. You won’t want to miss these images or this panel!

Join In | The Act of Creation, Presentation and Consumption is an exhibit that encourages viewers to engage in the madness of the instant photography craze by snapping polaroid photos that will be displayed alongside Arts Umbrella’s student work.

90’s Angst Re-envisioned | Discover how three contemporary photographers appropriated and reimagined Lincoln Clarkes’ 1995 text pieces in the exhibit MESS AGE. The works emphasize “individualistic ideological mindsets”. In an age when Donald Trump is running for President, we just can’t promote that enough!

Best of Both | Get inspired, make connections with other artists, and grub out as you look at some killer photographs! Tickets for Slideluck – a potluck dinner and curated slideshow event put on by the Vancouver chapter of Canadian Association of Professional Image Creators – are only $30.