Attendees look at Bob Poe’s “eyePhoto” (captured with an iPhone) during the 21st Annual International Los Angeles Photographic Art Exposition (photo LA) opening night reception at the historic Santa Monica Civic Center on Thursday, January 12 2012. 

Over the past twenty-one years Photo L.A. has earned a reputation as one of the foremost art fairs and the leading photo-based events in the country representing the finest galleries from around the globe and has exhibited more than three hundred galleries, private dealers and publishers and has presented more than one hundred and fifty lectures and collecting seminars to the public.

Continuing the discourse on photography’s place in the fine arts, Photo L.A. provides galleries from around the globe a platform for the exhibition of vintage masterworks and contemporary photography, as well as video and multimedia installations. This exciting juxtaposition creates the unique environment that characterizes photo l.a.

Photo L.A. attracts over eleven thousand interested collectors, curators and dealers of photography each year.

The opening Gala Reception benefits the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Wallis Annenberg Department of Photography.

Photo L.A. runs through Sunday, January 16th.