A trip to the future: the best of Belfast photo festival – in pictures

The Belfast Photo Festival returns for 2026 as the largest annual photography festival in the UK and Ireland, running from 4–30 June at venues across the city. This year's theme, 'Horizons: Visions of Futures Unknown,' challenges photographers and audiences to explore technological, environmental, geopolitical, and AI-driven boundaries in the medium. Featured works include Laura Pannack's 'The Journey Home,' Florence Goupil's documentation of a Peruvian protection agent, Toby Smith's participatory installation confronting the collapse of mechanical photography, and Lean Lui's allegorical 'The White Barracks' examining power and patriarchy.