Lens op de Mens

Edition 2025 | 8 June – 28 September

During the summer of 2025, vzw Lens op de Mens – Fotofestival Pelt organises in cooperation with the town council of Pelt and CC Palethe the fifth edition of the biennial photo festival ‘Lens op de Mens’.

For this edition, we continue along the same path. Professional and amateur photographers from all over the world are invited to present their most beautiful images to the general public. Photos could be submitted from 15 October 2024 to 3 February 2025.

The main theme of this edition remaines, of course, ‘man’ in the broadest sense of the word. The sub-theme for 2025 is ‘the human vulnerability’.

The photo festival opens on Sunday, 8 June and closes on Sunday, 28 September 2025. We look beyond our national borders again through an international cooperation with RPS – the Royal Photographic Society, photo festival Vizualizator in Belgrade and several international guest speakers.

As organisers of Lens op de Mens (Focus on Man), we can look back on a very successful 4rd edition of our festival. We estimate that over 30,000 visitors descended on Pelt during the summer of 2023. We are very pleased with this success, which was only possible thanks to the many submissions from photographers worldwide and the cooperation of many volunteers. Our heartfelt thanks for this.

Sub-theme edition 2025: the human ‘vulnerability’

For this 5th edition of Lens op de Mens, we are also focusing on a sub-theme. This year, we emphasise human vulnerability.

Therefore, in 2025, we will present a special award for the photo that most aptly captures the vulnerability of humans and the society around us.

The main theme of Lens op de Mens will of course remain ‘human beings’ as in previous editions. The sub-theme ‘Human vulnerability’ is certainly not a compulsory theme.

Vulnerability

Vulnerability evokes an uncomfortable feeling for many: we associate it with something we would rather not see, with making difficult choices or setting a different behaviour. Whether it is about work, upbringing, looks, preferences or values, in a world focused on perfectionism and personal social engineering, it is not always easy to be or feel “different”.

But what if you don’t feel you fit into the main-stream thinking? What if you are also just being yourself and see being different as an asset and added value? What if you feel completely OK if others consider you “different”?

In a festival where “human beings” are central and we as beings are registered, analysed and watched, we may question the role of the photographer. Where is the ethical boundary of privacy? Does that boundary exist and, if so, who draws it? How far can you go in recording the condition humaine: in the naked depiction of edges we would rather not show or of non-conformist behaviour?

Lens op de Mens chooses “vulnerability” as a sub-theme in 2025 and wants to zoom in on the strength hidden in each of us, even if the perception is different. Vulnerability is to embrace being different with gentleness to transform it into love, trust and joy.

With “vulnerability”, Lens op de Mens wants to reflect on defining and sometimes profound, raw life moments. Moments, which make a difference, built on a foundation of respect and acceptance, bearing witness to resilience and hope.

Hilde Stevens