The beginnings of the International exhibition of photographs PHOTOMEDIA go back to 1988, when two sister cities – Skopje (Macedonia) and Nurnberg (Germany) organized the first joint photographic exhibition as part of the manifestation “Skopje Summer 1988”. The members of the Photo Club “ELEMA” from Skopje and the Photo Club “NIRNBERG” from the same city, led by their common passion for photography and the creative artistic potential of this medium, exhibited 66 artworks from 10 German and 9 Macedonian authors. The exhibition was moved afterwards to Nurnberg and officially opened by the current German Minister of Culture and the Mayor of Nurnberg.

In 1989 the organizers from Skopje and Nurnberg invited photographers from Belgrade and they prepared the second international photograph exhibition – “Skopje-Nurnberg-Belgrade”. The idea was to make this exhibition traditional, with a permanent increase of participants from various countries.

In 1990, the members of the Photo Club “ELEMA”, encouraged by the success of the previous exhibitions and the vast interest of the audience, organized this exhibition as a photo competition named “PHOTOMEDIA”. Then, the directions of this photo manifestation were truly defined: it will take the shape of a competition, be biennial and works would be judged by an international jury.

From 1996 PHOTOMEDIA is organized under patronage of FIAP. The number of participants has constantly increased in time, thus improving the quality and the rating of the exhibition. The catalogue of the exhibition, to great extent contributes to the reputation of PHOTOMEDIA in the photographic world. The last three PHOTOMEDIA catalogues (2002, 2004 and 2008) were awarded 5 stars by FIAP.

20 years after the first exhibition – PHOTOMEDIA 2008 assembled 253 authors from 37 countries with a total number of 1020 printed photographs. We hope that the numbers will grow in the course of time.