Almost 40 talks and two panel discussions on two days, all included in your admission ticket. From jaguars in the Pantanal and a badger called Kurt to the question of why fear holds your pictures back.
The talks programme of Photo+Adventure 2026 is set. On Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 November, the talks run in parallel in the Europa 1, 2 and 4 halls and on the stage in the Wintergarten of the Pyramide Vienna/Vösendorf. Most last half an hour, and around a third are on the programme on both days. So if you miss something on Saturday, you can often still catch it on Sunday. There is nothing to book, your fair ticket is all you need.
We have picked out a few talks from across the programme. We already introduce the new faces on stage, such as Marion Payr with her Expedition Borneo or Carlos Crespo with the highest dunes in the world, in the post New this year. Here it is the others’ turn.
Wanderlust: jaguars, penguins and a cargo ship
Rainer Skrovny is on the programme no fewer than four times. On Saturday he shows the Naturparadies Pantanal in Brazil, one of the largest inland wetlands on earth. Caimans, giant otters, tapirs and anteaters live there, and nowhere else are your chances better of seeing a jaguar: dozing on a sandbank, crossing a river or hunting. Before that he takes you to Grönlands wilder Westen and the icebergs of Disko Bay, and on Sunday to the Shetland-Inseln and Botswana.
It gets colder with Sandra Petrowitz. In Antarktis she takes you to the Antarctic Peninsula, the Falkland Islands and South Georgia, with tips for photographing “in the most beautiful fridge in the world”. On Sunday she follows up with Safarifotografie: camera settings, composition and animal behaviour, and not just for Africa.
Things get sporty with Wolfgang Neumüller. In MTB Madagaskar he rides his mountain bike through the central highlands, on trails and gravel roads, past baobabs, crater lakes and rice terraces, all the way to snorkelling on a coral reef in the Indian Ocean. With photos and videos from the road.
Yes, one of the two organisers is on stage himself, too. Oliver Bolch, who has been giving live talks since 1993, tells of twelve days aboard the Aranui 5 in Mit dem Frachtschiff durch die Marquesas. The ship is a cruise ship and a supply ship at the same time and brings everyday goods to the remote islands. A journey off the usual cruise routes.
More destinations in the programme: Bhutan, Kirgistan, Neukaledonien and Samoa, Laos, Kambodscha und Vietnam, Rumänien, Marokko and Namibia. You will find more of them in the Journeys Foreign cultures and Animals & nature.
Nature and us: wilderness on your doorstep
The focus topic of the 2026 fair is “Nature and us”. Georg Popp shows that you don’t have to travel far for it. In Vom Kurt dem Dachs zum XXL-Monsterkarpfen! he looks back on the 2026 photo year of his project WIENER WILDNIS: from Kurt the badger and a very special bee-eater photo to the largest and little-known wild animals of Vienna. Half an hour after which you will see the city with different eyes. On both days.
In Wild Austria, Christine Sonvilla and Marc Graf look at the return of large predators to Central Europe. Their question: is there enough room for wild nature in our landscape and in our minds?
Harald Slauschek has been taking photos underwater for almost three decades. In Unterwasserfotografie he explains why light, closeness, movement and even communication work differently down there, when snorkelling just as much as when scuba diving. His black and white series “Between Breaths” can also be seen as an exhibition during the fair.
There are two discussions on the Wintergarten stage, each at 12:00 and moderated by Karl Füsselberger. On Saturday, the panel Fotografie für die Natur asks what images nature and species conservation need today and what photographers, whether professional or amateur, can contribute. Taking part are wildlife ecologist Jennifer Hatlauf, Christine Sonvilla, Martin Hartmann from Gesäuse National Park and Christian Pichler from WWF Austria. On Sunday it continues with Natur- und Wildlifefotografie: Ein Reality Check. Belinda Thaler, Marc Graf, media lawyer Thomas Höhne and Armin Amano discuss how much reality a nature photo needs, where the limits are, whether images have to be labelled and what the law says.
On Saturday at 16:30 things get festive on the same stage: at the award ceremony, the best images of the photo competition on the theme “Nature and us” receive their awards.
Better photos in 30 minutes
If your good pictures tend to happen by chance, start with the Photo ABC. Karl Füsselberger, head of the Wiener Fotoschule, explains the exposure triangle, autofocus, white balance and composition at 10:00 on both days, with tips you can try out the very same day. On Sunday, in Adobe Lightroom Classic Kompakt, he shows you how to build a workflow from import to export that saves you time at your desk.
In Light. Time. Landscape., Daniel Trippolt shows how polarising, graduated and ND filters balance contrast and make movement visible. And in Erfolgreich im Wettbewerb, Anselm F. Wunderer explains why luck doesn’t decide a photo competition, but composition, light, colour and editing do. On Saturday it fits nicely before the award ceremony.
If you mainly take photos with your phone, pick up smartphone photography tips at Photography adventures with vivo. And in Mit leichtem Gepäck zu starken Bildern, Karl Grabherr shows why less weight often leads to more pictures.
What else photography can do
In Fotografie von Sternenkindern, Oliver Wendlandt presents the work of the DEIN STERNENKIND STIFTUNG. For more than ten years, the foundation’s volunteers have been photographing stillborn babies and babies who die shortly after birth free of charge, when parents wish it. More than 25,000 parents have received pictures this way that create memories and offer comfort. If you are interested in this volunteer work, you will find all the information at the talk and at the stand. On both days.
Robert Pichler closes Saturday at 17:30 with an uncomfortable question: do you photograph what you like, or what gets liked? Angst blockiert dich und deine Entwicklung is about performance pressure, social media trends and the courage to find your own visual language.
How to plan your day at the fair
You will find all talks with times and rooms in the programme. The Journeys group talks, seminars and workshops by interest, for example Getting started in photography, Seeing, light & inspiration or Photographing people. Our tip: pick two or three talks in advance and leave enough time in between for the around 120 exhibitors.
If you want to go deeper, the post on the 2026 seminar and workshop programme lists bookable formats with limited places. And you can find out who is on stage for the first time in 2026 in the post New this year: speakers you can see for the first time in 2026.
