CPL / City Photography League
About Us
City Photography League (CPL)
City Photography League (CPL) is a collaborative network formed in the context of global urbanization to strengthen photographic and cultural exchange among cities, and to foreground the distinctive nature and value of city photography. CPL is composed primarily of city photography associations, institutions, and organizations with independent legal status in their respective countries. CPL does not enroll individual members and does not charge membership fees.
CPL was established at the First City Photography Congress in 2004. The headquarters is located in Chengdu, China, and the Secretariat is based in Nanjing, China. Grounded in the era of mass participation in photography, CPL advocates the concept of “Big Photography” and applies the “99+1” method—mutual interaction, mutual support, and mutual enablement—to sustain an open platform for city photography and to encourage photography to assume broader social responsibility.
CPL maintains a long-term focus on sustainable public cultural action and heritage preservation. Our work is oriented toward leaving enduring photographic and cultural records for future generations, while strengthening regional collaboration and international exchange through a cooperative mechanism connecting cities globally.
Governance and Operating Principles
CPL is guided by clear governance arrangements, transparent accountability, and traceable workflows to safeguard stability, fairness, and continuity in cooperation.
Governance and Appointment
CPL does not pre-designate candidates. Responsible leaders are selected through on-site recognition and voting, ensuring procedural legitimacy and public visibility of authorization.
We emphasize alignment between capability and responsibility, following the principle of “the capable step up; the competent make room; the unqualified step aside,” assessed through delivery and stewardship.
CPL rejects nominal titles and symbolic roles. We reduce unnecessary intermediaries to keep accountability direct, explicit, and traceable.
Accountability and Performance
“Those who lead are accountable”: each workstream has a clearly identified owner responsible for objectives, progress, and deliverables.
“Those who do the work benefit from the work”: resources and opportunities are allocated based on contribution and delivery, preventing formalistic operations.
Information Integrity and Collaboration Efficiency
Information creates value through responsible circulation. CPL supports effective information flow across the network to strengthen coordination and improve decision quality.
We rely on verifiable records and versioned documentation to enable cross-city collaboration, reuse experience, and reduce coordination costs.
Sustainability and Public Responsibility
Reform is a driver of development. While acknowledging uncertainty, CPL builds institutional arrangements that support durable growth.
We define “scaling” and “strengthening” as capability and sustained investment—not rhetoric—and evaluate progress through long-term delivery and public value.
In response to major public events and social issues, we enter the field through images and mobilize collective action through organization, ensuring outcomes remain public-facing and durable.
Our Trajectory and Commitment
From local youth photography organizations to cross-regional communities, and further toward a city-based international alliance—this is not a narrative of scale, but a pathway of organizational capability.
We define “scale” as vision, and “strength” as capacity: from awards at the tens-of-thousands level, to hundreds-of-thousands, to global prizes at the million-level and beyond. What matters is the intensity of investment in public value and the discipline of long-term delivery.
We recognize that innovation drives development and carries risk; sustained innovation is essential for maintaining actionability and institutional vitality amid profound change.
“Turning scale and strength into facts, and turning decades of persistence into institutions” is not a slogan. It is a long-term shared commitment: time as the most impartial test, institutions as the most reliable guarantee, and action as the only proof.