The theme chosen by the organizers of the Month of Photography 2008 - tradition and transformation - reaches far beyond the age-old quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns. Far from being mutually antagonistic, the two terms echo an important trend in today's art, reflecting its confusing complexity and pointing to questions artists are asking about the future of fixed images as they come under attack from new technology.

The transformation in question is here to stay, and it has no truck with aesthetic categories, Cartesian analysis, or intellectually comforting pigeonholes.

As a result, the expression that most neatly characterizes the dizzying scope of the 2008 Month of Photography is perhaps le dialogue des regards: how different ways of looking at the world interact with one another. According to their roots, their cultural heritage and their convictions, artists look at the world around them in different ways. Whether fascinated by a reality that they wish to reproduce faithfully, or attracted by unusual characters whose mystery they set out to resolve, photographers today have freed themselves from the teachings of past masters and unashamedly assert their own individual way of seeing. Transformation is also about getting rid of inhibitions; it is about discovery and the mutual enrichment that arises from the fertile collision of cultures - and from the differences between them.

Having said this, it is nonetheless true that in countries where photography plays a less central role and where its history is still being researched, tradition can still be refreshing and charming. This is true of some Eastern European countries, and also of certain American "outsiders".

Like the economy and social systems, the 2008 Month of Photography reflects a phenomenon of image globalization, with its attendant explosion of art forms in search of new territories.

Needless to say, engaging in such an 'interaction of ways of seeing' involves challenges and ambitions that far outstrip those usually expected from a cultural event aimed at photography-lovers alone.