The Museum of Photographic Arts, located in Balboa Park at 1649 El Prado, is among the country's leading photographic arts institutions with impressive holdings of the entire history of photography, its aesthetic movements and technological advancements. While the entire collection illustrates the complex and varied history of the medium, its major areas of strength are in modern and contemporary work, specifically in social documentary photography and photojournalism. Processes from Daguerreotypes through such contemporary processes as laser holograms are collected for their aesthetics and their importance to the historical periods of their derivation.
Admission is free to the public on the secondTuesday of the month.
Tours for non-students are also available, with advance reservation, at a discounted admission rate. The Museum Store offers a wide variety of photography-related books. The Museum of Photographic Arts is accredited by the American Association of Museums and is a member-supported, private nonprofit institution. Additional support for Museum programs is provided by the City of San Diego under a program managed by its Commission for Arts and Culture, the Community Enhancement Program of the County of San Diego, as well as the California Arts Council, the California Council for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Inc. All rights reserved.