[4] Jeff Moorfoot OAM[5] was the first director of a photography festival that started in[6] Daylesford in 2005 which in 2009 moved to the Central Victorian regional city of Ballarat, where it has remained.
This was because the town had four recent COVID cases as well as "widespread" wastewater detections, and multiple exposure sites.
[9] BIFB comprises two major exhibition programs including the Core Program, curated biennale exhibition of 20 leading Australian and international photographic artists, presented in eight heritage buildings in Ballarat.
[10][11] In 2021, under the auspice of Photo2021 the 9th Ballarat International Foto Biennale scheduled a Linda McCartney retrospective.
[12] In 2017, Sweet's inaugural year as creative director, the Biennale drew an audience of over 26,800, contributing an economic benefit of $3.89 million to the local economy[citation needed] with American photographer and video director David LaChapelle as the headline artist.