THE GREAT BRITISH PUBLIC and life under Colonel Gaddafi are among the subjects on show at this year’s London Festival of Photography, which opens tomorrow (01.06.12).

Both subjects fit into the festival’s theme – Inside Out: Reflections on the Private – in which ideas about privacy in a world of surveillance and social media are challenged.

Other exhibitions include Let This Be a Sign – a photographic take on the effects of the recession; Beneath the Surface – a look at 1970s apartheid South Africa, and The Queen, The Chairman and I, which traces photographer Kurt Tong’s journey from his “ancestral roots from more than a century ago to the present day”.

The majority of the venues for the festival are in the Bloomsbury/Euston/Fitzrovia/King’s Cross belt, but there are also events at the Tate Modern and the V&A among others: all in all there are 18 main exhibitions and 30 satellite events.

As well as the exhibitions, there are also masterclasses where top snappers hand out assignments; talks and debates, and a Photo Flash Mob planned for an as-yet secret location in Camden.

The London Festival of Photography opens on 1 June, with most of the programme over by the end of the month and some running through to July.