The museum is not limited to just a historical relationship with the medium. Contemporary photography, whether it is art photography or reportage, also occupies an essential place in the museum. A complete room is given over to it where the collections, like the rest of the visit, are regularly changed.
For many years, the museum has supported contemporary photographers, while concentrating in-depth on the work of certain artists. So it holds hundreds of thousands of negatives and slides by Peter Knapp, a representative collection of work by Patrick Tosani, and important ensemble of work by the reporter Stanley Greene…
The Centre national des arts plastiques recently presented the museum with 89 works by French photographers such as Sophie Riestelhueber, Jean Le Gac, Patrick Faigenbaum, Jean-Marc Bustamante, Jean-Louis Garnell, Eric Rondepierre, Sophie Calle…

The attention given to contemporary photography is all the more important given that the museum has a digital photography laboratory adapted to the production of artists in residence or those supported by the museum.

The programming of the temporary exhibitions (six per year) also reflects this taste for current creations (Yuki Onodera, Mathieu Bernard-Reymond, Mathieu Pernot, Raphaël Dallaporta, Elina Brotherus…), as well as for the « older » greats (Robert Doisneau, Izis, Edourard Boubat…) and more specific themes (family albums, war images, street photography…).