As a board member of the Phoenix Sister Cities Commission, then TEOE president (and co-founder) Errol Zimmerman traveled to Grenoble in 1992 with the hope of establishing a photo exchange.  A number of photographers were interested, but years passed without progress being made.  In 2015 TEOE photographer Kerrick James worked diligently to start the exchange and received a positive response from Grenoble photographer Sylvain Frappet, who traveled to Arizona to photograph in May, 2016, taking photos in Phoenix and northern Arizona.  Kerrick and TEOE photographer Dean Stevenson traveled to Grenoble in September of that year, and two major exhibits of the exchange were held in 2017.