27th Visa pour l’Image – Perpignan

How strange!
We’ve been saying it for years, so can repeat it yet again: it is increasingly difficult to be a professional photojournalist. Of course some people say that there has never been a heyday for photojournalism. Whatever the case may be, these days, editorial budgets have been cut, there are fewer assignments, and virtually no guarantees for first right of refusal.This is nothing new, but after the glum, defeatist attitudes that prevailed some time ago, we have the impression that something is stirring, that spirits might be rising. Young photographers coming onto the market have faced the facts; they know they have to find outlets other than the conventional press. They do not feel bitter or resentful about this; they have simply seen that this is the way things are. It means finding different business models, different media and different horizons.
This year we received close to 4 500 submissions, which is a record. It obviously, and unfortunately, does not mean that they are all good, that nothing should be rejected. The ideas are often good; the technique is good most of the time, but, if one sweeping generalization can be made it would be that the editing is poor, or sometimes even appalling. Oh no! Should an SOS be sent out to picture editors and assistants: Photographers need you! The quality of the work is not the problem; it is the way the stories are developed and constructed.
In the European Union, there is also the question of the Reda Report and Amendment 421 which will come before the European Parliament in the next few weeks.This could mean that photographers and video makers using their own images for commercial purposes will only be able to use and share their images on social media if they have due authorization from the party/parties holding the rights to the works in the pictures, usually architecture.That means we won’t be able to photograph anything. Street photography is in danger, at least in Europe. Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Doisneau must be turning in their graves.
The world has gone crazy.

* Editing is the work of selecting photos so as to tell a story, constructing it in a coherent and consistent way from beginning to end.

Jean-François Leroy
July 9, 2015

 

EXHIBITIONS
Mohamed Abdiwahab – Somalia
Lynsey Addario – Syrian refugees in the Middle East
Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi – The Minova Rape Trials
Arnaud Baumann & Xavier Lambours – From Hara-Kiri to Charlie
Daniel Berehulak – The Ebola Epidemic
Marcus Bleasdale – Terror in the Central African Republic
Nancy Borowick – Cancer Family, Ongoing
Juan Manuel Castro Prieto – Peru, the Sacred Valley
Alejandro Cegarra – Living with the Legacy of Hugo Chavez
Viviane Dalles – Teenage mothers
Manoocher Deghati – Facing reality
Edouard Elias – The French Foreign Legion in the Central African Republic
Omar Havana – Earthquake in Nepal
Bülent Kiliç – From Kiev to Kobane
Andres Kudacki – Spain: national housing crisis, evictions
Gerd Ludwig – Nuclear tourism
Pascal Maitre – The Congo River, exploring a legend
Giulio Piscitelli – From there to here: immigration and fortress Europe (2010-2014)
Sergey Ponomarev – Assad’s Syria
Eli Reed – A long walk home
Stéphanie Sinclair – Nepal’s Living Goddesses
Adrienne Surprenant – The future Nicaragua canal
Goran Tomasevic – Burundi: Three times, no!
Alfred Yaghobzadeh – Yazidi Women, Their bodies a battlefield
International Daily Press

Visa d’or
Visa d’or News Award: Bülent Kiliç
Visa d’or Feature Award: Daniel Berehulak
Visa d’or Daily Press Award: The New York Times (USA)
ICRC Humanitarian Visa d’or Award – International Committee of the Red Cross: Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi
Figaro Magazine Lifetime Achievement Visa d’or Award: Pascal MAITRE
Web Documentary Visa d’or Award, sponsored by FRANCE24 – RFI: Sébastien Daycard-Heid & Bertrand Dévé

Prix
Canon Female Photojournalist Award: Anastasia Rudenko
Ville de Perpignan Rémi Ochlik Award: Edouard ELIAS
Pierre et Alexandra Boulat Award: Alfonso Moral
Prix Photo – Foundation Yves Rocher : Lianne Milton
Camille Lepage Award: Romain Laurendeau
Ani-PixPalace Award: Andres Kudacki