17th Visa pour l’Image – Perpignan

Iraq, the reelection of George W. Bush, Ukraine, Lebanon, Darfur, Chechnya, the death of John-Paul II and of Yasser Arafat, the bomb attacks in London, in Charm El-Cheikhthe evacuation of the settlements on the Gaza Strip, and so it goes on. The list is certainly not exhaustive. Year in, year out, it’s the same: so many news stories around the world, often dramatic and very grim.
Some indignant critics will express disapproval – but this is becoming standard practice – because some of the reports are hard-hitting. Can anyone tell the story of the tsunami without showing bodies? Can we talk about Iraq without showing bomb attacks or mentioning the number of victims? It is not easy to report on what has actually been happening in Haiti without showing violence. We have stories to show, but would never claim to be showing how things should be done. We simply believe in the sincerity of the men and women who have reported what they have seen, and we want to share the reports with you, so that, along with us, you will think of what is happening out there in the real world and so that you will stop and ask questions and think.
The program also has some breathing space, some hopes and there are even some smiles.
Over seventeen years, Visa pour l’Image has become the unchallenged reference in photojournalism, and this is precisely because we have always been demanding, have been clear in the choices we have made, and honest in our commitments. And we have absolutely no intention of changing!

Jean-François Leroy

EXHIBITIONS
Eddie Adams – Retrospective
Lynsey Addario – The Wounded
Stephen Alvarez – Maya underworld
Kristen Ashburn  – Deaths in the Family – The AIDS Cycle in Southern Africa
Adriano Bartoloni – Jean Paul II, in private
Patrick Baz – Extreme Middle Est
Jonas Bendiksen – “Satellites” – Photographs From the Fringes of the Former Soviet Empire
Marcus Bleasdale – The Rape of a Nation
Alexandra Boulat  -
 Women of the axis
Heidi Bradner  – Chechnya – A Decade of War
David Burnett  – If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re too close
The 2005 CARE International Award for Humanitarian Reportage
Claude Dityvon – A forgotten world, revived
Jérôme Equer – Gaza, la vie en cage
Olivier Föllmi – The Wisdom of the Human Race
Paul Fusco – Bitter fruit
Yuri Kozyrev – Irak
L’Oeil Public – 10 years old
Mauricio Lima – Seven Months in Iraq
Paul Lowe – Scars
Pascal Maitre – Continents Apart
Asim Rafiqui – Haiti
Gérard Rancinan – Hiroshima
Reuters – Gaza – Funeral Days
Jérôme Sessini – Iraq : March 2003 – January 2005
Kadir van Lohuizen – Diamond Matters
Michael Yamashita – DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) / Two Koreas
International Daily Press
World Press Photo

Visa d’or
Visa d’or News Award: Philip Blenkinsop
Visa d’or Feature Award: James Hill
Visa d’or Daily Press Award: Politiken (Danemark)

Awards
Fujifilm Young Reporter Award: Lynsey Addario
Canon Female Photojournalist Award: Claudia Guadarrama