For the second time in his short career, Olivier Laban-Mattei is being honored with the Paris Match Award, and is having twice received the World Press Award… After 10 years working for the AFP, he recently joined Jean-Pierre Pappis’ team at Polaris Images.
We present you his images, and those 21 other candidates.

A portrait of a young man “whose mind is as sharp as his eye” by Michel Puech.
« There was a mountain of bodies, dead bodies, everywhere, everywhere… » explains Olivier Laban-Mattei. « You’re right in the middle, but you’re still wondering if it’s real. When the bodies are taken away, other human dramas follow: amputations, voices from under the rubble and debris. » There he took a picture that would shock the world. « I wouldn’t wish an experience like this on anyone… The picture is extremely violent, but essential to understanding what was happening here. »
It’s a beautiful day on this Tuesday, August 31, 2010, at the International Festival for Photojournalism « Visa pour l’image » in Perpignan. The associations FreeLens, for photographers, and the ANI (National Iconographers Association) for photo editors have organized an early morning conference about “Life at all Cost” at the Sainte-Claire Convent. The two guest speakers are : Grégoire Korganow, a photographer who published “I Was Dead”, a book about the emergency care workers who saved his life after he narrowly escaped death in a motorcycle accident, and Olivier Laban-Mattei who was for the first time presenting a retrospective of his work as an AFP photographer. Last January he was covering the earthquake in Haïti, a story that is being honored this month with the bi-annual Paris Match Award for Photojournalism.
Eight months have passed since the devastating earthquake, but the young man is still quite « edgy ». I had just seen his photos on display and was amazed by his talent, especially moved by his coverage of last year’s post-election riots in Iran. Those stories inspired me to attend the conference led by Aline Manoukian. At the end, I commented to friends: « If I was a doctor, I’d force him to take sick leave! »
A month later we met again at the Bayeux-Calvados awards ceremony for war correspondents. I had recently learned, to my great surprise, that he’d left the AFP (French Press Agency)! We spoke about it. He mentioned other agencies: Cosmos, Myop, Polaris… We took pictures of each other. We shared laughs and made plans for to have lunch together in Paris.
On Friday, October 22nd, he arrived in Issy-les-Moulineaux by motorcycle. My first question to him was about his surprising departure from the AFP.
“ I know that I left a job that others in less stable work situations would give almost anything to have “ he said before I’d barely asked the question. “ Everyone told me that I was crazy, but I needed to step back and take a good look at my life, and start again from zero while things were going so well for me. “
Olivier is young, only 33 years old. He was born on March 17th, 1977 in a Paris suburb, his parents employees of the national education system. “ But not as teachers “ he is quick to point out. He was a bright student at the Lycée Savigny-sur-Orge and never got into much trouble with his teachers or his parents. His father, an amateur photographer, gave him a pocket camera when he was 8 and “ at 15, Capa was my hero. I told my parents that I would either be an archaeologist or a photojournalist. My father just said: do whatever you want, but do it well ! “
At eighteen, I left home to live in Paris, the near Tolbiac university campus, and began studies in geography, then sociology. “ In college, I picked up a lot of different subjects, but didn’t complete any of them because I realized that everything led to teaching career nothing led to the field. I wanted to meet the people we were studying in books. I wanted something more concrete, I wanted action. I was frustrated and hurt. “
He began a degree in Photography (BTS Photo) but quit to go back-packing, hitch-hiking to “ anywhere people would take me : Scotland, Ireland. I worked at small jobs like fence-building, lamb-shearing… I was trying to find myself. I was also searching for my roots. On my father’s side, the Laban’s are from the south western French border region of Béarn near the Spanish Basque country, but on my mother’s side, the Mattei’s, my roots are Corsican. “
With his fine facial features, and a closely-shaven blond beard, his blue eyes reflect the honest and far-reaching gaze of a mountain dweller scouting the horizon. He described his internship at SIPA Press agency, assisting photographer Bruno Vigneron, as “ very instructive “ experience, adding: “ One night, we were assigned to shoot Nathalie Baye in a restaurant. Bruno said, tonight, you are taking the photos. I was panic-stricken. I found myself sitting across from a famous actress who was kindly smiling at me, and I couldn’t get the Nikon F4 he handed me to work …It was terrible. Finally, I managed to take a photo, convincing myself to just dive in, to no longer be afraid of anyone, to just go for it… »
He began working as a photographer in 1999. “ I went to the AFP to show them some pictures of a street demonstration. They bought two of them but Vincent Amalvy said to me : “ There’s no room for you in Paris, but there is work in Corsica. News was happening there, it was during controversy over illegal beachside restaurants, and the local prefect, Bernard Bonnet… “ Not long after arriving in the country of his maternal ancestors, he was hired by the local press agency « Mediasud News », becoming a permanent freelancer for AFP in July of 2000.
“ I covered press conferences in the hillside maquis, bombings, fires, murders… I covered stories of all kinds, from local singing artists to the masked representatives of political groups. They were the best years of my life. He married and now has a ten-year-old child. Between stories, he took advantage of the sea, the mountains and the countryside that he grew to love profoundly. But back in Paris, it was clear that he would never be hired on “staff” until he trained someone to replace him in Corsica. He chose to train Stephan Agostini.
A year had gone by, he had promised Stephan his position but had yet received his contract from Paris. Without the contract, he left Corsica “… I went right to the AFP offices, Place de la Bourse, suitcases in hand, and told them that I’d kept my word, and asked them if they planned to keep theirs. “ At AFP, the contract was still on hold… In September of 2005, he was on his way to Bastia for vacation when the ferry « Pascal Paoli » was seized by militants protesting the privatization of the maritime company SNCM.
“ There I was again in the middle of the action. Stephan was in Ajaccio and I was in Bastia, in the middle of a story that was taking on incredible proportions. At one point, a group of about fifteen masked men stood in front of a policeman in civilian clothing who took out his gun, then put it back in his jacket, and then took it out again… in other words, tensions were high. The men violently attacked him but the policeman miraculously escaped by jumping into a rescue boat. Needless to say, I was taking pictures of everything, and then suddenly the attackers noticed me. They came at me all at once, beat me up and threw my camera into the port. Once the action died down, I retrieved my camera and spent the night rinsing the salt water off my memory card. After reformatting it twice, I was able to recover my photos, and quickly sent them off to the agency. »
“ The next day, on October 2nd, one of my pictures was on the front page of the Journal du Dimanche. On Monday Le Parisien and Corse-Matin published my photos, but neglected to hide the identity of a protester in full view… For my safety, I was forced to leave Corsica secretly for Italy. »
In addition, the AFP sold a series of twelve pictures to the magazine Choc for 35 000 euros… Ever since those pictures ran, Olivier Laban-Mattei, despite his Corsican origins and six years working on the island, still receives death threats and for some, remains a persona non grata.

“I quickly asked to have my pictures signed with my name, to protect Stephan Agostini “ explained Olivier “ but even worse, the AFP handed my pictures over to the police before they were requisitioned. As a result, the photo department went on the longest strike in AFP history: seven days without a picture on the wire. It was a defiant act aimed at the director and president of the agency (ed.: Bertrand Eveno) who resigned before vote results were revealed. He undoubtedly would have been forced out, but I think his way of leaving spoke for itself. “
Olivier discretely signed on to the AFP in November of 2005 living the life of an agency photographer in Paris. “ You cover two or three stories per day: an organized meeting, a protest march, a ministerial conference, a press conference, one after the other… “ In 2006, he received the Paris Match award for a photo he took of the future president, Nicolas Sarkozy, speaking to a group of journalists like the messiah addressing his apostles. In 2007, he received the Bendrihem award for the best European political photo. The AFP decided that it should make the best use of this young talent. On his next assignment, he found himself “ embedded “ with troops in Iraq.
In May 2008, he was in Burma covering the Cyclone Nargis, in Georgia in August covering its conflict with the Russians, in Greece in December covering the Greek riots, in Gaza in January 2009 to cover the Israeli army force’s “ cast lead “ operation, then off to Iran for the elections …
“ I arrived the day before elections with an 8-day visa. Right after, elections I began combing the city, it was clear that something was brewing. People began challenging the ban against public protest… Within a half hour the number of protesters grew from 50 to 500, then into the thousands and suddenly the police were the minority… I witnessed some incredible scenes of police charging the crowd, the crowd spreading open only to then close in on them. People were ready to kill for their freedom… “
Olivier Laban-Mattei’s pictures were earning increasing recognition when in January of this year the earth began shaking in Haiti. Sent by the AFP to cover the story, he takes this unforgettable picture of a man rifling through a pile of cadavers that would shock the world and reveal the enormity of this catastrophe.
« On top of the loss of lives, there was only very little food being distributed. Those accused of stealing were doing so out of desperation to live. The police were shooting everywhere at everything. In one photo, two women, Fabienne and Gisèle, lay dead, their father crying out in vengeance at the police.
People who let me take their pictures wondered aloud what good they would serve. They begged me to tell the world they were hungry and thirsty. As journalists, we were a sort of intermediary between the survivors and the NGOs. But it was pure chaos. »
As he was leaving my place after our visit, he noticed the book, “ Sans blessures apparentes “ (No Obvious Injuries) written by Jean-Paul Mari, a photojournalist for the magazine Le Nouvel Observateur. “ He’s a great guy “ he uttered softly. I asked if he had seen the movie about the traumatic effects experienced by soldiers, doctors and journalists who witness these kinds of horrors. “ No “ he replied and smiled: “ They showed it in Bayeux, but we were all having lunch”.
I told him how emotional it was for me to see the movie at the « Echos d’ici, échos d’ailleurs » film festival. Without skipping a beat he continued talking about Haïti.
“ I was standing in the street, and the police were shooting at people from nearby buildings … Before I knew it, a tall Haïtian man roughly pushed me behind a large canister. I landed in the mud, but he got shot…. “ A long silence. “ When I returned to the hotel, I was covered in blood after helping a wounded person to the hospital. I was filthy and unshaven but walked into my hotel as if nothing special had happened. Just normal! Jean-Paul Mari was smoking a cigar, waved me over and said: I don’t want to know what happened. But tell me, when are you leaving? When you get to Martinique, book yourself into a nice hotel, get yourself cleaned up, get a haircut, throw out your clothes and buy new ones, and when you get back to Paris, find someone to talk to about this. I did what he said… well, not quite all of it. “
As you read these words, Olivier Laban-Mattei is back in Haïti covering the elections and the cholera outbreak, so that no one can say: we didn’t know about this.
Michel Puech
24 October 2010