“I come from a generation that no longer believes that one picture can change the world”, the great Gamma reporter tells me last November during his last Paris exhibition. “The pictures featured in Petit endroit, I shot them in Iraq between 2003 and 2005, from the beginning of the intervention of the North American army. By then Iraq was suspected of possessing weapons of mass destruction, just after the operation “Phantom Fury” that destroyed Fallujah, the Sunni stronghold.”

And then, picking up the conversation, worried that his first phrase might be misunderstood, he adds: “But there’s always the idea of another society… And photography can liberate speech.”

It’s not a surprise that he was among “the old,” as qualified by the younger generation of photojournalists, to jump into a plane heading to Cairo to join the Egyptian youth in Tahir Square.

Born on July 29, 1964 in Belgium, Laurent Van der Stockt made his first reportage at the age of 16. At the end of secondary school, he made his civil service as a conscientious objector and produced a story on the mentally challenged that he was taking care of for a year and a half. In 1989, he traveled illegally to Romania. In 1990, after having returned to Romania during the uprising, he joined the staff of the Gamma press agency.

François Lochon, the current head of Gamma-Rapho, was already a shareholder in the agency by that time: “I remember very clearly the arrival of Laurent. He was just like me years ago. He began: Ministers meetings, press conferences, meetings with figures. Henri Bureau was the Editor in chief at that time”.

“I was very quickly able to express myself at Gamma” recalls the photographer. “Henri would put me in every direction… I learned a lot”

Faithful to the Gamma agency, he has “re-signed with Lochon” a contract for distribution.

Michel Puech