From August 27th until September 11th, Perpignan will host the 23rd festival of photojournalism, with it’s thirty-something exhibitions, it’s debates, conferences and the unforgetable slide shows at Campo Santo and the Place de la Republique, during the professional week (August 29th through September 4th)

200,000 people visited the exhibitions shown in many different locations of the French Catalone capital last year. 3,000 professionals of the image, including 1,200 photographers, made the trip coming from all over Europe, the Americas and Asia. In Perpignan, we come to see the best of photojournalism, and the addicts of news will not be missing this occasion, on the eve of the 10th anniversary of September 11th…

2011: blood and mixed hopes

« Yes, the year was full of news : Ivory Coast, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, the Sudan, Syria, Bahrein, Iraq, Afghanistan, without forgetting the dramatic catastrophe of Japan, the world became even smaller than what we were used to » writes Jean-François Leroy in his traditional editorial. « Some say that Perpignan, it’s a bit like a family reunion… This year, the family of photographers was terribly affected. »

The « boss » of Visa wrote « the day after the death of Chris Hondros and of Tim Hetherington in Libya… / … First, to speak of them. A little. To say that they were among the best of their generation…/…With their disappearance, our eyes close a little more. Of course, we will pay homage to them at Perpignan. But we would loved so much to show their work, simply, without tears. We will also pay homage to Lucas Dolega, assasinated in Tunis. »

Jean-François Leroy was concerned at that time, along with Michel Munneke, director of World Press Photo at the Awards Days in early May, about the South African Anton Hammerl imprisoned by the pro-Qaddafi forces. But sadly, we now know that we will not see him either at Perpignan.

There will be one that the festival-goers will see, that will be heard by some lucky ones who will take part in the sessions « Transmissions for the image », and that is Joao Silva !
Last October, Joao Silva lost both of his legs jumping over a mine in Afghanistan. But this courageous one among the courageous « already announced his return to his editor, stating that he did not want to be a Sunday photographer » comments Jean-François Leroy, who also adds « He is my favorite at this 23rd edition. »
Joao Silva will animate one of the workshops called « Transmissions for the Image » along with de Jérôme Delay, Jon Jone, Mort Rosenblum, Chris Morris and Samuel Bollendorff.

A walk through some of the exhibitions

Yuri Kozyrev ( Noor) will present his work on the Libyan rebellion for Time Magazine, Shaul Schwarz (Getty Images) will bring us into the « narcos culture » where the mausoleum tombs rival the riches… A real industry of death.

Chien-Chi Chang (Magnum Photos) brings us to Burma, the country of shadows, with his work for National Geographic. For the same magazine, Jonas Bendiksen (Magnum Photos) shows us new images of Bangladesh with « Through thick and thin ».

At Magnum Photos, the Chinese photographer Lu Nan works on the state of psychiatric services in his country, while Riccardo Venturi (Contrasto / Rea) comes back on the situation in Haiti and the eternal homeless.

Valerio Bispuri has a passion for the prisons of South America that are not necessarily seductive. Prisons again, but this time in Africa with Fernando Moleres (Panos).

There will equally be images by Brian Skerry (National Geographic), Alvaro Ybarra Zavala (Getty images), Jocelyn Bain Hogg (VII), Chien-Chi Chang (Magnum Photos), and that’s not all…

The review Days Japan, always very present in Perpignan, was asked by Jean-François Leroy to present a selection of images of the catastrophes that have overtaken Japan.
Each year, the Canon Female Photojournalist Prize awarded by the Association of Female Journalists and supported by Le Figaro Magazine has it’s exhibition. Last year, it was Martina Bacigalupo (Agence VU) who won, and whose work we will see.
And to laugh a little… Peter Dench will expose England uncensored of ten years of work. A little bit of humor in a brutal world.

Always time for savings

During the festival, Perpignan becomes the city of international photojournalism and no one doubts that the 23rd edition will be successful, showing also a big paradox: while more people in the world are interested in seeing the work of photojournalists, less money from the press editors is being spent to send them on stories and to later buy their work.

It is true in all countries and even more in the Western ones. In France, we cannot but celebrate the comments by Frédéric Mitterrand, Minister of Culture and Communication, when he stated in the last Polka Magazine issue: “The press receives important assistance from the State, and I wish for more transparency in the use of these subventions and the way they are invested in editorial content, more precisely, photographic.”

That said, without forgetting that the French government has, as is often denounced by the Union of Professional Photographers (UPP), a tendency to support image banks that perform dumping measures over the photograph prices. It must be stated that the European and French antitrust and price control authorities are not quite interested in the agreements –bordering legality- signed by the pools of press agencies with the group Prisma press, for example.

Everyone is saving money. As a result, this year, the organization headquarters set since 1990 in the Hotel Pams will meet the stands for the agencies, the collectives, the sponsors, in the Palais de congrès. Even more cost cutting, up until this day, two awards are in need of a sponsor: the Alexandra and Pierre Boulat considering the reasonable Canon Europe rate, and the one of the daily press for which the SNCF is missing the train of History.

Still, 147,000 euros are needed to be sent to the photographers for their Visa d’or prizes, of which the Red Cross Humanitarian International Committee has declared forfeit. Another prize, the young Perpignan reporter will be awarded, the France/24/RFI for best documentary, the National Iconographer Association (ANI) and PixPalace, without forgetting the Getty Images Grants for Editorial Photography.

The press being what it is, the Visa d’or and the other Prizes are more and more important in the photographers’ budgets. A tendency that is at the same time nice but quite frightening for democracy.

Michel Puech