Jean-François Leroy uncorked his first bottle of champagne late Tuesday afternoon to celebrate, like every year, the opening of this 23rd edition of “Visa pour l’Image”, the International Photojournalism Festival in Perpignan.

For 23 years, photojournalists, publishers, editors, and media owners have spent the first week of September in the capital of French Catalonia to discuss the year’s events, feast their eyes on thirty exhibitions, get absorbed in the giant screen projections at Campo Santo, and celebrate despite their heavy hearts.

Each year this extremely dangerous profession pays a heavy price for the call to witness the world’s wars, conflicts, disasters and miseries. There are the injured, like Joao Silva who lost his legs in Afghanistan. Another operation is preventing his visit to Perpignan this year. And there are those who will never return: Chris Hondros, Tim Hetherington, Anton Hammerl, and the young Lucas Dolega who all perished this year, like soldiers, in the “field of honor”. Photojournalists are fighters, for peace, our peace.

Violence is omnipresent at Visa pour l’Image. Some take offense, as if the reporters were the warmongers. Stupidity.

The world is cruel both on the battlefield and in the “marketplace”: the number of folding news agencies is incalculable, photojournalists are growing increasingly precarious.

When asked what has changed over 23 years, Festival Director Jean-François Leroy replied without hesitation:

“The disappearance of photo agencies and editors. I won’t list them all, primarily because it is too depressing, and secondly because I might forget some.”

Consequences?

“Today, more and more photographers work alone, without journalists to help them prepare their stories, and without an editor to help them select their images. I now receive hundreds of pictures on CD’s without captions, without any information. It’s no longer photojournalism! The difference is obvious. If you look at National Geographic, for example, they still have a team of people handling their photographers. As a result, their work is more accomplished. When I see the tens of thousands of images that come in to Visa pour l’Image, I have the distinct impression that photographers are starved for photo editors, image researchers, editors in chief! It’s true for journalism in general. Whereas before journalists were given two weeks to write ten pages, now one has only two days to write twenty! Pictorially and editorially, there are fewer in-depth investigations. What was the norm became the exception. I am of course talking about the vast majority of magazines… there are certainly, luckily, individuals who still take the time to investigate thoroughly, but overall, there is less and less priority given to quality photography. There is, and unfortunately this is not the first year that I’m saying it, a lower standard. More and more people are now settling for mediocrity.”

Why?

“Techniques have become so easy that anyone can take a decent picture. But to truly create a subject, to tell a story, that is a different matter. There are more and more reasonably good submissions, but fewer exceptional photoreportages.”

And Photoshop ?

“Despite my repeated outrages, I must admit that if I wanted to hold a Visa pour l’Image festival without Photoshop®, there would be only four exhibitions instead of 28! Basically everyone uses this tool right or wrong. Consciousness would have to be raised on all ends, photographers, agencies and the media that publish the pictures. For example, Libya. I received the same picture taken by fifty photographers. The desert at noon. Everyone knows the light is rotten… yet I found myself looking at pictures with the autumn light of Amsterdam! Something is wrong! I don’t want to accuse picture editors or photo services because every year their budgets are reduced, they don’t have time to check everything – but it is dramatic. That is why at major magazines like National Geographic and Geo, people are hired to verify that files have not been manipulated.”

How many accreditations have been delivered for this year’s edition?

“Our pre-accreditation numbers are similar to last year. We expect approximately 3 000 accreditations, not counting those who come but do not register to avoid paying. As for the number of agencies represented at the Palais de Congrès, our discount offer did not have the expected appeal. No surprise considering the amount of agency closures that took place this year.”

What Jean-François Leroy does not mention is that rather than renting space from the "Images & Evidence" company that organizes the festival, some well known agencies and well known publishers leech off the back of the beast. Not only do they fail to register, but they hold parties, presentations, and conferences, without giving even a small contribution to Visa Pour L'Image. This is a dangerous practice that could ultimately jeopardize the very existence of this extremely important and extraordinary event.

Paradoxically, while media editors seem to believe that photojournalism no longer sells, last year the exhibitions enjoyed over 225,000 entrances, and there will likely be just as many this year. Curiously, the Ministry of Culture and Communication continues to restrict its meager funding.

The skeptic in me cannot help but wonder: are publishers, agencies and the Ministry itself possibly all waiting for the financial collapse of the coordinator to then be generous with a successor to Jean-François Leroy whose furies and brazenness are hardly appreciated by everyone? This would be the biggest mistake that those who speak of "saving photojournalism" could make, with the risk of only a single petition signature.

Michel Puech