The Curator’s Conundrum

On Aug. 31, Visa Pour l’Image, the world’s most influential photojournalism festival, will celebrate its 25th birthday. It’s grown hugely over 21/2 decades; last year more than 3,000 people — including 1,200 photographers from 68 countries — were accredited to the festival. Only 123 people were accredited to the first one. But Jean-François Leroy, founder of the almost three-week-long event, is planning only a muted celebration. “There will be no fireworks, no birthday cakes,” he says. “Especially during this time when the profession is in such bad shape.”

Leroy’s restraint comes at a time of feast and famine in the world of photojournalism. There have perhaps never been more young people trying to break into the industry, armed with affordable digital cameras and instant e-mail access to editors — but perhaps never so little paid work to go around. As magazines and newspapers face reduced budgets, the opportunities for photographers to make a living from the news are shrinking.

(PHOTOS: 25 Years of Visa Pour l’Image: A Tribute to Jean-François Leroy)

“The financial aspect is a disaster,” says Leroy, who was a working photojournalist when he started Visa Pour l’Image in 1989 in the city of Perpignan in the southwest of France, where the festival is still based. “Less and less assignments are given by magazines. When we started Visa Pour l’Image, I knew a few hundred photojournalists who were living decently from their job. Now I know about 20.”

If Leroy seems downbeat, his festival is a manifestation of his defiant optimism. There’s no event like it in the world for young photographers to network with established professionals. The festival is spread over 14 venues in the center of the city: photographers, editors, curators, agents, students and fans of photojournalism attend talks, meetings and screenings and view the work of dozens of photographers in the exhibitions that are central to the festival. The largest show this year is a retrospective of the career of veteran British photographer Don McCullin, best known for the pictures he took during conflicts in Vietnam, Northern Ireland, Nigeria and other war-torn regions.

“We want to ‘rediscover’ the greats,” Leroy says about the McCullin show. “I obviously don’t need to rediscover him, I know his work well. But a few years ago I did a show with David Douglas Duncan, one of my masters, and so many young photographers said, ‘Where did you find his work?’ I think young photographers are very talented, but they don’t know anything about the history of photography.”

Technology, including the high-resolution cameras found on most smartphones, has helped convince a new generation that there might be shortcuts to the greatness the likes of McCullin and Duncan earned over decades. Leroy offers some advice to the new, tech-savvy generation: “Work, work, work. Read everything done before you. Watch what was done before you. Try to find another angle.”