© AFP/RAYMOND ROIG
Problems of financing photographic reports, agencies in difficulty,
competition from amateurs and the Internet: photojournalism is going through a deep crisis,
very visible at the Visa pour l'image festival in Perpignan
The time of trials
The American photographer David Burnett remembers with nostalgia the glorious times, in the 1970s, when he
was waiting in his living room for "the magic phone call". "The telephone rang, it was the agency calling to send me to Balochistan. I
looked on a map where it was, and jumped on the first plane."
Today, the phone rarely rings. Even talented photographers
confirmed no longer find either funding or outlets for their images. That
It's been fifteen years since in Perpignan, at the Visa pour l'image festival, we deplore the decline of author photojournalism, victim of falling prices, overabundance of photographers, the poor health of the press, the explosion of the Internet. But since 2008, with the economic crisis, things have taken a turn dramatic turn. The Gamma agency, where they worked Raymond Depardon and Gilles Caron,
was put into liquidation in July and is preparing to dismiss all
its photographers. Even Magnum, the cooperative founded by Henri
Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa in 1947, faltered. Its turnover fell by 30% in one year. Magnum made a social plan, mortgaged its building. And all the photographers agreed to reduce their margins for the benefit of the agency.
In Perpignan, the collapse of the sector is clearly visible. At the Palace
conferences, the floor reserved for agencies is almost deserted: the rental of
stands fell by a third in one year. Œil Public, a collective that recently became
agency, did not have the means to finance its own. "Last year,
explains Samuel Bollendorff, member of Œil Public, all our sources of income have
dived - the press, corporate communication, the sale of prints in
gallery. We had to lay off people. At the end of 2008, it's simple, I only worked
A few days. For the first time, I did not reach the RMI."
The economic crisis has accentuated a major trend on the front of
the image: increased competition from agencies, general drop in prices,
generalization of royalty-free photos. Faced with the fall of its
advertising revenue, the press in difficulty pulled the market down. "The
magazines began to negotiate packages with a single agency, explains Mete Zihnioglu, technical director of Sipa: for a fixed monthly amount, they had access to
all agency images. But at the same time, they closed the door to
other agencies. L'Express was the first to negotiate a package with Reuters.
Overnight, Sipa lost 25,000 euros per month."
With agencies in poor financial health, photo budgets in
decline in the press, the production of reports has taken a hit. Up to the
end of the 1980s, news magazines, Time and Newsweek in the lead,
driven by their enormous distribution, spent enormous sums to
fund photographers. "Time paid $15,000, plus expenses,
for a week's work, remembers David Burnett. And not necessarily for
publish: just to make sure the images wouldn't go to the
competition." Today, the readership has migrated to the Internet and
press groups are chasing costs.
Penniless magazines negotiate prices, cut costs, and
above all shorten the length of stays as much as possible. "In 1994, I
worked six months in a row for Geo for a report on the elephant in
several Asian countries. It has become totally unimaginable,” explains Patrick
Adventurer, from Gamma. A one-week report for a magazine
today is only paid $4,000 or $5,000. "The price was
divided by three in ten years", assures Annie Boulat,
director of the Cosmos agency.
The daily newspapers are not left out in this downward movement: the New York Times, which produces reports with its own photographers, also collaborates with
exterior photographers, paid $250 per day. The price does not have
moved since I started, twelve years ago,” admits Elizabeth Flynn,
assistant in the photo department of the American daily. And for this amount, the
photographer must always provide more: his images will be published in
the paper edition, on the website and even resold by the New York Times
to other media.
With such prices, photographers are pulling the devil by the tail.
Thus Sarah Caron, who covered the monks' revolt in Burma for the Journal du Dimanche,
made his accounts: "I had to pay for plane tickets, buy a small
camera, hire a translator. But only part of the costs were
covered. In total, if we remove the percentage paid to my agency, these ten
days of work earned me 150 euros! As a result, the agency reduced its margin
so I can get out of this."
Fewer and fewer media outlets risk financing reports. All
at most magazines offer the photographer a simple
"guarantee" : a lump sum is paid to him to buy a
plane ticket. Then the magazine has priority to publish images,
paid per unit. This advance system has long been the driving force behind
photojournalism.
But when Bruno Stevens
wanted to leave, in January, for the Gaza Strip, the Belgian photographer did not
find neither order nor guarantee. "I financed my plane ticket myself.
And it was only in Egypt, when I found a way to enter Gaza, that
Stern and Paris Match took the train on the way. I made my work profitable, but retrospectively.
This poses the problem of photographers' access to the field."
Since the press is lacking, many photographers seek to
diversify their activity to multiply sources of financing. Bruno
Stevens, "totally broke", took up "people" photography,
more lucrative. He also did commissions for NGOs - a practice
more and more widespread, but which others refuse
photojournalists, judging NGOs too involved in the conflicts covered.
Catalina Martin-Chico, who works on Yemen, gives photography lessons
and does communications for companies. Samuel Bollendorff financed
its project on China thanks to the Ministry of Culture. "The press,
now, for me, it's the icing on the cake, he says. I no longer count
on it."
MaryAnn Golon,
former photo director of Time, relies heavily on the investment of
large private companies to finance photographic projects, through
scholarships or orders. For its part, the Magnum agency, which no longer shoots
for a long time the majority of its income from the press, will open a
new gallery in Paris to sell its prints. Paradoxically, despite the suffering experienced by agencies and
photographers, there have never been so many images in circulation. With the
technological developments, new images have appeared - which are not
moreover not without raising ethical problems. Amateur photos,
with problematic reliability, are now sold by agencies
specialized, such as Citizenside (of which AFP is a shareholder) or Demotix,
present at the Perpignan festival this year. Others are updated
available directly by their authors on sharing sites such as Flickr.
In a December 2008 issue, Time published a series of photos of Barack Obama retrieved from Flickr, without paying any remuneration to contributors. Illustrative photos (often scripted) have also made a
notable entry into the market. After the giants Getty and Corbis, these are the
microstocks, small online image banks, which offer the most
cheapest in the world: sites like Fotofolia or iStock offer
photographers to submit their images, sold at rock bottom prices, sometimes for
only 1 euro. On April 27, Time made its cover from a
photograph found on iStock: a jar, filled with coins,
illustrates an article on "The new frugality". Even if the image has
been largely reworked by a graphic designer, the basic material will not have cost
to the magazine only a few dozen dollars. Never seen before. The common point of these new images is that they cost nothing
or almost. For Ayperi Ecer,
director of photography development at Reuters,
fundamental upheavals that the world of images is going through are similar to those
already known by the music industry, faced with the invasion of
free on the Internet. "We have not yet found the economic model
viable. But it is multimedia that is the future of photojournalism. There's
will perhaps have less work as a photographer, but more as
graphic designer, as producer." Reuters has already produced, with the help of the company Mediastorm, two
projects combining sound, image and text. MaryAnn Golon, who is now
consultant for the Noor agency, says nothing else: "The ability to
telling stories in images has not disappeared. Undoubtedly only the
best photographers, the most creative agencies will succeed. But
this turning point is quite exciting." For the first time, in Perpignan, a Web documentary prize was awarded
assigned. The president of the jury, Samuel
Bollendorff, worked an entire year to produce, from
of his trip to China, an interactive object entitled "Voyage au bout du
coal". From his images, he first made a book, purchased by 2,000
people. Then an exhibition, seen by 5,000 visitors. Its webdoc, funded in
part by a grant from the CNC and hosted by the site Lemonde.fr, was viewed
by 150,000 visitors. Claire Guillot Article published in the 06.09.09 edition of the newspaper Le Monde. Photos + texts = Eugene Richards' bomb on Iraq The 45 black and white images of the American Eugene Richards, lined up at the Couvent des Minimes, are not the most spectacular,
the most atrocious or bloodiest of the photojournalism festival of
Perpignan. For "War is Personal" ("War is
personal"), the photographer visited American families
whose destiny changed, swept away by the war in Iraq. Anxieties and
depression, physical or internal injuries, maladjustment to life
daily life, suicide... Richards reported a series of short stories, to
both banal and infinitely sad. Eugène Richards, 65 years old, former member of the Magnum agency, who produced
this report for Getty Images,
has long been recognized for his harsh and dark work on the tragedy of
world, from poverty to drugs to his wife's cancer. He would have
liked to get directly involved in the war and, in 2006, he tried to leave for
Iraq. "But I'm not the right person... I'm getting old, I don't have
no experience of conflict." He then decides, "instead of
criticize", to visit the victims who were willing to receive him. "I let them talk, without intervening. I didn't ask them: "So
what was the war like?", but rather: "Tell me about your
family." I didn't want to show their wounds, I wanted to know who
they were." And he adds: "People are always much more
complex as we would like them to be.” Thus, young Dusty, whose face was burned and his hand replaced by
a metal hook, smiles in the images despite his dismantled body.
Apparently he has no regrets. He speaks of war as a "benefit",
how lucky he is to now be able to stay at home to take care of
her daughter. He even occasionally serves as a recruiter for the army. "There was
an HBO report on the victims of the war, explains Eugene
Richards. They questioned Dusty, but he didn't fit with what they
wanted. They did not keep his testimony." The variety of lived experiences is extreme. But on almost all
the images, the tragedy is palpable. The most difficult images to
bear are undoubtedly those of Jose Pequeno,
34 years old. At the military hospital, his sister holds him gently in her arms.
But Jose is not really there: in a photo taken in profile, we see that the
The young man's head has a huge hole, as if he had been bitten into it. HAS
Ramadi, a grenade deprived him of 40% of his brain. Eugene Richards did not want to do "work against
war. But the conclusion of this series of images, he admits, is
crystal clear. "These people are only fifteen people out of thousands. But
when we look at them, we cannot have any illusions about the war." "War is Personal", by Eugene Richards. Visa Festival for
the image, Couvent des Minimes, 24, rue Rabelais, Perpignan. Such. :
01-44-78-66-80. From 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Until September 13. Entrance
free. Claire Guillot Article published in the 04.09.09 edition of the newspaper Le Monde. The Web-documentary
invites itself to "Visa pour l'image" Web documentaries make their debut alongside reports
photographs at the "Visa pour l'image" from Perpignan. In
partnership with RFI and France24, the festival offered a special price for this
multimedia evolution of reporting. This prize was awarded on Wednesday 2
September, to Soren Seelow<, Léo Ridet, Bernard
Monasterolo and Karim El Hadj (Le Monde Interactif).
The genre is not new. Mixing several media,
photography to video, including sound and text, this type of reporting
has existed for over ten years. After significant development in the United States
(with sites producing sound slideshows like Mediastorm for example),
the genre is gradually gaining importance in France. "For six months,
we see a real interest in the professional environment,” believes
Philippe Couve, designer and producer of the Media Workshop on RFI and at the origin of the price of
Web-documentary at "Visa pour l'image". Jean-François Leroy, director of the festival, who in the past has never
hidden his reluctance towards the Internet and its tendency to publish
“free” photographs, explains that he fell in love with this genre
of content "seeing the Web-documentary
by Samuel Bollendorf Journey to the end
coal [published by Le Monde.fr, Editor's note]". This new price
must serve, according to him, as recognition and a guarantee of quality for a genre
still little known: "We received several hundred files, but many
were just simple portfolios to which music was added.
That's not a web documentary. It must be a real multimedia product
with good photos, good sound, good video and good editing." UFO FORMAT However, web reporting does not yet have a definitive form. Almost
each new subject is an opportunity for a different presentation. "It's
a genre that still largely remains to be exploited,” points out Philippe Couve.
He thus points out big differences between sound slideshows that can
be quite linear in the narration and certain documentaries imagined like
full-fledged sites (like Ciudad Juarez, produced by the production company Upian).
Alexandre Brachet, head of Upian, makes the same observation. "The
time has not yet come to duplicate formats, but rather to continue
to create new ones" he explains. "Internet users are asking
be surprised,” he says. For Jean-François
Leroy, find this type of production in the biggest festival
of photojournalism is no coincidence. Everyone believes in the power of the image
fixed in this type of production. According to Alexander
Brachet, photography has a lot to gain from the Web since
Internet users are hungry for “strong and quickly accessible images”.
The Web documentary has the advantage of combining "the strength of the still image and
the possibility of bringing it to life through sound or by zooming in on a detail,” believes
Mathieu Mondoloni, one
photographers nominated for the award. A RESPONSE TO THE CRISIS IN TRADITIONAL MEDIA Mathieu Mondoloni admits that the medium he favors remains paper.
For the quality of the reproductions and their concrete appearance, the magazines keep
of their superb. But it is certain that young photographers "will be
forced to consider the Web as a new means of disseminating their
images", in response to the lack of funding for newspapers. Many directors of photographic agencies, like Stephen Mayes, from the prestigious agency VII, believe that the
magazines will ultimately no longer be the sole clients of photographers but of
partners among others such as public institutions, NGOs or
websites. On this point, traditional photojournalism and Web reporting are
join. In France, for example, many Internet projects have seen
the day thanks to a significant fund from the National Center for Cinematography
(CNC) specially dedicated to digital creations. "Because quality has a
cost,” insists Jean-François Leroy. And information websites
will have difficulty taking it on alone. "But those who will offer these contents of
quality will be able to stand out from the game,” he assures. Web documentaries selected at "Visa pour l'image" : Bearing Witness: Five
Years of the Iraq War
- Ayperi Ecer and Jassim Ahmad /
Reuters in collaboration with MediaStorm The Places We Live - Jonas Bendiksen / Magnum Photos Adoma, towards home? -
Thierry Caron The Words of War in the East
Congo - Cédric Gerbehaye / Agence VU The Incarcerated Body - Soren
Seelow, Léo Ridet, Bernard Monasterolo and Karim El Hadj / Le Monde Interactif The Iron Curtain Diary 1989-2009 - Matteo Scanni,
Samuele
Pellecchia and Massimo Sciacca
/ Prospekt
Photographers, coordination Angelo Miotto The Maraude: Listening to the
homeless - Matthew
Mondolini Chronicles of Beijing - From Mao to the Olympics
- Marco Nassi Nera / ARTE Report Antonin Sabot Article published in the 04.09.09 edition of Journal Le Monde.
There is Mona Parsons, who accompanies his son to the airport after having tried in vain to prevent him
to return to Iraq. The young man kissed his children in their bed and
then he left. There is Mike Harmon,
this military doctor who has had terrible anxiety attacks since he saw
women and children die under the bullets of his unit. We see it
prostrate on a bench.
Tomas Young has been completely paralyzed since a shot hit him in the back,
just four days after his arrival in Iraq. It is necessary to cite Kimberly Rivera, who fled to Canada with her children and her husband during a
permission. The American police can come and get her at any time.
Each time, Eugene Richards takes a few black and white photos, often framed closely, which he
accompanied by a testimony. The images are simple, sometimes deliberately
repetitive. Above all, the texts are exposed, not as legends, but
same level as the images. Black pages punctuate the narration. Modesty
photos, combined with the brutality of the texts, produces a terrible force.
Tian'anmen Generation - Being 20
years in China - Patrick Zachmann
Narrative production
