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|| SportsShooter.com: News Item: Posted 2009-09-15
Visa pour l'Image: Photojournalism capital of the world
Michael Sullivan's trip to Perpignan was an inspirational experience that he will carry for a long time to come.
By Michael Sullivan, The Sheridan Press
Photo by Michael Sullivan
Visitors take in images by French and international daily newspaper photographers competing for the 2009 Visa d'or Daily Press Award in the Arsenal Des Carmes.
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"Big, beautiful Wyoming." From time to time I’ll see this slogan on bumper stickers of cars driving around Sheridan, the small town in north central Wyoming I live and work in. I can’t disagree. The Cowboy State is a truly beautiful land populated by equally kind and beautiful people. "Photojournalism capital of the world." This is not a bumper sticker I often see on cars driving around the small town in north central Wyoming I live and work in. Don’t get me wrong. There are many photographers in the state of Wyoming as well as nearby Montana working at newspapers, universities and as freelancers that produce high quality work I look to as inspiration on a daily basis. But with the lowest population of the 50 states we’re kind of spread out. And getting any number of us together to talk shop over a beer or on a random weekend can sometimes be a tall order.
This fact was on my mind as I began planning a trip to France last year that would revolve in part around the Visa pour l’Image International Festival of Photojournalism in Perpignan in the south of France that runs from the end of August to mid September.
For the past 20 years this festival has been billed as the premiere international festival of photojournalism. I had been to photojournalism conventions and exhibitions before but as I researched the possibility of making this trip a reality I got the sense that this would be a once in a lifetime experience unlike any of the other exhibitions I had been to. My hunch was on the mark.
I am fortunate to have a cousin living outside of Marseille, France. He and his family invited me into their home and provided me with a base of operations for traveling throughout the southern region of the country including Perpignan, which was about a four-hour train ride away. They also fed me, took me on guided tours of nearby towns and historical sites and were a large part of making my trip so memorable.
Throughout France many cities, large and small, hold annual festivals in the summer months celebrating everything from music to comic books. Perpignan’s annual festival is the Visa pour l'Image. Banners and signs proclaiming this fact could be seen miles before my train pulled into the city’s station.
Photo by Michael Sullivan
Visitors take in a photographic exhibit in the Couvent Sainte Claire, one of several historical venues that hosted works during the Visa pour l'Image International Festival of Photojournalism in Perpignan, France.
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The festival is spread throughout several historical buildings around the town. The first exhibition I took in was a collection by photographer Francois Le Diascorn entitled "Only in America", in the city’s most recognizable structure, the Castillet, or little castle, built in 1368. You had to climb the original spiral turret staircase to make your to the exhibition area. With trusty map in hand I spent the next three days making my way down twisting alleyways and cobblestone paved streets to similar sites throughout the city. In various historical structures I took in exhibitions by Abbas Attar, David Burnett, Stanley Greene, Steve McCurry and Eugene Richards just to name a few. One exhibit that really stuck with me was the Word Press Photo contest winners for this year. Seeing the images online is one thing but walking into a room of beautiful, over-sized prints of the incredible work from all over the world was truly special.
It was great meeting people from all over the world as I made my way between the exhibit areas. Festival goers were easy to spot as we were often consulting our official Visa pour l'Image pamphlets that came with a map of the city and venue locations in a fold out section in the back. That feeling of community amongst photographers that share my passion for the craft that I experience too infrequently back home was something I got to experience with many of the people I came across at the exhibits as we discussed where we were from, our favorite photographers, exhibits and images at the festival and the state of our craft.
My time in Perpignan went by too fast. I am home now in Wyoming sorting through the photos I made, recalling the sites I took in, the amazing photographic work I saw, the people I met and the memories made. I don't know when I'll be able to make a return trip but I am grateful that I had the opportunity to make it at least once. It was an inspirational experience that I will carry with me for a long time to come.
(Michael Sullivan is a staff photographer at The Sheridan Press in Sheridan, Wyoming. You can see his member page here: http://www.sportsshooter.com/msullivan.)
Related Links:
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