This image is taken from Michel Setboun’s third book about agencies. Eighty reporters were chosen to comment on one iconic image taken during their careers. The image we’re publishing today is a picture by Vincent Leloup.
After the collapse of communism, pollution in Eastern countries became a global concern. I discussed it with Figaro Magazine, who offered to send me to Copșa Mică, Romania, one of the most polluted cities in the world. I arrived on site after crossing the Carpathians in Dacia. The streets were covered with black soot. So were the sheep, and the children leaving school. It was snack time. The city was covered with black smoke and a toxic substance released by the zinc factories. The companies said it was all harmless, and everybody went about like everything was fine, hanging their laundry and planting their gardens. This photograph also marks the end of Collectif Presse, an agency founded in 1981 by young photographers. It was a wonderful time. Newspapers like Libération and Figaro Magazine devoted ample room to photography. Paris was the capital of photojournalism and Americans spent fortunes on our work. The years 1985-1986 were the golden age of the agency.
We covered the Lebanese War and world summits. New photographers came and the Collectif Presse even guaranteed a minimum wage. The winds changed the following year, however. The dollar fell and the Americans started spending less. And we had to admit, management wasn’t our strong suit. The agency closed in 1990. Today I work for myself and run the website divergence-images.com, a distribution tool for independent photographers. The present era and the digital revolution haven’t made me pessimistic. Digital, the internet and social networks afford many opportunities for us to share our work. Photojournalism fans can buy prints and hold their own exhibitions. The real problem concerns reporting from abroad, since sales can no longer cover travel fees. Agencies and the press now rely on local photographers, who are just as good we are, for their international reports. And that means that we do a lot less traveling.
Interview by Igor Hansen-Love
BOOK
40 ans de photojournalisme : Génération agences
by Michel Setboun and Marie Cousin
Éditions de La Martinière
240 pages
ISBN : 978-2-7324-6402-2
39€
http://www.editionsdelamartiniere.fr
http://www.divergence-images.com/vincent-leloup
