The Visa pour l'Image photojournalism festival has often, over its 21 years of existence, come under criticism for its intense pessimistic focus on images of conflicts, suffering, violence, grief and hopelessness. And this year, it's likely to be the case once more as projects on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Congo and Madagascar take centre stage. However, a few photographers have been selected for their lighter, yet serious, projects. German photographer Ulla Lohmann is among them.

Her exhibition - Ash City. Fifteen Years of Ash: A Story of Survival, Hope and Persistence – takes a tragic situation and makes it into a hopeful message for the world community. Lohmann has spent the last eight years visiting, sometimes three times a year, the small city of Rabaul in Papua New Guinea. It used to be one of the most popular destination in the region, until September 1994, when the city was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Tavurvur, sending ash thousands of feet into the air, covering streets, fields and buildings, and ultimately causing more than three-fourths of the constructions in the city to collapse.

'Fifteen years later, people still live in the ruins of the past, hoping that one day Rabaul will again become the paradise it once was,' say the organisers.

'I never tell my mother what I'm working on, until I'm back,' she tells BJP. 'She would be too afraid for me.' And rightly so. Lohmann has often found herself in the middle of war zones or, in the case of Rabaul, on the slopes of an erupting volcano. 'That volcano is in constant eruption,' she says. 'And it's all sort of eruptions. Sometimes, you will be under a shower of fire balls. The thing to do is to keep staring at the fire ball until it's just a few meters away from you. Only then, you can move away. You can't just run anywhere, you have to know where the fire balls will land.'

Ulla Lohmann showing off her images at Visa pour l'Image

At other times, the 'bombs' as she calls them, will be too numerous. 'I have a video, shot in the dark, of a shower of fire bombs.' Of course, Lohmann hasn't shown the video to her mother.

Lohmann, who has already hiked the volcano more than 10 times, says that her work is more than just a record of the destruction it has brought to Rabaul. 'These people are content of what they have. They're staying in this city, despite the continuous flow of ashes, because it's their ancestors' lands. We, on the other hand, are never happy of what we have. We keep on trying to get more, buy the latest gadgets. We're very materialistic. For the people of Rabaul, a day without acidic showers or a day spent with their families is a good day.'

But beyond the quest for a more meaningful life, Lohmann's work illustrate the deep links there exists between a civilisation and its ancestral lands. 'I find this myself,' she says. 'This work has allowed me to find myself again, to realise where I come from in Germany.'

Back in Papua New Guinea, it hasn't always been easy for Lohmann to gain access to the people whose lives she wanted to document. 'It took me years to be accepted,' she says. 'But when they see you spend a lot of time with them, and coming back again and again, you gain their trust.'

For Lohmann's Mummies in Papua portfolio, which was shown at Visa's first nightly projections, the German photographer had to wait two years before being granted authorisation to see the mummies. In an isolated part of Papua, the Anga tribe used to preserve its dead, mummifying them. That tradition has been lost, until the tribe's grand-daughter's death.

'In 2001, I read in a travel guide one single sentence about this tribe. It said “They smoke their dead.” When I saw this, I had to go. It was hard to gain access. At first they refused to show me the mummies. So I came back the next day. Then, they said I could see them, but that they wouldn't tell me their stories. So I refused. The following they, they finally accepted to show the mummies and to tell me their stories.'

The lost tradition made a comeback when, a little girl, the tribe's grand-daughter died. 'I was with them when she died. We tried everything. I had a satellite phone, but couldn't get through. We had a plane that could have helped us, but the fog prevented it from landing. The tribe's leader saw these events as signs that the lost tradition had to be restored.'

The mummies were brought back to the village, and with the help of an expert, restored for preservation. Now, the tribe's leader also wants to be mummified once he dies and has already asked Lohmann to record the event.

Lohmann's images, which are unique, have already attracted interest from Geo magazine in France, which found her through Visa. 'The festival brings together talented photographers with experienced people. It's been great for me.' However, young photographers shouldn't only count on an exhibition to get the exposure they're looking for.

'They need to adapt and always diversify,' she says. Lohmann has been financing her travels using grants or following the multimedia route using video. 'It's not always easy, but if you really want it, you can succeed.'

We continue our interviews with the photographers exhibited at Visa pour l'Image, the world's largest photojournalism festival.

Image courtesy of François Le Diascorn / Raph - Eyedea

François Le Diascorn was never really attracted to the United States of America, that is until he met his wife from Oregon. He wasn't particularly interested in photography either. 'I didn't really understood why people would take photos instead of taking the time to look at the scenes they were photographing.' A visit to India changed that. 'This country gave me a taste for the visual,' he tells BJP's news editor Olivier Laurent on top of the Castillet in Perpignan.

This trip to India would change his life in many ways. Meeting his future wife on that trip, Le Diascorn was bound for the US when she couldn't say no to a producer role back in Oregon. There, he would discover breathtaking landscapes 'with forests diving into the ocean.'

But, 'Oregon isn't really representative of the US. When he receives a grant from a French organisation, he finally goes on a quest for 'weird America.' For one year, accompanied by his wife, he would travel across the US, visiting all states apart from Hawaii, Alaska and North Dakota – don't ask him why, he doesn't know. 'America is weird enough, I didn't have to look for it. The material came to me,' he says. He remembers one day in 1983 when he saw his first drive-in mortuary. 'People would stay in their cars, order a casket and then sign the paperwork before driving off,' he explains, laughing with his wife.

The following year, he was screened at the Rencontres d'Arles festival, and since then, has been going back to the US every two years. His most recent trip, in 2009, allowed him to witness President Barack Obama's inauguration, of which a photo is included in his exhibition.

The exhibition was set up following another one in Paris organised by the Maison des Etats-Unis, a travel centre set up to promote travel in the US. The curator contacted Jean-François Leroy to have the exhibition included at this year's Visa, and Le Diascorn believes Obama's election might have been key in Leroy's decision to add the French photographer to this year's roaster.

His exhibition is all in black-and-white, a style he prefers and got used to in his early days as a photographer. He is often saddened to see this style disappear. 'The only times you see projects in black-and-white is when it's a pretty dramatic story,' he says. 'Then magazines will ask for it.' His exhibition, dubbed Only in America, is also one of the rare light-hearted shows at Visa.

'There are a lot of tough subjects being shown at Visa,' he says. 'You're facing, especially during the nightly projections, an accumulation of drug-related, war-related or disease-related stories. At the end of it, you really get the blues. And I can understand why magazines publish less and less of these.'

For more about François Le Diascorn, visit his website at www.lediascorn.com.

'Photojournalism is strong as ever.' These words could have been uttered by Jean-François Leroy, Visa pour l'Image's co-founder and director, but instead they were of Dominic Nahr, who just turned 26 and is just back from a trip to Congo.

All the doom and gloom talk in the media about the end of photojournalism is not helping, Nahr tells BJP. 'What's scary is that the general public believes that photojournalism is dying or dead. But we're not. We're adapting and getting stronger,' he says. Nahr isn't an utopian. 'The market is changing,' he admits. 'The old system doesn't work. Lucky for me, I never knew the old system. But it's hard of course.'

For the past couple of years, Nahr has been working and pitching stories non-stop. A lot of his time is spent on assignments, which he believes can still be obtained in today's market with a bit of work and research. 'You have to be engaged with the editors, you have to propose and to fight for your work,' says Nahr. His recent work in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is exposed at this year's Visa, is testimony of his beliefs.

'I was in Berlin for two weeks. And my first night out, which was also my last night out, a friend told me that something was going on in Congo. I got home, and did some research on the Internet at five or six in the morning.' When morning came, he had already booked his flight to Rwanda where he would go on to cross the border and enter the zone of one of the most violent countries in Africa.

He had few contacts there. 'There was a fixer I wanted but I couldn't afford him. I negotiated with him to take me across the border.' There, he received the help of another photographer, Walter Astrada, who is a contract photographer with Agence France-Presse.

The relationship between the two photographers worked, mainly because as a magazine reporter, Nahr did not compete with Astrada's wire work. 'We would get out of the car. I would go to one side, he would go to the other,' he says.

Image courtesy of Dominic Nahr / Oeil Public.

Nahr's work, which is exhibited at Visa until mid-September, was shot in October and November 2008 when General Laurent Nkunda, the Tutsi rebel leader backed by Rwanda, took control of the main roads and towns in North Kivu in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. 'Over 250,000 civilians fled the front line as the rebels advanced on the provincial capital, Goma, pushing government soldiers into further chaos, with looting, raping and killing,' say the festival organisers. 'On the other side of the front, the liberation rebels killed 150 civilians in the mainly Hutu area of Kiwanja once held by the government. In North Kivu, no one is safe, and life for civilians and many soldiers is an endless journey, walking up and down the main road in search of safe haven.'

The proximity of the war to the Rwanda's border facilitated Nahr's work this time. 'It would take only one day to get there,' he says. 'That's why it's been covered by more media this time.' Astrada was the first there, according to Nahr. 'I think he got me in, and then we got the others in and made it into a big story.'

The violence is depicted in Nahr's images. However, the most disturbing ones rarely make it out of Nahr's computer. At Visa, Nahr had a choice between having his exhibition at the Eglise des Dominicains, a majestual venue to which thousands of visitors rush to, or at another, more remote location, behind a wall with a disclaimer regarding the nature of his image. The photographer chose the former. 'I could have had a different selection behind a special wall and sign, or maybe we could have brought my work and the work of other photographers such as Astrada in the same venue, but I wanted to see people reacting to my work. And I think Leroy's selection is excellent.'

Generally, Nahr believes France is more open to images of crude violence than other countries. 'Le Monde 2 did a tight sequence of my work including the close up of a dead 17-year-old kid. It was quite impressive and in-your-face,' he explains. 'Arles also screened these images. But, in the US it's different. Maybe in Germany as well.' However, the young photographer still thinks that if he shot a full feature on the massacre with a beginning, a middle and an end, he would have tried harder to get it published, no matter in which the country.

When Nahr first started in photojournalism, he had a belief that his pictures wouldn't change the world. That was until one of his images of Somalis in Kenya made it on the front page of The New York Times. 'They used a poetic picture on the front page, and the following day it was being held in Congress in front of the Senate foreign affairs committee where [Senator John] Kerry, and others seat. In a way, I was testifying in front of these men who have the power to change things,' he says. 'You forget that The New York Times is read every day by the President.'

This year, Nahr will be back in Africa where there are more stories he wants to tell. Stories he thinks he will be able to share, despite the gloomy outlook. If you want to be published, he says, 'you have to pick your projects carefully. The love is there to drive you, but if your story won't sell, then you shouldn't do it. You have to adapt.' And this is also true for photojournalism as a whole. 'We're adapting. I don't know what the solution is – whether photographers should become publishers as well – but I'm sure somebody will come up with something. And when they do, it will be so easy and simple.'

Until then, he concludes, 'the need for good stories won't die.'

At the Visa pour l'Image photojournalism festival, we met up with Zalmaï, a Swiss-based photographer who left Afghanistan more than 15 years ago, and since 2001, has gone back to his native country to document the plight of Afghan refugees. We talk with him about the international community's role and what needs to be done now to "win the hearts and mind" of the Afghan people. The interview is in three parts.

Part 1/3

Part 2/3

Part 3/3

Corbis has signed up 11 new photojournalists in a bid to boost its current affairs, sports and entertainment offerings.

The image-provider announced at Visa Pour l'Image that it has signed up Tim Clayton, Elizabeth Kreutz, David Turnley, Steve Lipofsky, Sandy Haffaker, Brendan Hoffman, Noah Addis, Ricardo Ceppi, Les Stone, Amy Sussman and Trevor Snapp.

Clayton, who was born in Leeds but currently lives in Australia, has won eight World Press Photo awards, including winning first place in the competition in 1994, 2003 and 2008. He has also shot sport around the world, as have Kreutz and Lipofsky. Turnley won the Pulitzer Prize in 1990, while Huffaker, Hoffman and Snapp have been published by some of the world's most prestigious news media. Ceppi, meanwhile, was born in Argentina, and shoots hard news and features across South America. Work by each of the photographers can be found on Corbis' site.

Lately, Walter Astrada has been finding himself at the right place, at the right time. Or some people would say, at the wrong place and at the wrong time. He was in Kenya when violent political riots broke out. There he shot some of the most graphic images seen of this internal conflict. He was also in Congo when an under-reported conflict forced 250,000 people into exiles. And, back in February, he arrived two days before some of the most violent repression killed 100 people in Antananarivo in Madagascar.

That month, the main opponent to the government, Andry Rajoelina, proclaimed himself leader of the country. But, President Ravalomanana wasn't ready to relinquish power, responding to the proclamation by calling in the presidential guard that shot at demonstrators. Astrada was there.

'At first the situation was very calm,' he tells BJP. 'I couldn't really justify my presence there, but decided to wait until the following Saturday as there were protests planned. The protests were very orderly, as they always were. There were 2000 people, and just about 20 policemen. The idea was just to go to the palace, shout a few slogans and that would be it. But suddenly the police left, and people started running towards the presidential palace. They didn't intend to overtake it, they didn't even ran towards the fences. That's when the first shots took place.'

He continues: 'The first thing you do is find cover. Only then you start to take pictures. There were so many dead around me.' He brought back some of the only images of the deadly unrest, which he says, is his role as a photojournalist. 'I believe all this is very wrong. It shouldn't happen. It's the same in Congo and Guatemala. Being there, my responsibility is to show what happened. When I'm working, it's not just about taking pictures. I'm not a tourist. The work you do is about what you saw. There is not much room for interpretation [with these violent images]. We're just documenting the facts.'

Picture courtesy of Walter Astrada / Agence France Presse.

However, being there doesn't necessarily means that the images will make it out of the country and into the mainstream media. For example, he says, two of the most disturbing images, showing bloody bodies were barely published in the 'West'. And he has several theories why that is. 'First, it happened on a Saturday, and the Sunday papers don't publish that kind of violent stories. And, in many parts of the world, they don't even know where Madagascar is, unless people saw the animated films of the same name.'

Not everything in Astrada's work is about news. When he has time, and especially when he has the money, he works on his personal projects. Next month, he will be spending a month in India to document sexuality-based abortion, which is costing the lives of thousands of female foetuses. This will form part three of his project on violence against women. The first part was shot in Guatemala. One of the resulting images received the British Journal of Photography's International Photography Award. The second part was shot in Congo, where he also did some work for AFP.

'When it is news, AFP selects my destination. But I chose Kenya. For Congo, I was sent there because I was the only one that received a visa. In Uganda, I covered what I thought was important.' But for his personal work, Astrada selects his destination. 'He balances his press work with his personal projects depending on his financial situation. 'It's a matter of money. If I need money, then I will be working for AFP and magazines. And when I have enough money, then I will work on my personal stuff.'

Sometimes, when he is on assignment for AFP, Astrada will shoot some pictures for his personal projects. Some of these pictures were shown during one of Visa pour l'Image's nightly projections.

At the Visa pour l'Image photojournalism festival, we met up with Abbas, a Magnum Photos members who produced, this year, the book In Whose Name? which takes a deep look at Islamism in a post 9/11 world. In this two-part interview, Abbas explores the rise of religion as national identity and the impact it can have in people's lives.

Part 1/2

Part 2/2

$500,000. In four years, that's the amount of money Getty Images has donated to photographers to finish various reportages. This week, Getty has donated another $70,000 to three professional photographers and two student shooters.

Image © Brenda Ann Kenneally.

US-based photographers Krisanne Johnson, Brenda Ann Kenneally and Afghan Zalmai all received $20,000, as well as collaborative editorial support from Getty Images, to pursue their documentary photography projects.

Johnson's work is dubbed I Love You Real Fast and examines the lives of young women in Swaziland, where women have a life expectancy of close to 31, due to the country’s high rate of HIV infections. 'My intent is not only to shed light on their struggle, but to present the full spectrum of their experiences and to capture deeper, truer visual references that are distinct from a sea of status quo images that define Africa to most of the world,' says Johnson.

Kenneally will use her $20,000 to continue her five-year project on Upstate Girls, a study of the issues of class and poverty in Troy, New York. Zalmai, who also won €8000 with the Visa d'Or Feature Award, will try, with this grant, to bring a new vision of Afghanistan to the Western world. 'As most of the western media focuses on what is taking place militarily, I feel strongly that the extensive human tragedy taking place in my country is being ignored by Western eyes and is going unnoticed to the rest of the world,' he says in a statement.

Student photographers Ed Ou of Canada and US-based Carl Kiilsgaard will both receive $5000. Ou, an energetic young photographer has been working on Perilous Journey, which documents the full journey that Somali refugees take as each year thousands flee from the violence in Mogadishu to the port city of Bosasso and the perilous boat journey to Yemen begins, as they seek work as laborers in the oil rich Persian Gulf.

Kiilsgaard's project, The White Family, follows a family that has lived in rural Kentucky – where, in 1964, President Lyndon Johnson declared a war on poverty that has not yet been won – for generations.

The grants were awarded by a jury that included Cheryl Newman, picture editor of Telegraph Magazine in the UK, Jean-Francois Leroy, director general of Visa Pour l’Image and Volker Lensch, department head at Stern Magazine.

With the decline of commissioned assignments, the grants are seen as one of the only ways to spend longer period of time on personal projects, the photographers admitted at the award ceremony in Perpignan, France. 'For special long-term stories you want to do, you often have to do it yourself,' says Ou. 'At the end of the day you have to put down your own money because most newspapers and magazines will just say that they don't [invest] that.'

Eugene Richards, who received $20,000 earlier this year, adds that the grant is more than just money. 'It's the pick up you need when you need it the most.'

For more information visit gettyimages.com/grants.

At the Visa pour l'Image photojournalism festival, we met up with Contact Press Images photographer Alexandra Avakian, who published this year a diary on her travels in Muslim countries over the past 20 years. "Windows of the Soul: My Journeys in the Muslim World" is published by Focal Point.

The interview is in French, but you will find below a English transcript.

BJP Can you start by talking about your pictures and your project?

M.D. This project came after another one in Guatemala, when I covered another conflict, in the 80s - the genocide of the Mayas by the army. I followed the work of legists and anthropologists who were looking for clandestine cemeteries. At then end of that project, I was wondering why Guatemala was involved in another war, which is the title of this exhibition, after having underwent 36 years of war.

That’s why I wanted to work on that global theme, about the multiple violences the Guatemalan People are experiencing. The “maras” phenomenon is the main theme of my project. This is not a project exclusively about “maras”, this phenomenon is one aspect hiding among many. I wanted to go deeper because you have to know that before becoming murderers, these kids were victim of this accumulation of violence.
I wanted to show all the different violences they could have been victims of – poverty, no public health care, no education, familial context, sexual abuses. Their families are usually disintegrated, because of war or because their parents left to immigrate illegally to the US.

These young people had no values, no references and the only way for them to exist in a society that had always denied them, is to use the only language they know – violence.

BJP How did you have access to the gangs? Was it difficult? How long of a process was it?

M.D. This is a really long process, which is really dangerous. Today no one is safe. I first spent five months with them in prison. I wanted to understand the situation, to try not to stigmatize them since they are stigmatized enough in their country and abroad.

We just pay attention to their tattoos and I wanted to go further. I wanted to go beyond that false and reductive image we have to reassure ourselves. By talking with them, I created a link with them, little by little they accepted to testify, we trusted each other and they allowed me to take pictures.
There is no testimony in this exhibition but my work is made of them. That’s how I understood that whereas the Guatemalan government and mass media want us to believe, they are a consequence of the situation and not the reason why Guatemala is in this difficult situation. After the peace agreements of 1996, the government did not answer to any of the population’s demands.

These young people grew up in shantytowns. There are about 250 or 300 of them in Guatemala. These shantytowns are the result of the war; to escape the massacre made by the army, thousands and thousands of people – mainly mayas - left and settled in wastelands in Guatemala, living under plastic and cardboards for years. The state did not help them, they had no access to education. They grew up in these conditions hating this society that forgot and rejected them. Society always denied their existence.
In the end, the only way to feel like they are human beings is to integrate a “maras” when they turn eight or ten. For once in their lives, the others are afraid and drop their head when they cross their paths. They’ve known but one language in their life – that of violence.

They know they’re going to die maybe at 12, and they prefer to die standing up rather than dying on their knees, humiliated like their ancestors.

BJP Many images can be really hard to look at in this exhibition. How do you work in these situations? How do you work that close to death?

M.D. It’s always delicate to show harsh images, it is a real problem as a photographer to be able to show violence and death while still respecting the intimacy of the people you photograph. It is a real “cas de conscience”.
I want to show the violence, not suggest it. But I don’t want to fall into the morbid, I don’t know if I made it but I tried.

BJP Afterward, is it difficult to publish this kind of pictures? Are magazines willing to publish violent or bloody pictures?

M.D. I don’t think that is what bother them, magazines are used to superficiality. They do a quick review of everything. When they send journalists, they send them for two, three or four days to cover a situation they don’t know anything about and as a consequence, they bring back clichés. Whereas when you work on a project for a longer period of time, you go further, you understand more and more of what is going on. In that case, they are disconcerted because it is different from what they thought or imagined.
You may not realize it but the longer you work on a project the hardest it get to publish it.

BJP Do you think that some countries are more willing to publish this kind of project?

M.D. I don’t really know about the North American press. Anyway, concerning this project, this is a result of two years of investigations, and I am still working on it, I am going back there at the end of October. About the French press, I did not want my project to be published by my agency (Agence VU) for these two years because it was not coherent enough for me. This exhibition is the result of five periods of three months in Guatemala. I did not want my pictures to be used as clichés, I was waiting for my project to be coherent enough for it to be published.

Actually, in one or to weeks, VSD, a French magazine is going to publish it. But it is always the same, it is going to be a portfolio, and I thank the director or photography who fought for its publication but there is not going to be any text or analysis, the text is made of large captions, there is no testimonies and at the end it tends to be cliché as well. But unfortunately, we cannot decide and it is really hard to control the publication of our work, but still it enables us to go back there to work.

BJP Back to your project and its title - The Other War - as opposed to the armed conflict. Do you think that this kind of internal conflict is overshadowed by what is happening on a global stage, by the war against terror or news such as Michael Jackson’s death?

M.D. One simple example, this reportage was supposed to be published this week, during Visa pour l’Image and it was postponed because of Ted Kennedy’s death, celebrities’ news is obviously more attractive than this kind of projects. What can we do? How can we struggle? We have no control over this.

BJP Do you think Visa pour l’image is still important for photojournalism in general?

M.D. Of course, not only is it a great promotional tool for us, but it is also the opportunity of showing many pictures that are usually not published. As photojournalists, indeed, we are interested in telling stories and to see these stories to be published. Unfortunately, the unique way to do this is at these festivals such as Visa pour l’Image. Because the press is getting more and more careful and is paying less and less. And at the end, some really good photographic reportages have never been published. It’s dramatic, everyone agrees and acknowledges it but nowadays, most of the magazines have contracts with press agencies. We have less and less space to publish our work.

BJP The president of VII Photo Agency said that photojournalists should work with firms and NGOs to get funding. Do you agree?

M.D. Nowadays, to be able to work on a long time on a project, as far as I am concerned and I am not talking about my colleagues, the money I earn from my work doesn’t enable me to go back in the field. We have to find some new ways to find funds. NGOs can be a possibility. For this project, a local NGO helped me financially and allowed me to pay for my plane tickets. It is already a lot.

When I start working on a project I always try to figure out why and for whom I doing this? Well, if the press is not publishing your work anymore, how can you inform? I am interested in giving something back to the people who offered me their images. I’m trying to be useful to the country.
We are currently working on a huge project, to make a book made of pictures and testimonies and a pedagogical booklet to give to all Guatemalan schools. The goal is to try to get them to think about the whole situation. When a young person integrates a gang at the age of eight or ten, he has no idea of what he is doing. As I was saying before, these young people have no patriarchal reference. Even the government is not a good example for these people, since it is corrupt.
The only role models young people have are the gang leaders at the corner of the streets. They have got power, money, women, and these are the only things they see. Once you integrate a gang you cannot go back, you will end up in prison or in a cemetery.

We have to do something for these young people now.

Eugene Richards, arguably one of the best living documentary photographers, can seem odd the first time you meet him. He is quiet and appears shy, and to his own admission, doesn’t really know how to deal with agencies and photographers at festivals such as Visa pour l’Image.

‘You have to sell your work at these festivals, but I’m uncomfortable doing that,’ he tells BJP. ‘Photographers also do this to me. They show me their work, ask me for my opinion and advice, but I can’t. If I could, I would, but no one believes me when I say that.’

The photographer, who left Magnum Photos twice and VII Photo before signing with Getty Images, was in Perpignan this year presenting a very intimate project. War is Personal is a series of 15 photographic essays in which Richards introduces us to Americans whose lives have been deeply and irrevocably impacted by the ongoing war in Iraq - a former combat medic who struggled with addiction upon returning home, a father who has just learned that his son was killed in action, a mother who spends every waking hour caring for her grievously brain-injured son, a young soldier who refused redeployment and fled to Canada, a young paraplegic shot in the spine four days after arriving in-country.

The idea behind War is Personal came after much deliberations, says Richards. ‘I was critical of the war, and I wanted to do something about it. I thought of going to Iraq, but I didn't want to be embedded, to follow the army. I wanted to be free to choose what to cover and where to go.’

‘War is very personal,’ he adds. ‘My son asked me what would he do if he were drafted. It's a family decision. It can cause a huge clash in a family like it did with mine. My own father told me I would go to Vietnam if I were drafted. I wouldn’t have had a choice.’

Richards’ project began four years ago. He started researching and looking online for families that had been disrupted by the war in Iraq. ‘I didn't want to have to choose who to follow,’ he says. ‘I didn't want to know more about them. I didn't want to make a determination of where they were, what idea of the war they had. Tomas was the first. I called him up, and he accepted to receive me.’

Richards spent a few days with the former soldier at his home in Kansas City. Tomas needs two hours every morning to get out of bed and get ready. When Richards saw the photos, he was reticent to use them. Calling Tomas, he said: ‘You know how bad you look? He just said: “so?” It happens, it's true.’

‘For most photographers, access, getting invited in is fundamental,’ says Richards. ‘It's very delicate, especially with a family in grief. With every story you're dealing with there is a line. And you can't cross it. They tell you a story, and you have to let them do it.’

Richards is still working on War is Personal. He has received a $20,000 Getty Grant for Editorial Photography this year, which will go to complete the work. The hope is that, once the book is released, it will bring more attention to the masses of injured soldiers coming back from the war.

‘The biggest problem is indifference,’ says Richards. And with the war in Afghanistan picking up steam, ‘thousands of people are going to come back injured. Now, we can keep alive a lot of people that would have died in other wars.’

Sometimes, indifference can take another form. Every once in a while, he will be asked if by taking a critical look at the consequences of war, he is not promoting an anti-American view. ‘America is where I want to live. Am I against the government? Yes. I’ve seen some people heckle grieving families saying that they shouldn’t protest the war because their sons volunteered and knew the risks. Why would you say that to someone?’

Indifference also comes from the magazines. ‘I can't sell this [story],’ he tells BJP. ‘I tried but only The Nation magazine ran it, as a very small one-page story. Magazines feel there is nothing new there. They're looking for what's redemptive in this story.’

However, the response from the public has been amazing, he adds. ‘We need to get the material out, and get the dialogue going. More sacrifice need to be made on the part of the media. But, you have to understand them, why would they print this when they can get bigger sales from celebrities’ images.’

What about publishing it online? ‘You have to be willing to give it away,’ he says. ‘The only danger I see is the fact that some people could use it to transmit their own political views. You have to find a way to get it out in its virgin form.’

For more on Richards’ work, visit www.eugenerichards.com.

Brennan Linsley, an Associated Press photographer, has gone 12 times to the high-security detention facility in Guantanamo Bay where the Bush administration said some of the most dangerous terrorists are held indefinitely. At a time when the Obama administration has committed itself to closing down the facility, we talked to Linsley about his work there. How he gained access to the base? What could he photograph once there? And what impact the prison has had on the US both at home and abroad?

Brennan Linsley in front of his exhibition at the 2009 Visa pour l'Image photojournalism festival.

BJP: How did you get access to the prison? And what are you allowed to see once there?
Brennan Linsley: You constantly have to lobby to go to Guantanamo Bay. There is a lot of red tape. Whenever I get the green-light from the public affairs office at Guantanamo, AP sends me. The US military is the only limiting factor in these assignments. But, there is a new unit every few months. So you often have to start over the negotiations. But I've seen that the more you go, the easier it is to get in.

They have an itinerary prepared for the press. It's usually broken down in 15-minute parts. You have to work a lot to get out of this itinerary. Most of what they have for you has nothing to do with the detainees. They will show you the beach, the lighthouse. The time you have inside the “wire” in the detention facility, as they called it, is very limited. They try to move you along the whole time.

Now, I send a wish list every time. I tell them that I don't want to go to the clinic or the lighthouse. I tell them to skip this or that. “Just put me in a corner and I'll be fine.” Sometimes the public affairs people will help you. A couple of times, they took me inside the central guard tower at 4am and allowed me to photograph the morning prayer.

Every photo you see is a victory. It's amazing how simple some of the photographs look.

When you get the photograph of a detainee, it's the result of hours of pushing. You're not allowed to communicate with the detainees. There are 15 pages of ground rules. You try to humanise these guys, but it's difficult with these restrictions.

My first trip was at the instigation of the government. They saw that we kept on using the same and unique pictures we had of Guantanamo Bay, when it was first opened. They were saying: “these are out of date, wait until you see how it looks like now.”

My goal is to come back from each trip with a couple of shots that will allow me to paint more of a picture of this place. Some trips, I came back with nothing at all. Some journalists and photographers get frustrated when they don't get what they wanted. They spend a lot of time and money on this, and when you come away with very little, it is frustrating. And it doesn't serve the government's purposes. They should allow selected interviews of detainees. In terms of public relations, it would go a long way.

BJP: Talking about the detainees, is it difficult to frame a story if you can't get access to them?
Brennan Linsley: One of the problems you face is that you don't know who you are photographing. Are they, as Bush and Cheney say, the worst of the worst? Some are high-ranking terrorists, some are Talibans or foot-soldiers, but others are truly innocent. We know that a certain number of detainees were captured on bounties paid by the government. They used to drop leaflets in the tribal areas saying that $5000 would be awarded per terrorist caught. A lot of innocent people were rounded up as a result. In the fog of war, a lot of stuff happens.

So when you're working there and make eye-contact with a detainee, you never really know who it is you looking at.

Something that should be looked at in the indoctrination process at Guatanamo. What is the effect of confinement on the detainees. There is now a new military commander that has a pretty sophisticated view of what needs to be done to win the hearts and minds, and how counter-productive the stringent rules have been to achieve this goal.

This war is very political. The Talibans are also fighting for the hearts and minds of the population. I was very surprised about how successful the republicans were at turning this into political football. They shaped the message by saying that only the worst of terrorists were there. And they have used that perception against Obama.

Obama's view is that Guantanamo Bay is not only a human rights aberration, but also a strategic blunder that hurts America. It has become a symbol of US oppression. It's killing US troops and so it's strategic to get rid of it. But the Republicans are so good at setting the narrative. I remain hopeful, if anyone can close Guantanamo, Obama can. But it is going to need on ongoing dialogue with the public. It has to be a campaign, so that Cheney cannot say that it is endangering America. It has to be more than a couple of speeches.

BJP:: How is the base? Can you gain access to other areas?
Brennan Linsley:: It's surreal. It's Cuba, but it's not. Ten to 15,000 people live there. They have McDonald's, Starbucks, the Navy version of Wal-Mart. They have everything.

There are two ways to cover this story. You can go on the standard media tour, or you can be commissioned for the pre-trial hearings. For the latter, you get to go into the base – Camp Justice. The bubble is tighter there. You are in a eight-people tent. You can't photography anything outside, not even a little bit of razor wire. You can only photograph the lawyers and the tent.

In late May, in Camp Iguana, there was a Chinese detainee, one of the guys that no one would take. He heard that there were journalists coming that day, and so wrote down on a pad the words “Let there be justice” and “We need to freedom.” The public affairs people didn't know what hit them. You can't communicate with the detainees, but there was nothing in the rules that dealt with detainees showing placards. Our work was held in limbo for 24 hours, while the Obama administration was informed and that they wouldn't be taken by surprise by the images' release.

Not all photographs make it out of the base. 'The operational security people go through all the photographs, videos and sounds recorded by journalists and photographers and they delete anything that they perceived breaks the ground rules. It's agonizing. The best pictures from Guantanamo Bay are all gone. It's hard to humanise someone when you can't even show their face.'

BJP: Has it been difficult to operate in the current economic climate, with people saying that photojournalism is dead?
Brennan Linsley: There's less money in photojournalism, that's a fact. It's hard for people to make a living. In terms of impact on the public, this hasn't changed. If you asked people if they remember a photograph from the last 12 months, the answer would be yes.

A lot of photojournalists are dying financially. It becomes an art that is only sustainable if you have a life outside of photojournalism. More and more you need to self-fund the process. You need to be able to work for nine months, set aside a few thousand dollars and then you can spend that money on a project for three months. But the challenge is to find a venue to show this work. Photojournalism suffers from that lack of venue, which is paradoxical in a world where we have 800 television channels, thousands of magazines and the online world.

The industry is suffering, but the impact of photography hasn't changed. It's a powerful medium. A powerful photograph makes people think, it makes them want to know more. And I don't see anything that would change that.

The Golden Age of photography has been over for a long time. It died somewhere between the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. Before, magazines such as Time would send three photographers unilaterally without restrictions. They were able to send their pictures whenever they wanted. Now, we have three deadlines a day. It's annoying sometimes, because you want to be able to disappear into a story.

BJP: In projects such as this one [exhibited at this year's Visa pour l'Image photojournalism festival] do you retain control of your images?
Brennan Linsley: Absolutely not. AP is the owner. AP has a resale division where they resell the pictures. Photographers don't see much of that money. But, at the same time, it contributes to the health of the company, which allows us to go on such projects.