Visa Pour L’image, first impressions

The professional week of Visa Pour L’image, the annual photojournalism festival that takes place in Perpignan every year, started this monday. While the official location of the event is the conference center many of the meetings traditionally take place in the many bars around the festival. The Cafe de la Poste is the most popular location to catch up with old industry friends and colleagues and meet new people. Over the past years the festival has addressed the burning question whether Photojournalism is dying or not. In the meantime it has been able to maintain its many exhibitions and evening viewings of award winning photography.

I arrived on Tuesday and after a first day of meetings the consensus is that this year things seem pretty quiet. Less professional attendants and certainly less stands in the exhibition area. Companies appear to make shorter trips to the festival with many arriving on Wednesday afternoon, or Thursday morning for two days of meetings instead of three or four. While it’s clear that the enthusiasm for stands may be low, the attendance may pick up, I’ll keep you posted. As for the Cafe de la Poste, this seems as buzzing as ever as these first pictures will show. With photography shows starting at 21.30 every evening the cafe is still the place to meet afterwards to catch up.

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