Correspondent
Languages

Telling the story as it is

Guillermo Arias Tuesday 10 September 2019

AFP photographer Guillermo Arias has won the top prize at photojournalism’s biggest annual festival, the “Visa Pour L’Image,” for his moving coverage of Central American migrants trying to get into the US.

Here Arias, who is based in Tijuana, Mexico and who scooped up the Visa d’Or for News, speaks about the importance of telling a story as honestly and completely and with as little manipulation as possible, especially in the age of ‘fake news’ and deep mistrust of the media.

Read more
AFP / Greg Baker

Every step you take

Pak Yiu Friday 2 August 2019

"You expect to have problems when reporting on sensitive stories in China," writes Pak Yiu, a video journalist based in Beijing. "People following you, thugs blocking your way, obstacles springing up in the most innocuous of places -- it shocks you at first but eventually you get used to things like that. It comes with the territory."

"But when we went to the region of Xinjiang a few months back, it was a whole other level -- surreal, sinister and sometimes comical all rolled into one."

Read more
AFP / Jeff Pachoud

The mountain all to himself

Gersende Rambourg Tuesday 30 July 2019

"The idea was to really soak in the atmosphere and get the details that you often miss when you do a story on deadline," writes Gersende Rambourg, deputy chief photo editor for France. "To take the time and take in the scenery, the noise, the smells. To give a real feel of the place. A sheep herder with an alpine mountain all to himself."

Read more
AFP / Louisa Gouliamaki

The endless wait

Louisa Gouliamaki Thursday 18 July 2019

"Before there was hope because people were on their way to a new life. Now there is resignation and exhaustion because people are stuck here and they don’t know when they’ll leave," writes Louisa Gouliamaki, a photographer based in Athens, on the tens of thousands of refugees still stuck in Greece, four years after the peak of the migrant crisis.

Read more