Her father was a photographer, and she in turn fell in love with photography from a young age. Dreaming of entering the military, she got a law degree in the
hope of passing the officer exams. But she ended up choosing photography and went to follow a course in London.

Her first experience in the field was in Afghanistan. She was sent there by the Lincolnshire Echo, the newspaper with which she was doing her final internship.

She worked there for three years and, since 2006, she has covered stories the world over, notably in Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, Kashmir, Cameroon, Guatemala, Uganda, Mali, China, Haiti and other countries.

Véronique accepted these difficult missions bravely and also developed her personal projects in some of the most dangerous places on the planet. She often works with her friend, Manon Quérouil-Bruneel, a French journalist.

Manon Quérouil-Bruneel and Véronique de Viguerie split their tasks: while Manon writes, Véronique takes pictures. Together, they assemble their reports and travel the world on the lookout for new stories. Together they have been to Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Egypt, Brazil and Yemen, amongst others.

Véronique’s work is often published in Paris-Match, the New-York Times Magazine, Newsweek, El Pais, Stern, Der Spiegel, Figaro Magazine, Geo, Marie-Claire, Mail on Sunday, the Guardian, Optimum. She was especially noticed for having worked with the Taliban in Afghanistan, Pirates in Somalia, Petrol pirates in Nigeria and female assassins called Sicarias in Colombia, as well as the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad in Mali.

In 2006, she published her first book with Marie Bourreau, Afghanistan, Regards Croisés; published by Hachette.

In the summer of 2008, Véronique covered a story in Afghanistan for Paris Match which was polemical. Indeed, while she was with a Taliban group, the latter
ambushed a French army detachment and killed ten amongst them. Véronique asserts the integrity of her work as a journalist.

In autumn, she carried on with a story on pirates in Somalia, at a time when the topic was starting to gain a wide international reach. Her project on pirates was published in more than 40 platforms the world over, in over 20 countries.

Véronique has documented various topics such as petrol piracy in Nigeria, the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, the women’s rights defence group FEMEN, the LRA hunt (Lord Resistance Army), the medical-legal work on mass graves in Abkhazia or landmines in the Balkans. She also does documentation work on Western mercenaries who joined the Kurdish forces in Iraq in their fight against the Islamic State.

In 2011, Véronique de Viguerie and Manon Quérouil-Bruneel published their travel diary Carnets de reportages du XXIe siècle with Editions Verlhac, followed by a second one in 2015 called Profession reporters : Deux baroudeuses en terrain miné published at La Martinière.

In 2012, Véronique was chosen by HBO to be one of three photographers to partake in the Witness show for her work on the Arrow Boys in South Sudan.
In 2019 Reporters without Borders published their 60 th issue “100 photos for Press Freedom” dedicated to Véronique de Viguerie, for showcasing the risks taken by
journalists.

That same year, she once again published a book with Manon Quérouil-Bruneel, Yémen, la guerre qu’on nous cache with Editions Images Plurielles, and the following year, Iraq Insh’allah with the same publisher.

She started her career as an operating assistant on films such as Jayro Bustamante’s “Ixcanul”, which was awarded the prestigious Silver Bear at the Berlin Festival in 2015. In 2018, Marcello Martinessi’s film, Las herederas, which she worked on, was also awarded the Silver Bear prize at the Berlin Festival.

Parallel to her work on feature films, she developed many photo and video projects.

She notably participated in the workshops organised by the Void gallery with Antoine Agata and Akina publishing house with Kladvij Sluban.

Céline Croze is sensitive to the flaws in our society. She uses cinematographic codes to show a story, to transgress the world around her and immerse herself into the flaws of those she looks at.

Each photographic project resembles a human story. The dark and grainy landscapes, the underlit human bodies or the slightly uncomfortable close-ups are the result of instinctive decisions. When she takes pictures, Céline follows her animal instinct, on the brink of urgency and danger. Her images capture moment residues, they try to feel human flesh and trace the faces of wounds or of violence. For each project, Céline Croze wishes to get as close as possible to capture the atmosphere of a given moment.

For Céline Croze, a photographic series can be triggered by the slightest observation, the slightest piece of writing or encounter. For “Les Purs” (the pure ones), she was inspired by a recurring dream in which she felt surrounded by water and in danger. In the case of Nothing Happened, the visual story was associated with two touching poems.

By calling her series SQEVNV, Céline pays tribute to a young boy she met on a rooftop. She remembers these words that remain etched in her memory: “Siempre que estemos vivos nos veremos”, As long as we are alive, we will see each other.

Her mystical photography, inspired by moving images and the aesthetics of cinema, introduces the viewer into a hidden world, beyond that which can be seen or experienced.

Her various works as a photographer and videographer were presented at the Fès Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie, at the Casablanca Billboard Festival, at the Marrakesh and Paraguay Biennales, at Kassel festival, at the Fuam in Istanbul and at the Tangers Photography Foundation.

In 2019 Céline Croze won the Cadaqués festival with SQEVNV. In 2020, she was selected from amongst 100 emerging European photographers by Gup magazine and Fresh Eyes Photo Talent 2020 (book published in July 2020).

That same year, she received the revelation prize at the MAP festival and the Face à la Mer festival with the same series. She also received the Mentor prize for her Mala Madre project.

“Nothing Happened” was exhibited in April 2021 at the Rencontres de la Jeune Photographie Internationale in Niort (Villa Perochon). She was also selected by Claudio Composti for the Oscar Barnack Leica, and she was one of the winners of the Tremplin Jeunes Talents at Festival Planches Contact in Deauville in 2021.

That same year, she was also a finalist for the HSBC 2021 prize for “SQEVNV” and exhibited it in April at the Instantes Festival in Portugal.

In June 2022 she will exhibit SQEVNV ‘Siempre que estemos vivos nos veremos’ (As long as we are alive, we will see each other) at the Sit Down Gallery.

ARTISTIC APPROACH

“It always starts with a story. Slipping into the crack. Erasing oneself and tapping into world time. There’s this animal impulse which borders on urgency and cradles danger. Harvesting the residues of action, touching the Human, tracing the faces of wounds or violence, getting as close as possible and merely extracting the raw material. There’s imminence, the body in its territory, immersion into faraway and unknown times that are knocking on our door.

I extract a vision of the hidden world from my experience in film and fiction writing, beyond the limits of what we live and see.”

Born of an Egyptian father and a French mother, Édouard Elias spent ten years living in Egypt, in Charm el-Cheikh. In 2009, he returned to France to start studying business, while living with his grandparents who “made him watch documentaries on Arte television channel”.

He finally turned towards photography, which he studied at the École de Condé in Nancy. He developed a passion for war photography, inspired by Yuri Kozyrev, a Russian war reporter famous for his coverage of Chechnya and Iraq.

While he was still studying, and without being set an assignment, he left in August 2012 to report on the Syrian refugee camps in Turkey, then in Syria. When he came back, he showed his pictures of the rebel attack in Alep to photographers that he met at the Visa pour l’Image festival in Perpignan. Getty agency hired him and published his “Alep Martyr” story in Paris Match, Der Spiegel and The Sunday Times. He then decided to stop studying.

On the 6th of June 2013, while he was in the North of Alep for his fourth story, Édouard Elias was kidnapped by the Islamic State with Didier François, special correspondent for Europe 1. He was freed in April 2014 after eleven months of captivity.

He then covered various crisis and fighting zones for the biggest French media platforms. In March 2016, he immersed himself amongst the Mediterranean refugee rescuers, embarking on the Aquarius, a humanitarian boat chartered by the non-governmental organisation SOS Mediterranean to rescue shipwrecked migrants.

He also covered the escape of civilian populations around the Chad lake during the Boko Haram exactions, Doctor Mukwege’s hospital (2018 Nobel peace prize in the Democratic Republic of Congo), and closed educational centres for young delinquents in France. Recently, he worked on two enemy trenches that faced each other in the Donbass, Eastern Ukraine.

He is as attentive to the story collected from the subject as he is to its perception by his audience, and explores all the procedures that allow him to create a link with his stories that is more than just informative.

His approach involves a slow methodology, where intimacy with his subject matter creates an immersive practice in his photography, getting close to the stories in order to bear witness not only to a context, but also to emotions.

In 2016 he started to collaborate with Fanny Boucher, a rotogravure master. Thus, with their rotary printing press, they roamed France with educational projects for younger generations.

His pictures have been exhibited, amongst others, at the Centre National des Arts & Métiers in Paris, at the Pont du Gard site, at the Festival des Libertés in Brussels and at the National Museum of China in Beijing. They were also hosted by the Polka Gallery in Paris, at the Grand Palais, at the Michelangelo foundation in Venice and at the London Craft Week.

His work on the Foreign Legion and his coverage of the trench war in Ukraine were acquired by the Invalides Army Museum for their photographic archives.

Édouard’s work has been awarded the Remi Ochlik Golden Visa Prize at Visa Pour l’Image, as well as the Sergent Vermeille prize, which awards civilian and military photographers who go on missions with the French Army.

He was also invited to the World Press Photo Masterclass and was selected three times for the Bayeux Calvados-Normandy war correspondent prize, which honours journalists who work in perilous conditions to allow for access to free information.

Édouard Elias is represented by the Polka Gallery.

After studying photography at Dawson College, she developed her documentary style while working on long-term subjects in Nicaragua from 2014 to 2015, then between Cameroon and the Central African Republic from 2015 to 2021.

Her favourite topics are on the threshold between the visible and the invisible. She hopes to do justice to the complexity of the situations she tackles, to face them in an honest and empathetic way. Identity, mental health, human rights and the environment are intertwined in her projects, which capture the raw reality of the world. For Adrienne, photography is an uncompromising social commitment.

Her work has been published in many international platforms, including the Washington Post, Time, The Guardian, Le Monde, Le Monde diplomatique, Al Jazeera and The New Humanitarian.

Adrienne Surprenant also works for Médecins Sans Frontières, Greenpeace and the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees).

Her series have been exhibited in Canada, France (Visa pour l’Image, 2015) and England. She has received grants from the National Geographic Society, the Wellcome Trust, SCAM (Société civile des auteurs multimédia) and the International Women Media Foundation.

She has also completed two HEFAT (Hostile Environment First Aid Training) courses since 2017.

This year, Adrienne became a member of MYOP photo agency, which specialises in documentary photography and reporting.