Our mission is to support and defend the work of committed photographers using the power of images to bear witness to the state of our planet.
Defending photography that pulls back the curtain, urging us to understand and take action. It is for this reason that we’ve been supporting the Visa pour l’Image – Perpignan International Photojournalism Festival since 2015.
This festival has been welcoming over 3,000 professionals for more than 20 years and is widely considered to be the world’s biggest photojournalism festival.
Once a year, we present a professional photographer with The Yves Rocher Foundation Photo Award. The €8,000 prize money is a way for us to encourage, support and pay tribute to a professional photographer working on themes related to the environment, the relationship between mankind and the planet, and key sustainable development issues.
The participating photographers tell the tale of the environment and human existence.Their photographs illustrate the planet’s innate fragility – and our own.
Jacques Rocher
Drought
and desolation in theSertão
In 2015, Brazil-based American photographer Lianne Milton inaugurated the very first edition of our Photo Award at the Visa pour l’Image – Perpignan International Photojournalism Festival, when Jacques Rocher presented her with her prize to support her work on farmers in north-eastern Brazil. In the semi-arid Sertão region, these men and women are struggling to survive amidst droughts that continue to worsen as the years pass. Armed with her trusty camera, the young woman captured the despair of these poor rural families, who are forced to slaughter their cattle and watch helplessly as the desert creeps ever further across their land.
