Jean-François Leroy launched Visa Pour l’Image, the international photojournalism festival, in Perpignan in 1989. Before heading up the festival, Leroy was shooting reportage for the agency Sipa Press and also working for Photo-Reporter, Le Photographe, Photo-Revue and Photo Magazine. He is the chairman of the company Images Evidence. Photo: 2008 Visa d'or Feature: Brent Stirton. Conservation Rangers from an Anti-Poaching unit work with locals to evacuate the bodies of four Mountain Gorrillas killed in mysterious circumstances in the park, July 24, 2007, Virunga National Park, Eastern Congo. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Exclusive by Getty Images)

Three secondary schoolboys smoking an illicit cigarette in Hyde Park, London. (Photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images). May 1972

Claudia Gadelha (L) of Brazil fights with Jessica Aguilar of Mexico during their Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) match, a professional mixed martial arts (MMA) competition in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil August 1, 2015. (Photo by Ricardo Moraes/Reuters)

A hippopotamus is sprayed with water on a hot summer day at Anna National Zoological Park in Chennai, India on April 26, 2017. (Photo by Arun Sankar/AFP Photo)

A man flies a kite made of 110 Tukkal or paper lanterns for the Hindu festival of “Makar Sankranti”, which marks the start of spring, in Ahmedabad January 13, 2011. (Photo by Amit Dave/Reuters)

A pilot looks up from a U.S. F-22 Raptor fighter as it prepares to refuel in mid-air with a KC-135 refuelling plane over European airspace during a flight to Britain from Mihail Kogalniceanu air base in Romania April 25, 2016. (Photo by Toby Melville/Reuters)

In this July 29, 2021 file photo, the pillars of the massive Rosario-Victoria Bridge are exposed during a drought affecting the Parana River near Rosario, Argentina. At the port city of Santa Fe the river registered a level of 22 centimeters, the lowest in 50 years. (Photo by Victor Caivano/AP Photo/File)

A mural depicting a resting cat by Russian street artist Vladi is photographed by a man outside a hotel in Hong Kong on November 27, 2023. (Photo by Peter Parks/AFP Photo)