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)

A female soccer player controls a ball during a training session at the Golab Trust Sport Complex in Kabul March 10, 2014. Despite decades of conflict in Afghanistan, and several recent militant attacks, the country's capital Kabul is home to a vibrant youth scene of musicians, artists, athletes and activists. Shopping malls and cafes stand in the city, which is nonetheless beset by infrastructure problems and instability. (Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/Reuters)

Revellers brave the rain as they make the most of New Year's Eve in Liverpool city centre, UK on December 31, 2024. (Photo by Ioannis Alexopoulos/London News Pictures)

An aerial view shows boats sailing in the marshes of Chibayish in Iraq's southern Dhi Qar province on February 8, 2025. (Photo by Asaad Niazi/AFP Photo)

(L-R) Miss Universe 2015 Pia Wurtzbach, Miss USA 2015 Olivia Jordan and Miss Teen USA 2015 Katherine Haik attend the 2016 Miss USA pageant at T-Mobile Arena on June 5, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

An Afghan woman walks along a street covered with snow on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan February 7, 2017. (Photo by Omar Sobhani/Reuters)

Vietnam’s Son Doong cave, the largest in the world, could hold a 40-story skyscraper inside. The pristine ecosystem has its own river and jungle. Despite its size, Son Doong wasn’t discovered until 1991. It was lost again for nearly two decades and was fully explored for the first time in 2009. (Photo by Jason Speth/HuffPost)

This undated handout photograph released by Taipei City Zoo on July 17, 2013 shows recently born panda cub of giant panda Yuan Yuan in an incubator at Taipei Zoo in Taipei. (Photo by AFP Photo/Taipei City Zoo)