Heroic images: 20 years of France’s ‘punk’ photo agency – in pictures

Photograph: Olivier Laban-Mattei/MYOP

A lioness with whom tourists pose for photos, Gagra, Abkhazia, 2013

MYOP was founded in 2005 by photographers who wanted to create a collaborative platform for documenting the contemporary world. Julien Pebrel, who took this image, says: ‘I’ve never really been a photographer outside MYOP. I learned everything there, absolutely everything. I learned how to photograph, edit, exhibit, set design and set up projects’

Photograph: Julien Pebrel/MYOP

Buried Treasure (series), UK, 2024

Ed Alcock: ‘MYOP is a source of inspiration, a shelter from the storm. It’s a tough world out there. Belonging to this structure reminds me that I’m not the only one with difficulties. It’s a place where we share ideas, argue, make up, share a beer. It’s joyful. It’s frustrating. It’s imperfect’

Photograph: Ed Alcock/MYOP

The day after the Nice terrorist attack, on the Promenade des Anglais, France, 2016

MYOP tirelessly takes the pulse of our era. Its photographers present us with powerful images infused with both poetry and pain, from Ukraine to the Covid lockdown

Photograph: France Keyser/MYOP

Through it flows the Drôme (series), France, 2022

Fannie Escoulen, exhibition curator: ‘Faced with a living and prolific archive, we must trace the course of history – offer it up to view – slowly, so as to better understand what we have experienced over the past 20 years’

Photograph: Jean Larive/MYOP

Indian Land (series), United States, 2016

In the face of overwhelming information, accelerating artificial intelligence and the might of virtual communities that devour and regurgitate visual content, MYOP firmly stands its ground

Photograph: Zen Lefort/MYOP

After its withdrawal from Gaza, the Israeli army destroyed all the infrastructures, 2005

Its weapon is photography – imagery that bears witness, that denounces, that assaults our senses and awakens our awareness

Photograph: Alain Keler/MYOP

French Kicks (series), France, 2007

Pierre Hybre: ‘Being part of MYOP is like joining a family who are all nourished by the same passion. MYOP represents a truly independent state of mind, animated at times by a kind of rage, utopia and joy that helps us to exist as photographers and to realise projects collectively. It’s probably an excuse not to face childhood dreams of adventure and recognition alone’

Photograph: Pierre Hybre/MYOP

He was still screaming (series), 2025

Chloé Sharrock: ‘Perhaps these 20 years are an opportunity to find new ways of linking up and sharing our convictions’

Photograph: Chloé Sharrock/MYOP

Urban Mountain (series), France, 2014

Escoulen: ‘Through its freedom, commitment and unyielding collective energy, MYOP stands at the very threshold of our reality. Their eyes lead us through the darkness’

Photograph: Olivier Monge/MYOP

Russian soldiers visiting the Chersonesus site, Ukraine, 2005

MYOP, a defiant and committed collective, celebrates two decades of photography. Wars, exile, social struggle, minute or overwhelming lives: each image asserts a free vision, a direct visual voice, that tells of the world as it is, as it burns, as it shudders

Photograph: Julien Daniel/MYOP

Portrait of Garikorte Elemo, 22, in the dried-up village of Ballah, Kenya, 2023

A forthcoming book will trace 20 years of history, year by year; its design brings together – sometimes in stark contrast – the voices of MYOP’s photographers, their stories and their narratives. It will be published by Éditions Gallimard-Hoëbeke in November

Photograph: Adrienne Surprenant/MYOP

Digital After Love (series), 2016

MYOP also celebrates its 20th anniversary on stage on 10 July 2025 alongside writer Laurent Gaudé and musician Oan Kim who took this picture. The duo will present a unique performance blending text, music and images by the 20 members of the collective

Photograph: Oan Kim/MYOP

Arab Spring uprisings in Cairo, 2011

Guillaume Binet, who has managed the agency since 2005, writes: ‘I believe in polyphony. I don’t think you can achieve much on your own. I have a great feeling of illegitimacy that is completely swept away by the momentum of the collective. I’m happy to be challenged by those I know well. Photography is very subjective, but a sum of subjectivities can be an attempt at objectivity’

Photograph: Guillaume Binet/MYOP

Evacuation Odessa (series), 2022

A father says goodbye to his family in Ukraine

Photograph: Laurence Geai/MYOP

Kingsley, the travel diary of an undocumented immigrant (series), 2005

Documenting the route of an illegal migrant from Africa

Photograph: Olivier Jobard/MYOP

Protest against absolute monarchy in Nepal, 2006

Agnès Dherbeys: ‘I’ve always worked as part of a gang, a clan, a team, a group of photographers that I’ve seen evolve and build up at the same time as I was evolving and building up. It’s reassuring to evolve in a “pack”, you feel stronger to tackle certain events, certain difficulties, certain crises. I find it counterbalances the fact that photography is an eminently individual, solitary activity’

Photograph: Agnès Dherbeys/MYOP/Agnes Dherbeys

Family Ghosts (series), 2019

MYOP is a place where each author is fully aware of the impact and informative power of an image. Most photographers in the agency are journalists who work for respected French and international newspapers

Photograph: Ulrich Lebeuf/MYOP

Birkenau, an ecology of memory (series), 2024

Michel Slomka: ‘We all want to do something punk. It’s the word we use when we want to do a new project. It means that being smooth, normal and classic doesn’t do much. You have to disrupt, shake things up, propose something incongruous – or occupy the margins, find more possibilities in an abandoned hotel than in the richly lit palaces of the city centre’

Photograph: Michel Slomka/Michel Sloka/MYOP

Beirut 75-15 (series), Lebanon 2015

Stéphane Lagoutte has been MYOP’s director since 2016: ‘At 20 MYOP isn’t settled, it’s reinventing itself, and that’s probably what keeps us going. There are dreamers, go-getters, energetics and thinkers. All our personalities combine to tell a vision of reality. We share an honesty, a desire to pass on stories, to bring people along with us in these reflections’

Photograph: Stéphane Lagoutte/MYOP