Véronique de Viguerie isn’t afraid of anything. At 17, she even wanted to be a soldier. Her father, a radiologist and amateur photographer, advised her to study law so that she could become an officer. She got a master’s, and realized in the process that she wanted to be a photographer. She redid her baccalauréat-level studies in photography in England before being admitted to the prestigious Sheffield school. While an intern at the Lincolnshire Echo, a powerful local daily paper, she was sent to Afghanistan for 10 days. “I loved it and I brought back amazing pictures,” she says. They were published, exhibited and recognized, most notably in the Paris Match “Jeune Reporter” competition. In 2004, she went to Kabul as a freelancer and met well-known Times reporter Richard Mills, who took her under his wing, as well as other British and French journalists, including the young Marie Bourreau, with whom she co-published a book, Afghanistan, Regards Croisés. Represented by the WPN agency, she accumulated assignments and successes, and L’Express, the Daily Telegraph, Fig Mag, Newsweek, Le Monde and others published her work. She even received the Canon Prize at the 2006 Visa pour l’Image festival for her coverage of a Maoist women’s rebellion in Nepal and India that winter. She has received a Lagardère grant to complete her Afghan tour, so in spring of 2007 she will file her first report from Lake Hamoun on the Afghanistan-Pakistan-Iran border, a lawless enclave where oil, weapons and drugs are trafficked. What does she still dream about? Being published by National Geographic. By all indications, that won’t take long.

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Véronique de Viguerie will be at the 2007 Visa pour l'image Festival in Perpignan (1^st-16 september) with her report : Afghanistan, Inch'Allah

AGE: 28 I PASSIONS: photography, snowboarding and parachute jumping. I PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE: to take advantage of it. I GOALS: to work hard, raise a family and be happy. I FAVOURITE PHOTOGRAPHERS: Green and Sebastiao Salgado.