Abdollah Heidari was born in Tehran in 1985, six years after the Islamic Republic of Iran was established. At the age of 21, he passed basic and advance photography courses and took part to various workshops. He began his career as a photojournalist in 2008, working since then for the Mehr News Agency and local newspapers. Beside his work in Iran, he has reported from UAE, Syria and Russia. His pictures, already printed in Iranian and international newspapers and news agencies, have been awarded prices in Iran. He also contributed to a number of exhibitions in

Iran, USA and Belgium.

Philippe Lopez was born in France in 1974 and has been working for AFP in Asia for 14 years. He began his career in 1999 in Cambodia as a freelancer and became AFP staffer the following year. In 2002 he was appointed as a photo editor in New Delhi as part of the agency’s development of its South Asia photo desk. He then joined the regional headquarters in Hong Kong as a picture editor and, in 2009, he moved to Shanghai as a staff photographer. He returned to the Hong Kong bureau in 2011 where he is still based.

François-Xavier Marit discovered his passion for photography at 15 while using his father’s camera. His passion became a job when he joined the AFP in 1987. Since 1999, he has covered most major sporting events as a photojournalist, gradually developing techniques to shoot athletes from different angles. At the 2004 Olympics in Sydney, he started testing underwater pictures and specialized in robotized cameras able to take spectacular photos of swimmers from beneath the water surface. Now aged 49, he keeps experimenting new technologies to shoot from a distance.

Ciril Jazbec was born in 1987 in Slovenia where he first took up photography and visual storytelling. He studied management before his passion led him to Britain. In 2011 he graduated in photojournalism and documentary photography from the London College of Communication. He now works as a freelance photographer and his personal and assigned projects took him to Alaska, Uganda and Greenland. Many printed and online publications have featured his pictures, including GEO, The Sunday Times, La Repubblica, Wired UK and the Reader’s Digest. His photographs have won several international awards.

Guy Martin was born in 1983 in England and graduated in documentary photography from the University of Wales. One of his first personal projects, a documentation of the border region between Turkey and Northern Iraq, won him the Guardian and Observer Hodge Award for young photographers. Since then he has followed the revolutions sweeping through the Middle East and North Africa. In April 2011, he was severely injured in the Libyan town of Misrata while covering the siege of the city. His work has appeared in many international newspapers and magazines. He also has been exhibited in London, Falmouth and at the St. Brieuc PhotoReporter Festival.

Steeve Iunker lives and works in Geneva where he was born in 1969. Graduated from the Vevey School of Photography, he is a member of the VU photo agency and works part-time for the Tribune de Geneve newspaper. From the Cannes Film Festival to the Gaza Strip, from Cambodia to Siberia, his work is constantly evolving and innovating. He also makes very personal documentaries, questioning the image of death through the action of criminal police in Geneva or the example of an aids patient in terminal stage. He has won numerous awards for his photographs, which are regularly published and exhibited.