As the world financial crisis buffets country after country, Russia has been caught out because of its unhealthy overdependence on oil, gas and metals, which account for more than three-quarters of export earnings. The collapse in energy and commodity prices since this summer is exposing the country’s fragility: Russia’s boom, it turns out, was built on expensive oil,and precious little else. For the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the threat of large-scale unemployment looms.This all amounts to the first serious test of « Putinomics » – the domestic policies put in place by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin during the two terms of his presidency from 2000 to 2008. If you want to take the pulse of Russia, as its economic progress of the past few years comes to a sudden and wrenching stop, leave behind Moscow and drive 354 km southwest to the small Russian town of Lyudinovo.There everything slows down.

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Photos by ©Justin Jin/LightMediation

Contact – LightMediation Photo Agency – +33 (0)6 61 80 57 21 thierry[AT]lightmediation.com

–These photos were exposed at « Visa pour l’image », for the 20th anniversary of the festival, in September, 2008.–

Soon after his return from South Africain 1917 Gandhi led his first political struggle in the state of Bihar, in support of peasant small holders against British indigo planters. In the course of doing so, he earned the title of Mahatma,The Great Soul.

More than ninety years later, little has changed in this largely rural state situated in northern India, which remains one of the poorest in the country.Poverty, illiteracy and violence: the daily life of the poor and maginalised in India today is a world apart from the ideals that were set by India’s prophet of non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi.

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Photos ©Marie Dorigny/LightMediation Text ®Christèle Dedebant

Contact – Thierry Tinacci – LightMediation Photo Agency +33 (0)6 61 80 57 21 thierry[AT]lightmediation.com

Dharavi in central Mumbai is one of Asia’s largest slums. It is enterprise personified. Between 1200 to 1500 small scale industries exist and function within the Dharavi industrial area. It is a place where industry,incorrigibility and a never say die spirit co-exists.Plastic recycling ( perhaps the largestin India ), leather processing, oil drum and tin can reconditioning, dye making,garment and embroidery work, wastepaper raw material supplies, potterymaking , food processing are some of the major enterprises that operateamong other innumerable small scaleunits exists in Dharavi.It is a shadow city where nearly amillion live and work, annually churning out almost 500 million dollar worth of goods. It’s a place where new arrivals found their first footing , make businessand start their life in the urban metro like Mumbai.

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A Photo story by ©Amit Chakravarty/LightMediation

Contact – Thierry Tinacci – LightMediation Photo Agency +33 (0)6 61 80 57 21 thierry[AT]lightmediation.com

A la veille de l’élection présidentielle américaine, ce reportage, mené conjointement par un photographe Français et une journaliste Américaine sous la forme d’un road-trip à travers les USA (16 états, de New York à la Nouvelle Orléans) dresse le portrait d’une Amérique plus fragile qu’elle n’y parait, où la fracture sociale est de plus en plus profonde et qui va devoir changer son mode de vie pour s’adapter au nouvel ordre mondial.
Ce reportage a par ailleurs été l’occasion de rencontrer des Américains de toutes conditions et de toutes origines dont 42 interviews et portraits sont disponibles.

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Reportage ©Christine Buckley et Marc Roussel/Orizon/LightMediation

Contact – Thierry Tinacci – Agence Photo LightMediation – +33 (0)6 61 80 57 21 thierry[AT]lightmediation.com