'Photojournalism is strong as ever.' These words could have been uttered by Jean-François Leroy, Visa pour l'Image's co-founder and director, but instead they were of Dominic Nahr, who just turned 26 and is just back from a trip to Congo.

All the doom and gloom talk in the media about the end of photojournalism is not helping, Nahr tells BJP. 'What's scary is that the general public believes that photojournalism is dying or dead. But we're not. We're adapting and getting stronger,' he says. Nahr isn't an utopian. 'The market is changing,' he admits. 'The old system doesn't work. Lucky for me, I never knew the old system. But it's hard of course.'

For the past couple of years, Nahr has been working and pitching stories non-stop. A lot of his time is spent on assignments, which he believes can still be obtained in today's market with a bit of work and research. 'You have to be engaged with the editors, you have to propose and to fight for your work,' says Nahr. His recent work in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is exposed at this year's Visa, is testimony of his beliefs.

'I was in Berlin for two weeks. And my first night out, which was also my last night out, a friend told me that something was going on in Congo. I got home, and did some research on the Internet at five or six in the morning.' When morning came, he had already booked his flight to Rwanda where he would go on to cross the border and enter the zone of one of the most violent countries in Africa.

He had few contacts there. 'There was a fixer I wanted but I couldn't afford him. I negotiated with him to take me across the border.' There, he received the help of another photographer, Walter Astrada, who is a contract photographer with Agence France-Presse.

The relationship between the two photographers worked, mainly because as a magazine reporter, Nahr did not compete with Astrada's wire work. 'We would get out of the car. I would go to one side, he would go to the other,' he says.

Image courtesy of Dominic Nahr / Oeil Public.

Nahr's work, which is exhibited at Visa until mid-September, was shot in October and November 2008 when General Laurent Nkunda, the Tutsi rebel leader backed by Rwanda, took control of the main roads and towns in North Kivu in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. 'Over 250,000 civilians fled the front line as the rebels advanced on the provincial capital, Goma, pushing government soldiers into further chaos, with looting, raping and killing,' say the festival organisers. 'On the other side of the front, the liberation rebels killed 150 civilians in the mainly Hutu area of Kiwanja once held by the government. In North Kivu, no one is safe, and life for civilians and many soldiers is an endless journey, walking up and down the main road in search of safe haven.'

The proximity of the war to the Rwanda's border facilitated Nahr's work this time. 'It would take only one day to get there,' he says. 'That's why it's been covered by more media this time.' Astrada was the first there, according to Nahr. 'I think he got me in, and then we got the others in and made it into a big story.'

The violence is depicted in Nahr's images. However, the most disturbing ones rarely make it out of Nahr's computer. At Visa, Nahr had a choice between having his exhibition at the Eglise des Dominicains, a majestual venue to which thousands of visitors rush to, or at another, more remote location, behind a wall with a disclaimer regarding the nature of his image. The photographer chose the former. 'I could have had a different selection behind a special wall and sign, or maybe we could have brought my work and the work of other photographers such as Astrada in the same venue, but I wanted to see people reacting to my work. And I think Leroy's selection is excellent.'

Generally, Nahr believes France is more open to images of crude violence than other countries. 'Le Monde 2 did a tight sequence of my work including the close up of a dead 17-year-old kid. It was quite impressive and in-your-face,' he explains. 'Arles also screened these images. But, in the US it's different. Maybe in Germany as well.' However, the young photographer still thinks that if he shot a full feature on the massacre with a beginning, a middle and an end, he would have tried harder to get it published, no matter in which the country.

When Nahr first started in photojournalism, he had a belief that his pictures wouldn't change the world. That was until one of his images of Somalis in Kenya made it on the front page of The New York Times. 'They used a poetic picture on the front page, and the following day it was being held in Congress in front of the Senate foreign affairs committee where [Senator John] Kerry, and others seat. In a way, I was testifying in front of these men who have the power to change things,' he says. 'You forget that The New York Times is read every day by the President.'

This year, Nahr will be back in Africa where there are more stories he wants to tell. Stories he thinks he will be able to share, despite the gloomy outlook. If you want to be published, he says, 'you have to pick your projects carefully. The love is there to drive you, but if your story won't sell, then you shouldn't do it. You have to adapt.' And this is also true for photojournalism as a whole. 'We're adapting. I don't know what the solution is – whether photographers should become publishers as well – but I'm sure somebody will come up with something. And when they do, it will be so easy and simple.'

Until then, he concludes, 'the need for good stories won't die.'