Guillaume Herbaut is the latest photographer to join the agency, which has been created to help photographers develop their careers beyond editorial assignments and resale.

"This award-winning documentarian was the prize-winner of the Fondation de France in 1999, for his long-term dedication to historical places, filled with symbols and memory," says the Institute. "His work called "Tchernobylsty", won the Kodak Critics Prize in 2001 and was published at Le Petit Camarguais in October 2003. Herbaut also won the Fuji Book Prize the following year. Herbaut has been a recipient of a grant from the French Ministry of Culture and 3P. Visa pour l'Image exhibited his work in September 2004, also the same year that Herbaut was awarded the Lucien Hervé Prize. In 2009 he won the second price « contemporary issue » at the World Press Photo. Today he carries on with the aim of revealing unseen tragedies."

Herbaut's work has been exhibited in solo or part of group shows at the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris, at "la maison Rouge", at Foto España and at the silverstein gallery in NY.

Herbaut was one of the photographers that founded, 15 years ago, Oeil Public, a Paris-based photo agency owned by its members. In January this year, Oeil Public became the latest victim of the financial crisis. Faced with falling sales and a press industry that has drastically cut its photo budgets, photographers at the French agency said they were forced to close down.