The Press Photo History Project

Horst Faas holding the UK Picture Editors’ Guild Chairman’s Award for his contribution to the industry awarded in 2011. Photo: Piced.net

Horst Faas the photojournalist and long time photo operations chief at Associated Press has died aged 79. He was a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner.
Associated Press announcement: Horst Faas, AP combat photographer, dies at 79

Horst was a great early supporter of my first project Photo Archive News and a major inspiration behind this site, the Press Photo History Project. He called me from his office (at the old central London AP building, Norwich Street) in the summer of 2003. Photo Archive News had been online for a couple of years by then and I was at my day job with a photo press agency nearby… I was standing in his office 20 minutes later.
We then met almost weekly at his office or over lunch where we would talk about the industry and would suggest small changes to the site, new features and news articles. He steered me into his vast network of colleges, many of whom have provided the deep knowledge required for the PAN and PPHP websites. His interest in the sites ran in line with a project he had been working on to record the history of the wired photo and wire photo transmission. He handed me a wad of A4 sheets one day and said ‘this is where I have got to’ – I think he intended to write a book on the subject but was already busy with various other projects. One of these was his involvement with the IMMF, Indochina Media Memorial Foundation, which provides practical workshops for aspiring Vietnamese photojournalists. He introduced me to his fellow London based IMMF trustees Sheila Brown and Peter Rimmer who were helping Horst put together an auction of photographs to raise funds for the next workshop – here is part of the catalogue from that auction – I got involved with that auction and joined Horst, Sheila and Peter as a trustee of the IMMF shortly afterwards.
Horst lived and breathed photojournalism and had time and encouragement in for anyone passionate about the subject.
Will Carleton

Horst Faas 28/04/1933 – 10 May 2012

Getty Images newly appointed branding agency R/GA in London have reworked the ‘Watermark’ – on PhotoArchiveNews.com now

Updated 3 May:  Hi Will,

Bob Aylott asked me last week for help in naming the Photographer  in the Balcony Photo 1977  I do not know if it is the same one that Bob told me about if it is.
I think it was taken by Denis Oulds who worked for Central Press for many years,if the  caption on back has the letters M-O, then the O,stands for Oulds and on talking to Ernie Smith who now is deputy picture editor at the Daily Star and was a caption writer at Central Press at the time ,

The First letter M ,was the initial of the caption  writer, and Ernie thinks it was M for Murphy.
I worked at Central Press when leaving school,and at Sport & General from 1965 until 1971,
It is good that some one is at last is trying to give the Photographers whether alive or dead,the credit for taking these great pictures instead of  just the name of the new owners of the negatives.
Hope this is of some help.
Yours Tony Sapiano.
——————————————–April 27: This in from Zoe – at the BBC Diamond Jubilee team

Dear Will

It was a pleasure to speak with you just now, and thank you for offering to assist me with my predicament!

I am trying to find the photographer, or someone from the pool of photographers, that took the now famous Royal Family scene – waving from the balcony of Buckingham Palace – during the 1977 Silver Jubilee. I have attached the image.

I know that the image belonged to the now closed Central Press Agency and that the photographers working for Central agreed to pool their rights.
There are some mysterious initials on the negative of the image itself “M.O.” but Getty Images, who now own the rights to the archive, have no further information about who this person might be.

I appreciate that 1977 was now 35 years ago, and M.O may no longer be available but I’m hopeful that someone that was there, in the pool, may be willing to talk to me. I can be reached by phone or email (details below).

I do hope you and your subscribers might be able to help, and I certainly look forward to hearing back if you get any leads!

Huge thanks
——————————–
Contact will@photoarchivenews.com with any info

A big Thank You to the Press Association Images who have kindly booked their support of the Press Photo History Project with a baner ad on the website - look right .

Martin Stephens, Managing Director, Press Association Images said: ‘We are delighted to support the Press Photo History Project which we think is a really important and useful resource for people trying to find content from the many press agencies. It used to be easy as the address and phone number of the agency would be helpfully printed on the back of the print, that was the usual method of distribution, but as agencies have closed even the holder of a print can struggle to track down the copyright holder of an image. Along with all the material taken by the Press Association’s staff photographers we are fortunate enough to hold the Central News archive as well as the sport content from both Sport & General and Barratt’s in our collection and see the PPHP as a tool to help people find us in order to be able to license an image. As the issue of orphan works sits high on the agenda of many involved in the licensing of images this sort of directory can only be helpful in finding the rightful home for an orphan image.’

www.pressassociation.com/images

PPHP is a PhotoArchiveNews.com initiative to record and map all the photo agencies and press photographers from 1904. The PPHP also works daily bringing together copyright and licensing enquires with photo agencies. All money raised through support is used for our ongoing phase one research at the British Library. More and to Contact PPHP here

A PPHP reader from the Royal Academy of Dance writes:
‘A recent bequest we received into the library here at the Royal Academy of Dance included 2 photographs copyright of the Daily Press based at St Anne’s Court, Broadgate, EC4. No other information is included as to the date or subjects (people) in the photos and I would like to try and find out more about them without infringing copyright.

Do you know if there is a photographic archive for this press agency or who holds the copyright?

‘They arrived as part of recent bequest of dance books – found inside the cover of a book about Russian Ballet dating from 1911. I don’t know if that has any significance regarding the image content but a dance connection is a possibility.
I think they are great images and if you are able to find anything out at all, I’d be very grateful.’

If you know what happened to the agency or represent the collection please email will@pressphotohistory.com – thanks 

This in from a PPHP reader searching for rights clearance on the Alfieri collection

I am the Outreach and Learning Officer for East Sussex Record Office. I am trying to track down the Alfieri Picture Service because we are using some of their photos in our archive as part of a project. Would you know if they are still trading or if another company has taken over their business?
Found: The  Alfieri Picture Service is now licensed by UK based photo library Topfoto.co.uk   PPHP has put both parties together.

Keedup CEO, Kevin Townsend, says the offer is a way for his company to give back to the picture industry, whilst also getting out the message that searchability is vital for any collection of images or video. “An archive without proper keywords is more of a liability than an asset, as the time it takes to find an image means it is often not worth starting the search. “Within every archive there are hidden gems, and it is often only through the process of looking at images and adding keywords that those gems can be found and brought to the attention of researchers and image buyers.” He said that adding keywords and other metadata also went a long way towards resolving the problem of copyright in the case of historical archives where rights were poorly documented or images were so old that copyright laws no longer applied.
Whilst ownership of the images could be doubtful, copyright over the metadata which made the archive function could be proven and documented. “Metadata added to an archive therefore has the power to bind together the imagery, turning the archive itself into an asset.  Keywording may not just make an archive more attractive to buyers, it may well be necessary to turn it into something that can be bought at all.”
He said commercialisation was not always the aim for an archive, but it was arguable that without archives earning revenue they would find it hard to get the money to make their contents available to the public through curation efforts, digitising and presenting them to the public via web sites. “Commercial use in itself opens all sorts of avenues for images to be seen, whether that’s on calendars, greeting cards, in magazines or wherever.” Kevin said the pricing for each archive project would be worked out on a case by case basis, as close to cost as possible, with the work being done during down time.  To qualify for the low rate, the archive would have to be referred and recommended by the Press Photo History Project. “We can’t promise to meet strict deadlines, or do everyone’s images at once, but we figure that these archives have waited many years for proper metadata, so at whatever speed the keywords are added it is a lot better than leaving important images without the metadata they need.”  To find out more about how to make the most of archives and keywording, visit:
http://www.keedup.com/new-revenue-streams/

PPHP reader Philip Lawrence has sent us this note:

‘I used to work at Sport and General Press Agency in Gough Square between  1959 and early 1961, firstly as a messenger and then trainee in the darkrooms downstairs. I’d like to get in touch with anyone who was also there at the same time. Please get in touch by email  flashharry_2001@yahoo.co.uk I look forward to hearing from you.’