Contact Press Images was established in 1976 by French-British journalist and editor Robert Pledge and American photojournalist David Burnett. It is a international photojournalism agency based in new York and is one of the last small independent photographic agencies still in existence.
They have many active photographers across the world including names such as Don McCullin who won the world Press Photo award in 1964 for his image of a Turkish woman, mourning the death of her husband who was killed in a village battle with the Greeks. (see my blog titled - The Visual Principles of Photojournalism) - to see the image)
Also Annie Leibovitch another founding member of Contact images who was named by American Photo in 2005 as the most influential photographer at work today. As well as Sebastaio Salgado who is one of the worlds master practitioners in the tradition of social documentary.
The agency's mission statement is "To produce in-depth photographic essays of pressing global concern instead of “disposable” news, to pose difficult questions rather than provide facile answers, and above all to make important and lasting images – always with history in mind."
Below is information from Contact Press Images website which advises how they have survived from the transition of using only film to incorporating using modern technologies within a now contemporary digital revolution beginning the 21st Century.
"As Contact Press Images approached the end of the millennium, and twenty-five years of recording history, the landscape it surveyed differed greatly from the one that existed when it began. Color photography, a novelty for covering news in 1976, had long since become the norm. Black and white, by contrast once the standard, now appeared innovative; and all film, black and white or color, was quickly being replaced by digital photography. Most small independent agencies had disappeared, swallowed by corporate behemoths. And 24/7 live television coverage and the internet had largely overshadowed the role traditionally ascribed to photography. But Contact, with members from a dozen countries, men and women of different origin, personality and culture, shooting in every format, from Leicas and Canon digital cameras to inexpensive Holga cameras, remained independent and committed to a spirit of activism and humanitarianism guided by its larger historical project.
To manage the agency’s transition to this new technological theater while maintaining continuity with its past, Contact established a digital domain, including a fully updated website, and scanning and transmitting facilities, run by Dustin Ross in New York and Tim Mapp in Paris."
Sebastiao Salgado.
In 1986 Sebastião Salgado began a series of reportages on the theme of manual labor, throughout the different continents. This work was conceived to tell the story of an era. The images offer a visual archaeology of a time that history knows as the Industrial Revolution, a time when men and women work with their hands provided the central axis of the world.http://www.amazonasimages.com/travaux-main-homme
Here is a publication of his essay in regards to 'Workers' featured in The New York Times Magazine . 09/06/1991
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