Our global network | Panos PicturesAdrian Evans, director of Panos Pictures, describes how photojournalism has changed beyond all recognition in the last 20 years, and why his agency’s approach is so important.
In 1986 no one would have predicted that everything, even down to the means of capturing and distributing photographs, would be completely reinvented within two decades. The coming of the digital age has changed how both photographers and photo agencies work.
Panos Pictures purchased its first scanner and Macintosh computer in 1999. This year all the photographs we have distributed are in a digital format and 90 per cent are sourced and downloaded from our website. Technology has given us the means to compete with far larger media organisations.
However, there is a downside to the digital era. The diversity of sources of photojournalism has dwindled as two agencies, Corbis and Getty, have acquired existing archives and agencies to build online photography ‘superstores’. They now control 75 per cent of the market and have used their monopolistic position to drive down prices and force the competition out of business. Panos Pictures is one of the few remaining independent photo agencies.
As an evolving medium, photojournalism has been able to cope with these changes. Yet it is ironic that in an era when more magazines are published than ever before, photojournalists have had to look to other sources for support, including book publishing, exhibitions and grants.
The profit motive has overtaken the need to publish high quality journalism. Newspapers and magazines filled with images of celebrities and lifestyle leave no room for photojournalism. News photography may have flourished in the digital age but more in terms of quantity than quality. Newspaper picture desks now receive over 10,000 images per day.
The sheer volume of images makes it practically impossible for iconic images to emerge. Can anyone remember a specific image from the Iraq war? The only ones that spring to mind portray the torture of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison: the sight of a hooded prisoner, his arms outstretched, is fixed in everyone’s memory.
But this image, along with others from the 2004 tsunami and 2005 London bombings, was taken by an amateur. News photography is no longer the exclusive preserve of the professional photographer. Digital cameras and the mobile phone have put paid to that.
Photojournalism and the photo essay stand apart from these developments. They go beyond merely recording what happened. They explore, question and challenge the world in which we live, providing a narrative for our time.
Where does Panos Pictures fit into this process? The company has evolved from a photo archive into an agency. In line with our sister institutes, we have retained our integrity by continuing to focus on global social issues – regarded by some as commercial suicide. We believe in telling stories that need to be told.
Our approach has put us in a unique position, strengthening our identity and benefiting us commercially. We punch way above our weight for an organisation of our size. Panos photographers have won prestigious world press photo awards every year since 2000. And we have now moved into production, meaning we can offer photography that lies outside the immediate agenda of the media.
We have also explored how we can take ‘concerned’ photography to new audiences, producing exhibitions both in our own gallery, HOST, and in external venues. In 2005 we put on a major exhibition in partnership with seven NGOs, including Panos London, on the Millennium Development Goals. And we are finding new ways to collaborate with the rest of the Panos Network – for example, adding a visual dimension to oral testimony.
I am confident that Panos Pictures will continue to grow as it has done over the last 20 years, and that the agency will become one of the major forces of contemporary photojournalism.
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