Seattle & London, April 26, 2010. Getty Images, the world’s leading creator and distributor of visual content and other media, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Rex Features, which includes Los Angeles-based Berliner Photography. The acquisition will benefit existing and potential customers by making even more celebrity content easily accessible.

“Celebrity and entertainment content is a growing and vital part of the editorial imagery industry and this acquisition positions us to meet and exceed the demand for nearly instantaneous material,” said Jonathan Klein, co-founder and CEO of Getty Images.

© 2010, The F Stops Here. All rights reserved. (Jessica D. Korman)

Worker Viktor Kalmykov arrives at the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Combine construction site, 1930. Magnitogorsk (Magnet mountain city) is a mining and industrial city by the Ural River in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, with one of the largest iron and steel works in the country. credit: Max Alpert ©RIA Novosti / TopFoto

The exhibition, curated by RIA Novosti, Russia’s leading press service, has already shown to great acclaim at London’s Guildhall and the Imperial War Museum North.

The show includes World Press Award winners, such as Vladimir Vyatkin, whose image of soldiers in Chechnya won the Gold Medal in 2002.

Grozny, Chechnya. August 1996 Photo by Igor Mikhalev

From the turmoil of the Russian Revolution, the exhibition then charts the tremendous changes Russia has undergone within the last 100 years, from the industrialisation of the 1930s, through WWII and the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and developments since.

A federal reconnaissance unit in the Bass River gorge, Chechnya, 1999. Gold medal, World Press Photo, 2002. credit: Vladimir Vyatkin ©RIA Novosti / TopFoto

Russia’s finest photographers are represented.

Max Alpert, for example, is one of the greatest photographers of the 20^th Century. His image of Commander Alexei Yeremenko, urging on his men in 1942 shortly before his death, is justly famous.  To capture this silent, devastating, shot Alpert was right up front. You can hear the bullets.

A Russian soldier raising the Victory banner on the roof. Berlin, Germany - 5 May 1945

These are simply great photographers working at the height of their skill.

Exhibition 04/02/10–31/03/10. Gifts/Print shop. Free entry 09.30-5pm Mon-Friday; 09.30-1pm Sat. T: 01732 863 939.

© 2010, The F Stops Here. All rights reserved. (Jessica D. Korman)

NEW YORK, Feb. 2 /PRNewswire/ — Magnum Photos, Inc., MSD Capital, L.P. and the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin today jointly announced a landmark partnership under which the Magnum Archive Collection, which contains nearly 200,000 original press prints of images taken by world-renowned Magnum photographers, will be preserved, catalogued and made accessible by the Ransom Center.  The Collection will reside at the Ransom Center pursuant to an agreement with its new owner, an affiliate of MSD Capital, which recently acquired the prints from Magnum Photos

Magnum Photos, the venerable agency founded, owned, and managed cooperatively by its member photographers, has been a standard of photographic excellence and innovation over the past 60-plus years.  The vintage prints in the Collection have been amassed since the 1930s and include images of major world events, celebrities, family life, poverty, religion and social affairs by Magnum photographers including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Elliott Erwitt, Leonard Freed, Bruce Davidson, Rene Burri, Eve Arnold, Dennis Stock and more than 80 others.

Images of icons from Picasso to Marilyn Monroe, from Sinatra to Gandhi, and from Castro to a young Queen Elizabeth coexist in the Collection with depictions of international conflicts, political unrest and cultural strife.  Included are famous photos from the Spanish Civil War, the D-Day landings and the Six-Day War, as well as unforgettable scenes of historic events: the rise of democracy in India, Afghanistan and Iraq; the U.S. Civil Rights movement; the Rwandan genocide; and much more.

The Collection will be preserved and cataloged by the Harry Ransom Center, a humanities research library and museum at The University of Texas at Austin, whose photography collection holds the world’s first photograph, and has substantial holdings in fine arts and photojournalism.  The Ransom Center will encourage interest in the Collection through scholarly research, fellowships, lectures and exhibitions.  The Center will also host visits and programs with Magnum photographers.

Managing Director Mark Lubell of Magnum Photos said: “MSD Capital is an ideal partner, with a deep appreciation of and commitment to this unparalleled collection of photographic prints.  Housing the collection at the Ransom Center not only allows this archive to be studied by photographers but also helps satisfy the huge interest in it among historians, anthropologists, curators, journalists and the public at large.  Through this arrangement, we are able to acknowledge, celebrate and preserve Magnum’s historic past, and continue to be industry innovators by developing new platforms to distribute our future work.”

MSD Capital, the private investment firm of Michael S. Dell, Chairman and CEO of Dell Inc., purchased from Magnum Photos the physical press prints, which include many of these photographers’ most iconic images.  Magnum’s member photographers will retain the copyright and licensing rights to all of the images in the Collection.

“This is a singularly valuable collection in the history of photography,” said Thomas F. Staley, Director of the Ransom Center.  ”It brings together some of the finest photojournalists of the profession and spans more than a half century of contributions to the medium.  We are delighted to make these remarkable materials accessible to researchers and students.”

John C. Phelan, Co-Managing Partner of MSD Capital, said: “We immediately recognized the unique opportunity to own this extraordinary collection of prints by the world’s finest photojournalists.  The images contained within the Collection capture the events and spirit of the 20th century in a way that only Magnum photojournalists can.”

Glenn R. Fuhrman, Co-Managing Partner of MSD Capital, added: “The Magnum Collection is an irreplaceable trove of American and world history.  Given the technical changes that have taken place in the world of photography, including the digitization of images, a collection of prints like these will never exist again.”

Michael Dell commented, “I am so pleased to be able to entrust this significant body of work to the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas for research, study and exhibition.  The Ransom Center has a well-known record of excellence and is ideally suited to manage the archiving and study of such a substantial and important collection. Having this incredible collection in Austin is especially exciting to me.”

Selected images from the Magnum Archive Collection may be viewed at: http://bit.ly/magnumlightboxlink

© 2010, The F Stops Here. All rights reserved. (Jessica D. Korman)

WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — On January 25, 2010, the National Archives announced in the Federal Register that filming, photographing, and videotaping by the public will be prohibited in all exhibition areas in the National Archives Building, Washington, DC, beginning February 25, 2010.  The primary impetus for the new regulation was concern that the Charters of Freedom (the Declaration, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights) and other original documents on display in the National Archives Experience were at risk from exposure to flash photography.

The announcement followed a lengthy period of internal analysis and discussion and a 60-day comment period in which the public was invited to offer input.  In spite of a more than 30-year-old regulation explicitly stating that flash photography was prohibited, prominent signs stating the policy throughout the exhibition areas, and security guards reminding the public, Archives staff estimated that the documents were subjected to approximately 50,000 flashes a year. While enforcement of this policy has always been a National Archives priority, new cameras with automatic flash have made the policy almost impossible to enforce.

The original documents displayed in the National Archives Experience are fragile and subject to fading from light.  The National Archives must balance its commitment to making these founding documents available to the public with its mandate to preserve and protect them for future generations.  Years of research and testing by top scientists have resulted in state-of-the-art encasements to protect the Charters of Freedom.  Environmental recommendations and guidelines  that include careful temperature and humidity controls, light levels below three foot candles, and light filters to remove ultraviolet radiation are closely adhered to in order to provide additional protection for our nation’s heritage.

After close examination of the policy and consultation with National Archives preservation experts, the Archives determined that barring photography in the exhibition areas would help protect our nation’s heritage for future generations.

Visitors who want an image of the Charters of Freedom or other original documents on display in the National Archives Experience may download them at no cost from www.archives.gov, visit the Resource Room adjacent to the Exhibition Hall for a free color copy, or visit the Archives Shop.

© 2010, The F Stops Here. All rights reserved. (Jessica D. Korman)