18
Under contract
On a monthly retainer, with copyright kept by the photographer.
Photographers · Eighteen under contract
Somebodystood therefor five weeksto get this.
Not a stringer, not a stock library, not a licence bought from someone who was passing. Eighteen photographers on a retainer, fourteen of whom live where they work.
Read their dispatchesAn agency built around photographers, not around pictures.
A stock library owns pictures and rents them out. We hold contracts with people and license what they make, which sounds like a small difference and decides everything else: who is paid, who owns the frame, and who gets to say no.
Eleven of the eighteen also own the company. The other seven are on the same retainer and the same sixty per cent, and the panel that decides which assignments are refused has two elected photographers on it.
Their names are below. Their notebooks are the blog.
The bylines
6 people
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Idris Bakare
Photographer · Dakar
Regional photographer, Dakar. Twelve years in the city, seven on the Work project, and a rule against photographing anyone who has stopped what they were doing
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Léa Fontaine
Photographer · Marseille
Photographer, Marseille. Nine years on the southern coast and the only person here who shoots the same harbour every week
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Marta Kowalczyk
Photographer · Warsaw
Regional photographer, Warsaw. Six years on one stretch of the Oder, which is the kind of thing a retainer is for
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Rafael Ortega
Photographer · Mexico City
Regional photographer, Mexico City. Eleven years in the city and a habit of arriving a week before the file is opened
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Sophie Martin
Photographer and archive editor
Photographer since 2006, and the person who decides which long projects are worth a decade
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Thomas Dubois
Picture editor
Picture editor, responsible for the commissions and for who gets sent where
The photographers in numbers
5:1
Per picture editor
Never more, on any assignment, at any point in the five weeks.
2
Edits before filing
One by the photographer, one by an editor who was not there.
0
Frames staged
Nothing arranged, repeated or asked for. It is a condition of the contract.
Four stages, five weeks
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Commissioned
One photographer, named to the client before departure. Nobody is sent to a place they cannot get back to.
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Shooting
Five weeks, one lens, no daily filing. Nothing is sent while the assignment is running, because a picture editor watching in real time changes what gets shot.
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Edited
The photographer edits first, alone, then again with a picture editor who has not been there. Both edits are kept.
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Captioned
Place, date, and what is happening — written by the person who was standing there, never by the desk. Unverifiable captions are cut, not guessed.
How the contract works
- Contracts
- A monthly retainer, twelve months a year, whether or not there is an assignment running. Nobody here is paid by the picture.
- Copyright
- Stays with the photographer. The agency licenses; it does not own the work, and that is written into the contract rather than promised.
- Editing
- One picture editor to five photographers. Above that ratio, editing becomes filing.
- Film and cards
- Kept, catalogued and stored in the building. A photographer can ask for their own material back at any point, including after they leave.
- Risk
- No assignment requires anybody to go anywhere. Insurance, training and the cost of getting out are the agency’s, and a photographer who turns down a place is not asked why.
One or two are taken on a year.
Send thirty frames from one place rather than a portfolio, and say how long you have lived there.
Write to the picture desk