Contact Press Images was formed to give its journalists -- who are distinguished photographers -- a greater voice in the production and play of their stories and essays. Representing the work of two-dozen preeminent photographers, including:
Founding Members: David Burnett, Frank Fournier, Kenneth Jarecke, Annie Leibovitz, Dilip Mehta, Alon Reininger;
Senior Members: Kristen Ashburn, Alexandra Avakian, Stephen Dupont and Lori Grinker;
Contributors: Juliana Beasley, Sean Hemmerle, James Hill, Edward Keating
Special Contributors: Jane Evelyn Atwood, Martine Barrat, Jonathan Becker, George Butler, Yunghi Kim, Li Zhensheng, Ken Light, Don McCullin, Sebastiaio Salgado and Alfred Wertheimer. Estates: Gilles Caron and Olivier Rebbot
This exceptional body of work spans the rise of the Berlin Wall to present day, and includes images of the major events, personalities, and social currents of the 20th century through present day. Contact was founded in New York in 1976, nine months after the end of the war in Vietnam, to facilitate the production of new, independent photojournalism. Photographer joined or were selected based on talent and commitment or area of specialization or interest. The agency maintained a consistent editorial direction: a documentary approach that valued depth over speed, pioneered the use of color film to cover the news, in addition to black and white, and primarily focused its collective lens on conflict, human rights issues, and important cultural trends. The agency has since documented the era that saw the end of apartheid, the fall of Soviet Empire, revolution in Central America, famine and genocide in Africa, ethnic violence in the Balkans, the AIDS pandemic, the birth of the Internet, and the War on Terror. Contact photographers have collectively gathered many of the industry’s most distinguished honors, including annual awards from the World Press Photo Foundation in the Netherlands, the National Press Photographers Association, the Overseas Press Club of America and the American Society of Media Photographers. One of the last independent international photographic agencies still in operation, Contact Press Images is unique among agencies of the period (Black Star, Gamma, Magnum, Rapho, Sipa, Sygma) in that its holdings and their contextual materials remain fully intact. As such, the collection represents much more than a gathering of pictures; it is a photographic time capsule, providing a one-of-a-kind insight into history, and into the industry dedicated to capturing it.
