Magnum Photo

Magnum Photo

            When photojournalism was just getting its start, when a photographer sold a photo to a magazine, such as Life Magazine or Time Magazine, they no longer had the right to that photograph. How it was used, how it was reproduced, etc. was all up to the company that bought the photo. Realizing something was off, Henri Cartier-Bresson and a few others set out to do something about it. They realized that the people in journalism did not understand what it meant to be a photographer, or what it meant to go spend you life, taking photographs and losing all the rights to an image once it was sold to a publication.

In 1947, Henri Cartier-Bresson along with Robert Capa, David Seymour, William Vandivert, and George Rodger founded Magnum Photo, a co-op helping photographers to keep their rights of their photos after giving them to magazines and newspapers. It was a program run by photographers, for photographers. They would split photo assignments between the members taking them to various countries all around the world. And when they returned and sold their photos to different publications, they still maintained the rights to the photographs, they kept some control of what was done with the negatives and what happened to the photograph.

Another part of Magnum Photo’s purpose was to use photography as a service to the communities around them. They wanted people to know what was going on around them, and while they could read about it in the newspapers and magazines, being able to see it in photographs was a complete different story. Reading about an event and actually seeing images from the event can completely change the perception someone develops and change what they feel about it.

"Magnum Photos." Magnum Photos. Accessed May 02, 2016. http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3.