VII Photo Agency

The VII Photo Agency, is an international photographic cooperative, with offices located in New York, Paris, and Los Angeles. This collective of 11 photojournalists, was founded in Perpignan, France on September 9, 2001 by Alexandra Boulat, Ron Haviv, Gary Knight, Antonin Kratochvil, Christopher Morris, James Nachtwey, and John Stanmeyer. The original seven founding members were joined by Lauren Greenfield in 2002, Joachim Ladefoged in 2004, Eugene Richards in 2006 (Richards subsequently left in 2008), and Marcus Bleasdale and Franco Pagetti in November 2007. Alexandra Boulat passed away on October 5th, 2007. Frank Evers was the Managing Director from March 2005 to May 2008, when he left to start up another company. He was replaced by Stephen Mayes in June 2008.

This group of photographers have documented historical events of the 21st Century (9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Palestinian/Israeli conflict). Together with environmental, social and political stories this socially-conscious collective has produced a record of the injustices created and experienced by people across the globe.

This agency is designed from the outset to be an efficient, technologically enabled distribution hub for its photographers. In addition to representing its photographers for assignment and selling single images/features to magazine clients, VII has also developed an educational series of events designed for student and professional photographers (i.e. VII Seminar and VII Workshop series). In January 2008, VII opened a new retail space in the Dumbo district of NYC, entitled VII DUMBO, dedicated to photojournalism and the works of the VII photographers.

In January 2008, VII also launched the VII NETWORK. The VII NETWORK expands the ideals and journalistic mission of VII Photo to include important photographic work by selected non-members. This new collection of talented photographers permits VII Photo to continue to support its clients throughout the world, in meeting their demand for high-quality, in-depth reportage, contemporary issue-based stories, which provide a critical photographic perspective of the world around us.

The VII NETWORK photographers are:
* Eric Bouvet
* Jessica Dimmock
* Tivadar Domaniczky
* Balazs Gardi
* Benjamin Lowy
* Stephanie Sinclair
* Donald Weber

American Photo Magazine named VII Photo the third most important entity in photography in April 2005.

References

* [http://www.popphoto.com/americanphotofeatures/2641/the-100-most-important-people-in-photography-2005-the-list-1-50-page2.html American Photo "100 Most Important People In Photography"]
* [http://www.viiphoto.com/aboutVII-available.html Official VII history]

External links

* [http://www.viiphoto.com Official VII Photo website]
* [http://www.viiphoto.com/vii_network.html Official VII NETWORK website]
* [http://marcusbleasdale.com Marcus Bleasdale's website]
* [http://www.laurengreenfield.com Lauren Greenfield's website]
* [http://antoninkratochvil.com/ Antonin Kratochvil's website]
* [http://www.joachimladefoged.com/ Joachim Ladefoged's website]
* [http://www.jamesnachtwey.com James Nachtwey's website]

Books

*"WAR" by VII, de.MO (April, 2004), ISBN 0-9705-7689-7
*"Democratic Republic of Congo: Forgotten War" by VII, de.MO (April, 2006), ISBN 0-9742-8365-7