Photo: Magnum photography agency
Magnum Photos is a photographic co-operative founded in 1947 and owned by its photographer-members. Their library of images is updated daily with new work from across the globe. Most of the major world events and personalities from the Spanish Civil War to the present day are covered. There are constantly updated profiles on most countries of the world, covering industry, society and people, places of interest, politics and news events, disasters and conflict.
InSight America is one of their web-based projects that explores the U.S. in the weeks leading up to one of the most important elections in American History. The project is meant to ‘confront and contextualize a critical moment in U.S. history, using photographs, audio, video, diaries, blogs, podcasts and statistics’.
Henri Cartier-Bresson, father of modern photojournalism described the Magnum photography agency as
“…a community of thought, a shared human quality, a curiosity about what is going on in the world, a respect for what is going on and a desire to transcribe it visually.”
British Airways will launch a new advertising campaign next week using photos selected from a library of reportage style shots specially captured by Magnum photographers. The images will be coupled with straplines such as ‘Ask a local where to go for dinner’, ‘Put down your map and get wonderfully lost’, ‘You can’t smell a city from a coach’, ‘Get on and see where it goes’, encouraging people to explore new cultures and local experiences when they travel. The campaign targets leisure travellers who despite the financial crisis are refusing to sacrifice their holiday and looking to get more out of their travel investment.
Like any good marketing campaign it will undoubtedly serve its purpose by reminding people to think of British Airways when booking their leisure travel. Unfortunately there is unlikely to be any link to the photographers or the rich archives of Magnum filled with the sort of material that can truly educate and inspire people to experience the world in this way.
[...] Digital photography by unknown [...]