On Wednesday, 11 May 55 major and specialist picture libraries will be exhibiting at
fotofringe London. The event is designed to connect photo suppliers with their customers and will be held at Kings Place, London’s new music and arts cultural center.
For the past 8 years BAPLA has organized a Picture Buyers’ Fair in London each May. This event served the same purpose as fotofringe, but after the 2010 BAPLA event it was decided to make the Picture Buyers’ Fair a biennial event rather than every year due to “a combination of economic pressures on members and increased workload for the BAPLA office”.
At that point TopFoto decided that they needed some way to meet their customers in 2011. Because most venues were too large for one agency TopFoto found 20 other libraries who were interested in participating with them. A waiting list developed and extra rooms at Kings Place were made available.
The libraries that will be participating at fotofringe include: at fotofringe London are: 4Corners Images; AKG Images; Arcaid Images; Arcticphoto; Ardea; Arenapal; Art Archive; AWL Images; Bridgeman Art; British Library Images Online; Camera Press; Colorsport; Country Life Picture Library; Ecoscene; Education Photos; Elizabeth Whiting & Associates; Eye Ubiquitous/Hutchison; FLPA; Fotolibra; GAP Interiors; GAP Photos; The Garden Collection; Garden World Images; Heritage Images; Image Source; Images-4; IPC Syndication; izmostock; Kobal; LatitudeStock; Lebrecht Music & Arts; Loupe Images; Mary Evans Picture Library; Mirrorpix; Nature Picture Library; NI Syndication; Offside Sports Photography; Photo Cuisine UK; Plain Picture; Photoshot; Robert Harding World Imagery; Ronald Grant Archive; Science & Society; Science Photo Library; Scope Features; SkyScan, Specialist Stock; Splash; Stockfood; TopFoto.co.uk; Travel Library/TTL-plus; VIEW Pictures; WENN Ltd; Werner Forman Archive; Writer Pictures.
Eighty-nine libraries and photographer organizations exhibited at the 2010 BAPLA Picture Buyers’ Fair. Thirty-two of those will be participating at fotofringe and they will be joined by 23 other libraries that did not participate last year.
Julie McMahon, Historical Researcher of the Year 2010 who works at the The Folio Society says: “We sorely need contact with our sources these days especially with work so internet-based. The focus of the event is really important to us.”
Organiser Flora Smith of TopFoto says: “From all the billions of images out there, designers and Art Directors need to get quickly to the best, the ones that really stand out. We are thrilled that there is such demand since we initially trailed our event, and the publishing world has been hugely supportive – proving that people need face-to-face more than ever, to get the right deals done and find the best.”