A Photo for Sixpence
Has your stock agency been mentioned recently in a Stephen King novel,
or in the past by Ernest Hemingway? It can happen, and it did in the late 1800’s
when George Bernard Shaw, in his essay, “On Going To Church,” mentions
a stock photo agency familiar to many photographers. Shaw says, “At the
bookstall in south Kensington Museum, any young craftsman, or other person,
can turn over hundreds of photographs taken by Alianari, of Florence, from the
finest work in the churches and palaces of Italy.”
The Alianari stock photo agency is mentioned in PhotoStockNotes
(Dec. ’01, pg 1) as possibly the oldest stock photo agency (1852) in the
world.
Shaw goes on to say, and this sounds familiar today, doesn’t
it? “He can, however, purchase as many of the photographs as he wants for
sixpence each. This invaluable arrangement, having been made at the public expense,
is carefully kept from the public knowledge, because, if it were properly advertised,
complaints might be made by English shopkeepers who object to our buying Alianari’s
cheap photographs instead of their own dear photographs of the Great Wheel at
Earl’s Court.”
Matthew Brady was also criticized for selling his photos too cheaply.
Would as many be as available today if they had gone for very high prices?
Here’s a copy of the miniature book with Shaw’s essay, where I found
the passage about Alianari. You can learn more about the Little Blue Books at
>
|
International Home Page |
 
|