The American Photography Archives Group (APAG) celebrates its 25th Anniversary by presenting a dynamic two-day conference on March 22-23, 2025. It will bring together some of the most influential figures in photography and archive management. Held in New York City at the School of Visual Arts, the conference will feature keynote presentations, panel discussions, breakout sessions and our annual awards in several categories including lifetime achievement in photography and archive.
www.apag.us/conference
Keynote Speakers:
PETE SOUZA, former Official White House Photographer for President Obama, will open the conference, offering insights from his celebrated career.
RICK SMOLAN, renowned photojournalist and creator of the Day in the Lifeseries.
Panelists:
Edward Burtynsky (photographer, Founder, ARKIV360), George Kocis (Director, Staley Wise Gallery), Leah Hokenson (Managing Director, Advisor, Estate Planning Baldwin Wealth Partners), Daile Kaplan (Certified Photography Fine Art Appraiser), Mark Lubell (Former Magnum Director/Former Executive Director ICP), Laura Paterson (Consignment Director/Photographs, Heritage Auctions), Stephen Perloff (Editor/The Photograph Collector) Fred Ritchin (author, “The Synthetic Eye: Photography Transformed in the Age of AI”), Neal Slavin, (photographer), Charles Traub (Chair, MFA Photography and Related Media, SVA),David W. Wolf (Attorney), Alice Sachs Zimet (Founder+President/Arts + Business Partners).
Panels will include these and others: Protecting Your Legacy: Contracts, Estates, and Trusts / Innovations in Technology – Advanced digital capture and AI label and search for photo archives /The Future of the Photography Industry and Implications for Archives. The conference will also include breakout sessions at the end of each day and networking opportunities. There will be an Awards Party on Saturday evening where this year’s awards will be announced in the following categories: Lifetime Achievement – Photography, Lifetime Achievement – Archive, Member of the Year and several others.
The American Photography Archives Group (APAG) was founded in 2000 by Mary Engel who is the Director of the Ruth Orkin and Morris Engel Film and Photo Archive. APAG is dedicated to supporting photographers, archives and archivists by providing resources, education, and networking opportunities to navigate the photography industry. APAG fosters collaboration and knowledge-sharing among professionals managing and preserving photographic archives. For more information please visit: www.apag.us
The Ongoing Crisis in Photography : A Race Against Time to Preserve Our Collective Memory
By Mary Engel and Stephen McCamman
Over the past century, photography has captured iconic cultural moments and served as a cornerstone of historical documentation, visually framing how we understand our past. However, the rapid pace of technological change has burdened archives and aging photographers, who are passing away at an ever-quickening pace, with the unsustainable responsibility of maintaining our collective memory. If we fail to act, we risk losing an irreplaceable and unique historical record of the 20th Century.
As the daughter of Ruth Orkin and Morris Engel, renowned photographers and filmmakers, I have witnessed this crisis firsthand. After my mother’s passing in 1985, I inherited her archive at 23 years old. When my father passed away in 2005, I became responsible for their archives, including their landmark film, Little Fugitive (1953).
As an increasing number of photographers from my parent’s generation left their archives to their heirs, I formed the American Photography Archives Group (APAG). APAG began as a small support group and has grown into a non-profit organization of over 275 members, encompassing the estates of some of the most significant photographers of the past century.
From this vantage point, I have seen the tectonic shifts in technology and culture that have undermined the economic viability of maintaining photography archives.
Visual media is everywhere, and just as Susan Sontag predicted, photographs’ cultural and monetary value has declined. Stock photography sites and social media platforms offer an endless supply of images (Approximately 90% of cell phone users create an astounding 4.7 billion images daily). Not surprisingly, this visual saturation has led to the loss of licensing opportunities and rampant disregard for copyright protection, given the powerful digital tools available on every phone, tablet, and computer and the legal
Not surprisingly, tech companies have been the financial beneficiaries of the digital revolution. Overall, the social media titans have dodged responsibility by acting as “intermediaries” rather than content publishers, placing the burden on the photographer or archive to chase down copyright violators on their platforms – a futile whack-a-mole model of copyright protection that the absolves the social media giants of any responsibility.
The introduction of Artificial Intelligence in 2022 for the general user has only made things worse. Not only have social media platforms and search engines profited from copyrighted images while offering little to no compensation to creators, but AI models also scrape the internet for source material, generating new images in photographers’ distinct styles without credit, payment, or consent.
Failure to form a collective and practical response to this problem will seriously impact our photographic cultural legacy. Of course, the archives of the 20th century’s most noted photographers—Ansel Adams, Gordon Parks, Andre Kertész, and Lee Miller (all APAG members), among a select few—are well preserved and financially viable.
However, less well-known but essential archives risk being lost down the digital memory hole. Burdened by the costs of storing an entire life’s work, photographers are findnig that there are not enough institutions or museums to store and properly preserve archives.
In the current climate, photographers and photo archives struggle to raise money to maintain and monetize their work. This creates a Catch-22, as it is rare for most institutions to take an archive unless funding is attached and photographers are lucky to fund their retirement, let alone fund the preservation of their archives.
A Call to Collective Action
Unfortunately, many of our major cultural institutions grapple with limited resources and an overwhelming demand for archive placement. The Library of Congress accepts very few archives, and establishing any arrangement with an institution, even for donations, can take years.
One notable exception is The University of Texas at Austin’s Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, which houses over 10 million analog photographs for teaching and research. The Briscoe Center offers a compelling model for the future of photography archive preservation. First, the University of Texas and Briscoe Center endowments provide most of the funding for the Center. Given the Trump administration’s frontal attack on the federal budget and arts funding, state action is all the more critical, especially in New York. Secondly, thanks in large part to Briscoe’s founding director, historian Dr. Don Carleton, the center has reconceptualized photographs as historical artifacts rather than fine art or photojournalism.
In short, viewing 20th-century photographs as historical artifacts rather than just cultural snapshots of a moment can provide a new understanding of where photography fits into the larger cultural context and prompt state arts and historical organizations to reprioritize the preservation of photography archives as part of our larger historical legacy.
This reframing of photography can also help the broader business community rethink the value of 20th-century photographs and see the long-term financial value in funding preservation efforts. A relatively small investment can monetize the work while ensuring photographers and archives receive at least some compensation for their life’s work and even return a profit. Given their role in creating the current crisis, Google, Apple, and Meta, along with many others should re-invest in preserving the work they have used, in part, to deepen their pockets.
We must act swiftly and collectively to preserve these invaluable archives before they are lost forever. Funding the preservation and promotion of these archives is an essential industry responsibility, which is why APAG is announcing the launch of a grant writing initiative seeded with 20% of the proceeds from our upcoming conference, “Reimagining Archives for the 21st Century.” Working with other institutions and industry leaders, including the Briscoe Center, this initial effort will focus its efforts on securing funding from state arts councils, foundations, and corporations to address this unfolding cultural crisis.
Photographs retain a unique place as historical artifacts that embody the visual narrative of our collective history, particularly of the 20th century. State governments and a variety of civic and private institutions must rise to the occasion, or all of us stand to lose if we do not effectively preserve the rich history of photography for future generations.
About the Authors
Mary Engel is the Director of the Ruth Orkin and Morris Engel Film and Photo Archive and is the Founder and Executive Director of the American Photography Archives Group.
Stephen McCamman is a freelance writer and non-profit consultant.
