It wasn’t Getty

February 22, 2008 by pmelcher.

It was bad management. It wasn’t Getty, or microstock, or the so called recession. Just plain bad management. I remember LFI ( London Features International ) USA when it had their offices in a small but cozy space in the Meat Market, when the Meat Market was still selling meat and not fancy, overpriced clothes, as it does now. In the 1990’s it was part of a small but effective group of photo agencies, that included Retna and LGI who where then battling with giants such as Sygma and Celebrity Photos. Sygma had incredible content and Celebrity Photos were sending buckets of slides to magazines via Fed ex. Globe Photos was also a threat then, with their “under the belt” pricing.

Times changed. LGI got bought by Corbis, Retna, managed to remain independent until recently, when it got split up and bought by two different companies. Sygma also got sold to Corbis, while Globe photo is now only a shadow of itself and Celebrity Photo doesn’t know on what tempo to dance.

LFI USA remained independent and with an incredible music collection, managed to grow, opening one of the first website. Under the great and regretted Steven Mazzara, LFI moved offices on the same block as Magnum currently is. Bigger office, bigger staff. It, however, never reached 15 staffers, as a PDN article wrongly wrote. Alas, the owners didn’t follow. Times were hard for the guys in New York to try to compete with the newer agencies, running at full digital speed. Bogged down by a huge print and slide archive, the transition was a very painful process, as the London office refused to invest properly. Saving money was the motto. People were paid poorly, the equipment was barely adequate. A combination of too little, too late.

There was great photographers: Kevin Mazur, Nic Elgar, Ron Woolfson, Dennis VanTine, George DeSota, Gregg Deguire and many more. But as the management refused to innovate, they all left, one after the other. Kevin joined Wireimage along with Gregg, while Nic and George went to ImageDirect. One of the many reasons was that LFI in England decided to sell prints of celebrities to consumers while not paying any commission to its photographers. After a lot of internal battles, it was finally shut down.

It is not by lack of trying: Many times LFI tried to sell itself. But the price was ridiculously too high. $35 Million, some say.The staff in New York bravely fought against the competition with incredibly poor resources and way below average compensation. As photographers left, so did the staff. Hard to run a place when your boss says there is no money and allegedly comes from England on Concorde or via the Queen Elisabeth.

Neither Wireimage, nor Getty invented low, discount pricing. It has always been around. Red carpet is a numbers and speed game, it is hardly based on quality. Refusing that the US office send images directly to agents across the world, but rather through the London office, made most material completely obsolete by the time they reach their final destination. Not letting the US office post images on the website directly was also a huge mistake.

But all and all, thanks to an extremely dedicated staff and photographers, it worked. Today, it has been stopped. The owners are  older, tired and are pulling out of the huge USA market. To add insult to injury, as I am writing, all of the photographers have been asked to personally pull out all their images before the final shut down. If not, all will be thrown in the trash. What a way to end a relationship !! Thank you and goodbye. Please pick up your trash on your way out.

For photographers based in New York, the task, while painful, is still accessible. But those living in Miami or LA, what are they supposed to do ? Fly in to New York to rescue their images ? There has been no offers from the LFI management to help. Rather, it has been only threats.

It is a sad ending to what could have been a success story. Because of personal greed, selfishness, acute ego and extremely poor management.

To those who gave their heart, time and passion to LFI USA, the photo industry salutes you. To the photographers who continuously believed in LFI usa and its staff, thank you. You can all proudly move on with your life with the twinkle of success in your eyes. It wasn’t you, it wasn’t Getty, no the recession or the weather. It was, it is, the owners who failed. Not you.

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