April 13, 2007
Digitizing the Magnum archive
Matthew Murphy
With an archive comprised of photos from 110+ artists shot over the span of 70 years, the task of digitizing Magnum's archive is a daunting one, to say the least. While Magnum's active photographers are still producing and submitting new work, the archive is the greatest source of images being added to the digital database. While the word archive evokes images of rows of print-boxes, cabinets containing duplicate slides and shelves of contact sheets and captions, which one might find in three of Magnum's four offices, the term might be applied to all material which exists in and out of the office in their original form, i.e. negatives and original chromes.
Magnum's New York office
As mentioned above, various forms of photos exist in the physical archives. There is an estimated one million photographs in the New York office archive. These can be either prints (most are black and white on either resin or fiber-based paper), slides of black and white prints, duplicate color slides and original color slides of all sizes, though the vast majority of these chromes are 35mm. The black and white material is stored in folders within custom-made boxes and the chromes are stored within archival sleeves which hang in filing cabinets.
Many of the photographers decide to keep their original negatives and chromes in the office. These are all stored in archival envelopes and sleeves, ordered by Magnum's story-numbering system. The room in which they are stored, affectionately referred to as the "Red Room," uses its own temperature-control system and is fire and water proof.
Over the years, the staff in the London, New York and Paris archives have worked together to figure out how to tackle this beast, or rather how to dance with it so as to have Magnum benefit from the team's labor. The best way to formulate a plan is to analyze the end result: archive sales trends. From a business standpoint this is important since a substantial amount of Magnum's income comes from the sale of archived images. We are fortunate enough to have a digital database (called Cortex) which was designed based on Magnum's needs by Orange Logic. Versions of this software are now used by Reuters and Art Resource.
Cortex includes the digital archive, an invoicing system, a contact database, a consignment system, and a reporting system. Since image numbers are referenced in invoices, it's possible for the archive staff to analyze sales trends based on a variety of factors, including the most popular decades, subjects, locations and formats of photos. When the statistics of all offices are combined, the archive directors know what parts of the physical archive need to be edited, scanned and added to the digital database. This is the basis for most archive production.
In addition to the above, archive directors are constantly working in coordination with the photographers and representatives of the deceased photographers' estates to ensure that the best material reaches the database. Of course, all Magnum members must be given equal attention when considering what to scan. Sometimes great "new" stories that are submitted to be digitized were actually photographed decades ago. Frequently, this work can be relocated by going through the physical archives and the available contact sheets. One of the most gratifying feelings an archivist experiences is when he or she finds a wonderful photo which doesn't already exist in the digital archive.
All submissions to Magnum's digital archive must pass through the digital production department. In these machine-packed, darkened rooms, scanning, adjusting, retouching and backup are all done according to strict standards. In addition to archive production, they must attend to hi-resolution image orders placed by clients online as well as submissions from the photographers.
After the digital department is done with their work, the files are passed onto a caption-writer. This person refers to the photographers as well as original caption lists to gather the required information. After captioning, the images are uploaded and notification is sent to a keyworder. The Magnum database contains a vast and comprehensive keyword tree which is constantly growing. Keywords are assigned on story-wide basis (i.e. every image in the story shares a common keyword) and on an individual image basis. Keywords are critical, because what's the use of doing all of this work if the user can't find the image in the end?
Future plans include the possibility of utilizing the newly-formed Magnum Foundation to make more un-scanned Magnum material available for on-line viewers. Until then, the job goes on; batch by batch, image by image.
Published on the Magnum Blog on April 13, 2007
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