A24 Media launches pre-eminent stills library and platform for African photographers
Author: africapractice East Africa
Date: 10/03/2009
On Tuesday 10th March 2009, A24 Media announced the launch of its much-anticipated online stills collection, which contains some of the best photographic collections in Africa, digitised for the first time. The collection charts the past 50 years of the continent’s history, and features never-before-seen work from world-renowned photographers Mohamed Amin and Duncan Willetts. With images available online; the collection is diverse in content, capturing images ranging from wildlife, culture, sports and portraits from the Maasai of Kenya even to iconic images of the late John F. Kennedy of the USA.
The collection, which has taken 3 years to digitise, will provide a valuable platform to journalists and organisations who wish to showcase their work in order to find new markets for their stills. The company anticipates positive uptake locally and internationally as the diverse images are relevant to collectors and businesses, individuals, media houses, publishers, advertisers, government agencies, educational institutions and even museums.
Speaking at the launch was friend and colleague of the late Mo Amin and veteran photographer, Duncan Willetts, A24 Media’s Editorial Director, Photography. Duncan expressed his delight saying, “The collection as it now stands contains a wealth of images from the continent that have been well-preserved and will now be accessible for generation after generation. I believe Mo would have been pleased to see his work brought to life.”
Also speaking during the launch was Joseph Munga, A24 Media’s Editor-in-Chief, Stills, who remarked “Through A24 Media’s stills collection the world finally gets to see this beautiful continent through our lens! It takes A24 Media to the next level and enables us to take our vision into the future by raising a new generation of African photographers. We are using new technology to give them a unique opportunity to express themselves and to share their stories with the world.”
Munga’s passion for photography dates back to his days as a student at Mo Force (the Mohamed Amin Foundation training centre). He sees a natural harmony between technology and photography, not only for delivery of content from the continent, but also as a channel for telling stories in new and unique ways on multimedia platforms. The stills collection also contains photo essays on a multimedia platform which blend stills, text and sound in innovative and emotive style.
This new way of storytelling takes the African tradition bang up to date and would be ideal for museums, educational institutions and custodians of culture across the world looking for a fresh and compelling way to engage their audiences.
A24 Media was conceived in order to enable Africans to tell their stories to the world from an African perspective, and also serves as a much needed online archive, collating and storing African stories and finally making them accessible globally, in real time, in order to preserve the rich heritage of a continent whose stories which are in danger of being lost forever.
The stills collection can be viewed on www.a24media.com under the ‘African Photography’ link.