Magnum Photos has partnered with the World Press Photo Foundation for their Square Print Sale: Written by Light.
More than 75 Magnum photographers and estates are joined by an additional 30 World Press Photo awarded photographers from around the world, and together they seek to celebrate the medium of photography through a collaborative curation of over 100 images.
Inspired by the growing number of conversations around the use of artificially-generated images online and the lack of regulation surrounding text-to-image generators, the curation for this sale — made up of one image by each participating photographer or estate — seeks to celebrate the fundamental difference between the practice of these photographers and AI-generated images: the use of light.
Through this curation, we want to pay tribute and celebrate what really makes our photographs different from an artificially-generated image,
explains Magnum president, Cristina de Middel.
As photographers, we were all, at some point, seduced by light and the possibilities of capturing it in our own unique way. The time feels right to go back to our roots in the practice and reflect on the very origins of our photographic practice, to the camera obscura, and how an image is recorded by the impact of light on a surface.
The result is a collection of more than 100 images that celebrate the act of photography. Some explore the experience of being present and shooting an image — often in incredulous or unexpected circumstances. Others pay tribute to light through moments of transient glory.
The photographer Alessandra Sanguinetti selects an image titled “The Models,” of Argentinian protagonists Guille and Belinda as they pose in front of a white wall with a bouquet of fresh flowers, illuminated by the rays of light coming from the window behind them. And from Sergio Larrain’s archive, a flock of birds is transformed into a pattern of eerie shadows against the grey skies as they burst into flight in Trafalgar Square, London in 1959.
The partnership was inspired by several members of Magnum Photos and World Press Photo who met in the context of a working group around new labelling standards for visual journalism.
We have partnered with Magnum Photos to honour and double down on our support for photojournalism that captures fair and accurate representations of what the photographer witnessed,
I hope these images will help prompt wider discussions around the differences between AI-generated images and photography.
Joumana El Zein Khoury, executive director of World Press Photo.
Guest photographers for this sale include previous winners of the renowned World Press Photo Contest — an annual competition that has been held since 1955 to recognize and celebrate the best photojournalism and documentary photography produced that year.
Each image will be available to purchase as a limited-edition 6×6″ print throughout the duration of the online sale in October.
Magnum Photos and World Press Photo will be donating a portion of the profits from the sale to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Square Print Sale: Written by Light magnumphotos.com/square-print-sale
The selected photographs are only available to purchase as 6×6″ prints during the one-week sale, which ends at 23:59 EDT on Sunday, October 22nd
Magnum Square Prints are printed on 6×6″ (15.24×15.24 cm) archival paper; image size is 5.5″ (14 cm) on the longest side. Images will not be cropped but will instead have white borders. They are not editioned by quantity, but editioned by time, as these items will not be made available outside the sale window. The images in each sale are always different, and will never be available in this format again.
