The ‘laif Genossenschaft’ photographers’ cooperative, founded in April 2022, took over the prestigious Cologne-based photo agency ‘laif Agentur für Photos und Reportagen GmbH’ on 1 July 2022 in close consultation with the previous owner, ‘ddp media GmbH’.
From the perspective of the photographers represented by laif, this step had become necessary in order to maintain the agency as a premium brand and continue to position it as sustainable, innovative and culturally significant. For this reason, on the initiative of the laif photographers, the ‘laif Genossenschaft eG iG’ was founded in April this year, which now has over 300 members and has made it possible to transfer the ‘laif’ agency to independence.
The ‘laif Genossenschaft’ acts as a shareholder, but this does not affect the operational activities of the ‘laif’ agency. The existing team of 12 experienced employees, led by managing director Silke Frigge, will continue to serve customers and photographers in the usual manner as their point of contact.
“I am delighted about the initiative and this new and special collaboration with the laif photographers,” says Silke Frigge, managing director of the agency. “In this unique constellation of agency and cooperative, we can work even more closely with our photographers, share resources, infrastructure and networks more intensively, further consolidate our valued position in the image market and develop new projects. I am very grateful to Ulf Schmidt-Funke and his team for the excellent collaboration with ddp media GmbH, which was characterised by mutual appreciation and collegial support.”
“The purchase of the laif agency should now, and above all in the long term, enable the laif photo agency to be and remain independent,” says Andreas Herzau, one of the directors of the laif cooperative. He continues: “We believe that we can only fulfil our responsibility for our images if photographers are able to work independently of external interests. In this context, we view with concern the increasing concentration of the press, accompanied by click-driven journalism, which uses images only on the cheapest possible terms and regards them as mere commodities. The great support we as the ‘laif cooperative’ have received from photographers and parts of committed civil society in recent weeks allows us to look positively to the future and encourages us in our efforts to stand up for high-quality, independent and fairly paid photojournalism, because: Our images are worth it,” says Andreas Herzau.
Christoph Bangert | Andreas Herzau | Manfred Linke
(Members of the Executive Board of the ‘laif Cooperative’)
Bettina Flitner (Vorsitzende)
Ingmar Björn Nolting (stellvertr. Vorsitzender)
Jörg Gläscher | Dagmar Schwelle | Berthold Steinhilber
(Supervisory Board of the ‘laif Genossenschaft’)
