Getty Images Year In Focus 2014 Exhibition

Getty Images launched their Year in Focus 2014 exhibition this week where Nikon were once again at the forefront of sponsoring British photography events, getting a special mention at the Getty Images Galley and in the Year in Focus 2014 Book by Getty Images. The book and Getty rely on the excellent photographers and journalists from around the world, covering news events and often putting themselves in harm's way. The opening forward text mentions that '40 journalists were killed in 2014; many others are missing exiled or imprisoned. Getty is committed to reducing the trend of journalists paying such a heavy price to deliver the news from around the world.' This must be particularly hard in a world where so much content is sourced for free and budgets squeezed.

The Evening was presented by Louise Garczewska, Senior Director of the Getty Images Gallery and Lee Martin who is Senior Vice President of Sports. Lee paid special tribute to over a dozen of the contributing photographers who were at the event and also to Nikon, giving them special thanks for their help and support. It was a brief presentation which allowed everyone to get back to socialising and viewing the images.

Some of the other guests I met included people from the Sunday Times, an M&S art buyer and a few freelance photographers – as an aside almost all photographers I seem to meet are freelance, but only about half of them are particularly chatty. Also at the event were other Getty Images customers including a video footage buyer who has just finished a film about the pop group Spandau Ballet which was all created from archive footage (Getty are managing the BBC archive process). Another very interesting person was the German paper Stern’s correspondent Michael Streck who looks after political and London events.

Top & bottom left: Year in Focus 2014 Exhibition opening night. Top & bottom right: Images feature in the Year in Focus 2014 Exhibition by Getty Images

The exhibition is amazing and seeing superb quality photos well displayed is very inspiring as a photographer, but the images alone just give you a glimpse and a hint of the stories behind. The actual book is far better, perhaps it’s only a minimum of a 20 minute train ride to read it cover-to-cover but wow, in that 20 minutes you will have all the excitement of opening it, the deep despair of some parts of the news section and the light interest of others. There's also a totally superb sports photography section with photos that might make you gasp with the drama - and I’m not normally a sports fan. The third section is where entertainment and famous faces are shown in all their glory - Robin Williams certainly makes you pause. The final section is a historical archive which all of these 2014 pictures will also become a part of in time. This archive goes back over 100 years with remembrances of the First World War and the building of the Eiffel Tower as well as famous faces and events that brought us to today. The book is a real roller coaster of emotion and I’m presently recommending it to everyone I see.

Images feature in the Year in Focus 2014 Exhibition by Getty Images

The Exhibition is open now until 11 February 2015 and at least one other ePz member has been and liked it a lot. If you can get to read the book, even better! I’d say this type of series is a super coffee table book for opening discussions about the weird, complex and amazing world in which we live. If you’re a sports fan you’ll love the detailed professional quality of the shots presented in the title, too.

For more information see the Getty Images website.

Words and Pictures by Stuart Fawcett (JackAllTog)