TopFoto Blog

Alan Smith and TopFoto honoured for their outstanding contribution to the industry.

The 2007 BAPLA award for outstanding contribution to the image licensing industry has been awarded to Alan Smith and TopFoto.

Presenting the award and a bottle of single malt whisky to TopFoto’s founder and Managing Partner Alan Smith at the BAPLA AGM on Wednesday 17 October, Chairman Catherine Draycott said:

“Acquiring collection after collection over the years and amassing over 6 million pictures, Alan Smith has become a major custodian of the UK’s cultural photographic heritage. He never seemed to be phased by the huge job of taking on more collections and more to the point, of making them accessible.

TopFoto plays a key role in the picture industry world-wide and has had a long association with BAPLA and EU organisation CEPIC.

Alan Smith was induced by Paul Brown to take over the Presidency of CEPIC where he is now in his 10th year as President. He has been at the centre of the organisation in year upon year of fantastic networking and development opportunities, with the CEPIC annual Congress meetings held in locations that continue to attract delegates from Europe and far beyond making it the best meeting point for the industry worldwide.

Alan Smith said: “We were early users of computers and today have 2 million pictures on our own servers. This been a 30 year collective effort by my family, hundreds of staff, service providers such as LTT, CPL, Fotoware, Rose Deakin, Bikini lists, and suppliers and agents worldwide. Membership of BAPLA has helped a lot and there has always been somebody to talk to and share with. Membership of CEPIC recognises the importance of international trading in images. My thanks to them all.”

How do we get on the housing ladder? What will we do when the oil runs out?

TopFoto doesn’t have the answers but we do have a great collection of images for an alternative look at transport and housing. TopFoto presents just a few of our favourites

Alternative Housing

Alternative Transport

1053126 - Mr. and Mrs. Steward at the door of their thatched roof trolley bus, 1952 ©Topham / TopFoto
1093477 - Professional frogman Courtney Brown tows a 55-foot scale model of the Titanic ©Topham / TopFoto

In the first London Olympic Games, 100 years ago (July 1908), Italian marathon runner Dorando Pietri collapsed 5 times from dehydration but kept going until finally deprived of his win by hasty aides who helped him over the finish line. Pietri got a special award in recognition of his great showing of the Olympic Spirit.

With 300 days to go until the Beijing Games, and British eyes on London 2012,
TopFoto presents a gallery of every Summer Olympic Games throughout history.

0007216 - Italian marathon runner Dorando Pietri at the 1908 London Olympics ©Topham / TopFoto
0091573 - Passing the Olympic Flame on its way to the 1948 London Olympics ©Topham / TopFoto
0827960 - Kelly Holmes wins the 1500m at the 2004 Athens Olympics ©Professional Sport / TopFoto

1 October 2008 is 100 years since the revolutionary Model T Ford went on sale, making motoring affordable and reliable for the masses, instead of the complex plaything of the wealthy and their chauffeurs. 48% of the automobile market fell to Ford in just six years.

TopFoto presents a gallery on Henry Ford and his Model T

1095309 - Before the Model T Ford revolution, cars such as The Pierce Arrow were expensive,
complicated and for the wealthy few. ©Topham / TopFoto
0834421 - Henry Ford ©Topham / TopFoto
0967519 - The model T. Ford went on sale on 1 October 1908 ©Topham / TopFoto

J K Rowling has only just beaten Enid Blyton into first place as the world’s best selling children’s author. Camera-shy Blyton’s books have sold over 400 million copies worldwide, rising by 2 million every year. A major new biography of her comes out this October: Looking for Enid by Duncan McLaren (Portobello Books).

Irène Némirovsky was born in Kiev, lived in Russia and France, and died in Auschwitz in August 1942. One of her great unpublished novels, Suite Française, was discovered and released last year, decades after her death, to huge public and critical acclaim. A second miraculous survivor, Fire in the Blood is “a literary find of the same quality”, according to the Sunday Times, and now published in the English language.

TopFoto is proud to have supplied the cover photographs for both Suite Française and Fire in the Blood (Chatto & Windus).

Click here for Enid Blyton and Irène Némirovsky

0361862 - Enid Blyton ©UPPA / TopFoto
rv18776-1 ©Roger-Viollet / TopFoto - on the cover of Fire in the Blood (Chatto & Windus)
rv10320-3 - Irène Némirovsky ©Roger-Viollet / TopFoto
rv17590-2 ©Roger-Viollet / TopFoto - on the cover of Suite Française (Chatto & Windus)