Marcus Bleasdale, Franco Pagetti Elected To VII Photo Agency

 

LOS ANGELES, CA (November 12, 2007) - Two new photojournalists have been elected into membership into the VII Photo Agency: Marcus Bleasdale and Franco Pagetti. The announcement was made following VII's seminar and workshop in Pasadena after VII members met for two days and considered more than 100 submissions for membership, VII managing director Frank Evers said.

“We are thrilled that Marcus and Franco have agreed to join VII," chairman of the agency Gary Knight said. "For the past decade, they have both demonstrated an indefatigable commitment to some of the most important stories of our time. They are also close friends and colleagues, and we look forward to having them join the VII family."

Bleasdale has spent over eight years covering the brutal conflict within the borders of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the work was published in his book "One Hundred Years of Darkness." He is widely published in the UK, Europe, and the States in publications such as The Sunday Times Magazine, The Telegraph Magazine, Geo Magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, and National Geographic.

In 2004 he was awarded UNICEF Photographer of the Year Award, the 3p Grant. and the Alexia Foundation Grant. He exhibited in New York at Moving Walls 2005 and was awarded the OSI Distribution Grant 2005 for his work with Human Rights Watch.

In 2005 Bleasdale was named Magazine Photographer of the Year by POYi. In 2006 he was awarded a World Press Daily Life award and won the prestigious Overseas Press Club's Olivier Rebbot Award. In 2007 Bleasdale was awarded a Freedom of Expression grant for his new project on our relationship with oil.

Pagetti has covered the conflict in Iraq since January 2003, three months before the start of the war. Since then he has been based in Baghdad, mainly on assignment for Time. Knight says that Pagetti's images have captured the horrors of war, the brief flowering of hope after the downfall of Saddam Hussein, the rise of insurgent and terrorist groups, and more recently, the inexorable descent into a bloody sectarian civil war.

Pagetti has been a news photographer since 1994, and most of his recent work has involved conflict situations in Afghanistan, Kosovo, East timor, Kashmir, Palestine, Sierra Leone, and South Sudan. His non-conflict news photography has included assignments in India, the Vatican City, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and his native Italy.

In addition to Time, he has worked on assignment for Newsweek, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Stern. His work has been published in Le Figaro, Paris Match, The Times of London, The Independent and Days Japan magazine. When not on assignment, Pagetti lives between Milan and Tuscany, Italy, where he was once a fashion photographer for Italian Vogue and taught chemistry at Milano‘s University .

VII derives its name from the number of founding photojournalists who, in September 2001, formed this collectively owned agency. Alexandra Boulat, Ron Haviv, Gary Knight, Antonin Kratochvil, Christopher Morris, James Nachtwey, and John Stanmeyer were joined in 2002 by Lauren Greenfield, in 2004 by Joachim Ladefoged, and in 2006 by Eugene Richards. On October 5 2007, founding member Boulat passed away.

According to its constitution, only 14 members can be in VII at any given time.

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