I read about this Friday but had to take off upstate for a most wonderful wedding so I didn’t have time to blog about it, but in a somewhat surprising bit of news, Corbis has decided to close down its assignment division (from PDN). Corbis will finish out the current projects its photographers are shooting but pretty much effective immediately its photographers are seeking new agencies and its agents new jobs.

I find this somewhat surprising for two reasons: 1) many of Corbis’ assignment photographers (as opposed to say, Getty’s assignment division) are highly regarded photographers who work a lot, both commercially and editorially and 2) Corbis’ revenues were around $251 million in 2006.

That seems like a large sum to me though of course we don’t know how much of that is attributable to its assignment group.  I think if anything this is indicative that the business of assignment photography is best handled with a ’boutique’ style model, where agencies solely dedicated to representation, handling anywhere from five to forty photographers, achieve the best scale with which to sell its photographers.

The business of photography representation is still one that is very insular, and I am not sure what it is I am trying to say here, but agencies such as Corbis, Getty and others don’t have the necessary…reputation to sell their photographers as artists.  A comparison I would make is that of Hollywood talent agencies.  A studio looking for the hot star or director to helm their film goes to the big agencies, the UTA’s and CAA’s of the business.  Similarly, an ad agency looking for a photographer for their project goes to agencies that represent name photographers.  And even though Corbis had a good number of those guys I’d imagine its reputation as a stock agency first and foremost hindered its representation division more than anything.

The letter from the CEO of Corbis, Gary Shenk.