By Daryl Lang

World Picture Network is cutting loose all its freelance assignment photographers, just a year after shutting down its fledgling wire service. The pullback from assignments, which were once the agency’s largest source of revenue, is effective April 17 and leaves WpN with an uncertain future.

WpN handled assignment representation for 49 photojournalists around the world, according to its Web site. The cuts, announced in an e-mail to photographers, are another sign of the deteriorating market for editorial photography. Magazines and newspapers that make up much of WpN’s business are strapped for cash and spending less on photography.

“Our assignment revenue has dropped dramatically in the last five months and it simply does not make financial sense to continue supporting the losses we are sustaining with no improvement in sight,” WpN CEO Brian Miller wrote in a widely shared e-mail. (Photographer John Harrington posted the full message on his Photo Business News & Forum blog.)

Miller, reached by phone today at his office, declined to comment and said the e-mail about the assignments was meant to be private. In a brief phone conversation, he told PDN the e-mail says all there is to say.

In January 2008, Miller told PDN assignments were the agency’s largest revenue source, followed by archive sales, then wire photos.

Miller’s e-mail cast WpN's future in uncertain terms.

“I do not know what the future will bring for any of us individually or for our industry, but I wish you all the best,” Miller wrote in the e-mail.

The e-mail encouraged WpN photographers to leave their archive with the agency on a non-exclusive basis, saying it might result in "found money."

WpN, an eight-year-old picture agency, is dwarfed by larger photo agencies such as Getty Images and the Associated Press. A year ago WpN stopped running its wire service, which distributed current news photos from freelance photographers.

Magazines and newspapers that pay for editorial photography are under intense budget pressure, following a falloff in ad spending that worsened in the second half of 2008.

WpN’s assignment staff includes Todd Cross, Prichard Gibson and Anne Nixon, according to the company’s Web site. WpN's photographers are all freelance contributors.

As of Monday, the WpN Web site still said, “Now more than ever, WpN is armed to cover your assignment needs with high quality still photography, audio and video worldwide.”

WpN was launched in 2001 by husband-and-wife team Seamus Conlan and Tara Farrell, who later left the agency.

Related story
January 15, 2008: WpN Cancels Daily Photo Service, Will Focus On Assignments