Sipa Founder awarded Légion d'Honneur

by Jon Mitchell

Goskin Spiahioglu was awarded France's prestigious Légion d'Honneur by French president Jaques Chirac at a ceremony at the Elysee palace in Paris on 19 January, 2007.

The now ageing founder of the famous agency was a pioneer of the colour slide syndication business model and along with Gamma's founder Floris de Bonneville, established the modern high quality press photo agency.

A talented photojournalist in his own right, Goskin shot amazing pictures during the Algerian war of independence and later managed many of the world's best photojournalists.

Sadly, after the large corporations entered the business, Gamma disappeared, swallowed whole by the new big fish, Getty Images.

Sipa Press is still going, though it has been under different ownership for some time. Sygma, one of the other big three photo press agencies, was gobbled up by Corbis, who butchered the collection with poor editing, leading famously, to many protests from Sygma photographers.