If you’re appy and you know it…

George Mann: American Master — Photograph © akg-images / George Mann

As soon as the iPad (mark one) was launched, it started appearing at trade fairs and conferences in the picture industry. It wasn’t just because the picture business is filled with gadget lovers: the fact is, photographs look really rather incredible on the iPad. Colours seem richer, blacks deeper and whites subtly shaded. Showing off new collections in client meetings, the iPad seemed to make the best photographs look even better, long after the initial novelty of the iPad had worn off.

That’s why we’re so pleased to announce our first two iPad apps launched this past week, each one focussing on a particular photographer. We had promoted both photographers before on our monthly newsletters: George Mann was a vaudeville star with a passion for cameras, and he took photographs throughout his career, documenting rehearsals and changing rooms, as well as his private life and his friends, including a young Ronald Reagan: one shot shows the (incredibly tall) Mann resting his foot on the future president’s shoulder, a lovely mixture of history and absurdity!

Paris in Colour: The 1950s photography of Peter Cornelius — Photograph © akg-images / Peter Cornelius

The other photographer we chose for our first apps is Peter Cornelius, whose work we had previously showcased in a newsletter. We have the great honour of licensing a series of photographs Cornelius took of Paris in the 1950s in glorious, saturated colour. 1950s Paris was a glamorous, vibrant place, and on the iPad the pictures seem even more glorious. One shot shows three young people surrounding a motorbike on the Rue du Petit Pont. Perhaps I shouldn’t show favouritism, but I absolutely adore this photo, it seems almost like a cinematic recreation of the 1950s: the young woman with a Pan Am bag at her feet; the young boy in his leather jacket and denim glancing (scowling?) at the photographer; the posters plastered all over the back wall advertising everything from karate lessons to a performance of Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’. The photograph is so beautifully composed and the colour palette has mellowed so attractively over the years:, it’s by far my favourite Cornelius shot in our collection, and I am over the moon that this app will bring Cornelius’ and Mann’s work to a new generation of technophiles!