Michel Puech

Journaliste honoraire (Carte de presse n°29 349), directeur de la publication

English

Gamma/Sygma – Alain Dupuis: Dawn of the conquerors

Publié le par Michel Puech

For forty years, Alain Dupuis sold photos, first for APIS, then for the Sygma agency, where he was joined by Claude Duverger, Tony Rubichon and others. The founding of Sygma was the starting gun for the fierce competition among Gamma, Sygma and Sipa Press, founded the same year as Sygma by Göksin Sipahioglu. The agencies managed in just a few years to drive up the price of news photos to outrageous sums.

Between 1985 and 1995, they created what has been called The Golden Age of Photojournalism, where photographers and sellers got “filthy rich” through real and false scoops and taking foolish risks. According to several witnesses, “the parking lots at Sygma were the first in France to have Porsches, Jaguars and Ferraris.”

 

This success made their downfall all the more bitter.

 

Michel PuechDernière révision le 29 mai 2014 à 10:41 am GMT+0100 par Michel Puech

English

Gamma/Sygma – Raymond Depardon: An Unavoidable Split

Publié le par Michel Puech

He is the best known of the four musketeers who founded Gamma in November 1966, taking charge of the agency after the parting of the ways. I wanted to hear his side of the story, but the photographer, who took President François Holland’s official portrait one year ago, is difficult to reach. When I finally got through to him, he was reluctant at first: “The anniversary of Sygma. I’m in no position to talk about it—I’m anti-Sygma!” A few days later, he called me back and kindly answered a few questions. Forty years later, despite his written contribution to the memoirs of Hubert Henrotte (which Depardon claims not to have read), we feel that the conflict of April and May 1973 is still vivid in his mind. The reason is his almost visceral attachment to Gamma, which led him again last month to offer his support to François Lochon, the agency’s current director.

Michel Puech

Read the full article on the French

Dernière révision le 6 octobre 2013 à 5:40 pm GMT+0100 par Michel Puech

1973 Crise Gamma/Sygma
« Une scission inévitable » Raymond Depardon

Publié le par Michel Puech
1967 à Gamma: Raymond Depardon et Gilles Caron1967 à Gamma: Photo© Gamma-Rapho

Il est le plus connu des quatre mousquetaires qui ont fondé Gamma en novembre 1966 et c’est lui qui a pris la direction de l’agence après la scission des fondateurs. Je souhaitais évidement son témoignage, mais le photographe qui a immortalisé le Président de la République française il y a un an, est difficile à joindre. Voir la suite →

Dernière révision le 12 mars 2024 à 12:11 pm GMT+0100 par

1973 Crise Gamma/Sygma
L’opération commando d’Henri Bureau

Publié le par Michel Puech
Henri Bureau à Visa pour l’image 2010 (c) Geneviève Delalot pour A l’oeil

Issy-les-Moulineaux le mercredi 24 avril 2013 vers midi. Henri Bureau a tourné en voiture un moment. Dans le téléphone mobile, il râle : « Je n’ai pas que ça à faire… » Finalement il gare sa C4 à un coin de rue et je le rejoins.

Voir la suite →Dernière révision le 26 mars 2024 à 4:47 pm GMT+0100 par

English

Gamma/Sygma – Henri Bureau: The commando operation

Publié le par Michel Puech

Issy-les-Moulineaux, Wednesday, April 24, 2013, around noon. Henri Bureau had been driving in circles. “I’ve got other things to do,” he groaned into his cell phone. Finally he parked his Citroën C4 on a corner and I met him. The weather is nice. We sit outside in a Paris suburb. Bureau isn’t smiling, but he’s ready to tell his version of the collapse of Gamma and the creation of Sygma. His tone is not cold. The emotions from that day are still there A photographer for Reporters Associés, then one of the founders of the famous Gamma agency, he asserted his role as a leader among the photographers and staff during the “revolution” that led to the founding of Sygma. He would become one of the agency’s stars before rising to editor-in-chief. But in the history books, he is the photographer who immortalized General Charles de Gaulle in May 1968 for Gamma, still under the direction of Hubert Henrotte.

Michel Puech

Read the full article on the French version of Le Journal.Dernière révision le 19 mai 2014 à 8:36 am GMT+0100 par Michel Puech

1973 Crise Gamma/Sygma
Le récit de la nuit des longs couteaux

Publié le par Michel Puech
med_jpl-in-sidecar-jpg
© Jean-Pierre Laffont

Mai 1973, il fait nuit dans la tranquille rue Auguste Vacquerie, dans le 16ème arrondissement à Paris à 500 mètres de l’Arc de Triomphe. Devant le n°4, un groupe de jeunes gens entassent des cartons dans une Daimler de couleur Bordeaux, garée à côté d’une Jaguar Type E. Ce sont les photographes de l’agence Gamma qui déménagent leurs archives. La déjà très célèbre agence de presse est en grève à la suite d’un conflit entre les associés historiques. C’est l’acte fondateur de la futur agence Sygma.

Voir la suite →Dernière révision le 12 mars 2024 à 12:11 pm GMT+0100 par

English

Gamma-Sygma: Night of the Long Knives

Publié le par Michel Puech

May 1973. Night has fallen on the quiet Rue Auguste Vacquerie, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, 500 meters from the Arc de Triomphe. At number 4, a group of young people are cramming boxes into a dark purple Daimler parked next to a Jaguar E-Type. They are photographers from the Gamma Agency, transporting their archives. The already famous news agency is on strike following a dispute between some of its partners. This is the origin of Sygma.

Voir la suite →

Dernière révision le 6 octobre 2013 à 5:41 pm GMT+0100 par Michel Puech