In July 1979, after a year of representing the legendary Contact Press Image in France, Annie Boulat, wife of Life magazine Pierre Boulat and mother of Alexandra Boulat, co founder of VII Photo agency, creates the agency Cosmos. At first, the boutique agency continues to only represent Contact Press in France but soon decides to take on more independent photographers. Cosmos soon becomes renown for high quality photo essay or reportages, exquisitely well edited, focusing on human interest, be it environmental, war, politics, religion, sports or science. In 1990, Cosmos breaks away from Contact and becomes the full fledge agency it is now, representing some of the world's best photo reporters. It's emphasis is on magazine stories, the kind that need to be spread out over numerous pages, with a combination of double page, verticals, close ups, full pages and thumbnails.Throughout the rise of the corporate agencies, Cosmos remains a family operation where photographers can find close comfort in knowing that their work will be handled by a team of warm welcoming professionals with an eye, and a great care, for talent. Thanks to the space left by the vanishing filing cabinets rendered obsolete after the conversion of her agency into digital, Annie Boulat opened the Cosmos Gallery in 2004, where anyone can now see the work of some of the agency's most interesting photographers.

Last summer, Misha Friedman began photographing in Donetsk Oblast, a province in eastern Ukraine, where he sought to document the health effects of coal mines and factories on the residents of this heavily industrialized region, particularly in the town of Yenakiieve. “In the second half of the eighteenth century, the Romantics revolted against the Industrial Revolution—against the rationalization of nature,” says Friedman. “Inspired in particular by German and French Romanticism, this project is my attempt to show how nature and man have learned to live within the industrial complex in Ukraine.” He called his series “Donbass Romanticism.”

One of the image in this series has won the Award of Excellence in the Portrait category in this year's Picture of the Year International .

The rest of this photo essay, as well as many more are available at Cosmos website : http://www.cosmosphoto.com.

You can also contact Cosmos at
info@cosmosphoto.com

If you are a photo agency and would also like to participate to this weekly column, please send a note to Paul Melcher at:
paul.melcher@lalettredelaphotographie.com