What brings a frenchman to suddenly decide to leave his home country for one of the worst country in the world regarding copyright infringement and open up a photo agency. That is the path that Jerome Lacrosniere took at the turn of the century, in 2000.

Today, with more than 100 staffers and it's main office located in Shangai ( 80 people), it represents the work of many of the top agencies in the world, like AP, Corbis, AFP, Magnum, Zuma, Contrasto (and the list goes on) on the Chinese market. But more importantly, it has a few staffers and contributors that they represent worldwide. With the rising and never ending interest of all things Chinese, this is probably the agency's strongest point. Not that adapting a market that has no cultural equivalent to intellectual property and where copying is regarded as a compliment was simple. While image prices rang in the $10.00 per image in China, images of China, and most particularly news are still of high value for more than one reason. The most obvious is , of course, the size of the country. Geographically immense, it is hard to get photographs of everything that matters quickly. The second, as obvious, is probably the lack of freedom of expression, making photographers work harder than most countries. However, none of these have stopped ImagineChina to become one of the top players in the world of photography with a very bright future ahead.

For their first presence in La Lettre, they have chosen to show a wide range of single images from a variety of photographers.

For more information : www.imaginechina.com or send an email to sales@imaginechina.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.