The Square Print Sale Is Now Live
'Written by Light' is organized in partnership with the World Press Photo Foundation. Ahead of the full reveal as the sale begins on October 16, browse a selection of the 107 images that will be available for one week only.
Written by Light, the latest Magnum Square Print Sale is now live until midnight on Sunday (October 22). It is the first sale to be organized in partnership with the World Press Photo Foundation, with 31 World Press Photo-awarded photographers joining 76 Magnum photographers and estates for the week-long sale.
Inspired by the growing number of conversations around the use of artificially generated images online, Written by Light, seeks to celebrate the fundamental difference between the practice of these photographers and A.I.-generated images: the use of light. Together, through the selection of their images and accompanying statements, photographers and estates explore what photography means to them today in the age of artificial intelligence.
Each of these images, and many more, are now available to purchase as 6×6” prints from the Magnum Shop for one week only, priced at $110/£110/€120.
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“The time feels right to go back to our roots and reflect on the very origins of our photographic practice, to the camera obscura, and how an image is recorded by the impact of light on a surface,” explains Magnum president, Cristina de Middel.
"As photographers, we were all at some point, seduced by light and the possibility of capturing it in our own unique way."
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The result is a collection of images that celebrate the act of photography, and what it means to these photographers today. Some explore the experience of being present and the act of shooting an image — often in incredulous or unexpected circumstances. Others pay tribute to light through moments of transient glory.
Nanna Heitmann selects an image that captures a fleeting moment as a lone dog pauses for a few seconds under the celestial northern lights before scampering off and disappearing into the distance. And from Sergio Larraín’s archive, a flock of birds is transformed into a pattern of eerie shadows against the grey skies as they burst into flight in Trafalgar Square, London in 1959.
The partnership was inspired by several members of Magnum Photos and World Press Photo who met in the context of a working group focusing on ethical standards for visual journalism in the age of A.I.
“We have partnered with Magnum Photos to honor and double down on our support for photojournalism that captures fair and accurate representations of what the photographer witnessed,” says Joumana El Zein Khoury, executive director of World Press Photo. “I hope these images will help prompt wider discussions around the differences between A.I.-generated images and photography.”
Guest photographers for this sale include previous winners and recipients of special mentions from the renowned World Press Photo Contest — an annual competition that has been held since 1955 to recognize and celebrate the best photojournalism and documentary photography produced that year.
M’hammed Kilito, awarded in the 2023 Contest for the Africa region, contributes an image of the very last group of palm trees still standing in what used to be the Tanseest Oasis in southern Morocco, from the long-term project Before It’s Gone. And Anuar Patjane Floriuk, who won second prize in the Nature category in 2016, contributes an image of a humpback whale mother and her calf from a diving expedition in Mexico’s Revillagigedo Islands from the project Underwater Realm, which aims to drive attention to the beauty of the earth’s oceans and raise awareness of brutal overfishing.
The full collection of images spans almost a century of photographic history, from Magnum’s earliest members such as George Rodger and Werner Bischof to contemporary classics such as the cover of Alec Soth’s Sleeping by the Mississippi and images from Sabiha Çimen’s Hafiz or Alessandra Sanguinetti’s The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and The Enigmatic Meaning of Their Dreams.
From the World Press Photo selection, we discover images that define key moments in the history of photojournalism and documentary photography — a reminder of the importance of the medium in light of growing conversations around the use of artificial intelligence in the media and press.
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Magnum Photos and World Press Photo will be donating a portion of their profits from the sale to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in order to support humanitarian protection and assistance for victims of war and other situations of violence around the world.
