Photo Researchers
Photo Researchers, Inc. is a stock photo agency that began in 1957, as many agencies did back then, by building a library from the outtakes of professional photographers.
Photo Researchers has since become one of the leading sources of medical & science imagery. Still located in midtown Manhattan, they are now expanding into the field of medical & scientific video.
The company was founded by Peter Schults in his apartment on Manhattan's East 57th Street. At first running the business from his home, Mr. Schults amassed one of the largest collections of travel photography, covering many rare and exotic locations and cultures. To this day, if you pick up a book on geography or cultural anthropology or an atlas published between the 1950s and 1970s you are pretty much guaranteed to see Photo Researchers as a major photo source.
The picture agency is still located in New York City, a few blocks from the Empire State Building. Currently it archives over a half-million science and nature photos and illustrations. Over half of this material can be located in a searchable, online database, which is also available through 38 other picture libraries around the world. Four thousand images are added to the digital db archive every month.
The agency represents thousands of scientific and natural history photographers, and specializes in researching, locating, acquiring and licensing nature, science and bio-medical imagery. Photo Researchers' Science Source contains thousands of images taken by light microscope, Transmission Electron Microscope, and Scanning Electron Microscope. Nature Source consists of the original image collection of the National Audubon Society and also represents hundreds of international nature photographers. Andy Warhol referenced photos from this archive for his 1983 series on endangered species.
Photo Researchers' images are widely used by technical and textbook publishers, newspapers and magazines, as well as broadcast and internet media. They are a resource for commercial art buyers, hospitals and HMOs, scientists, physicians, educators, and students. They also provide material to universities (e.g. MIT, Harvard University and Johns Hopkins) and museums (e.g. The American Museum of Natural History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Field Museum of Natural History).
The website can be used for research, and to license images for personal or commercial use.