Photoconsortium’s founder member TopFoto has launched their most recent project, in collaboration with author and archivist Peter Deleuran and British publishing company The History Press: “Reflections of War: forgotten photographic archives of the second world war”.
In June 2020, infact, Deleuran acquired a collection of almost 300 WW2 glass negatives and photos and realised that most were from the Planet News archive, owned by Topfoto since the 1970s: Deleuran agreed to research the story behind every image, digitise and restore them, and send the to TopFoto, in return of the permission to reproduce the images in a book, later published by The History Press.
The cache covers a rich span of topics, from US soldiers of Japanese descent in the 100th Infantry Battalion (known as the “Purple Heart Battalion” for their great courage) to The Goldsmiths’ Company standing with their two-handed Sword of Honour, forged for HM the King to present to the citizens of Stalingrad.
All images, and the rest of Topfoto’s Planet News archive, are available for licensing, print orders and general browsing. Order the book at this link.
