Showing it as it really is
Touchlife Images offers a unique creative resource of modern real African lifestyle images. A host of photographers have contributed to the user-friendly online library of fresh locally based material that avoids traditional stereotypes and reflects the real lifestyle trends of the continent.

Creative Director at JWT, Wendy Moorcroft, explains, "In most stock library catalogues, the closest you'll get to an image of, say, a spaza shop is a shot of a fish market in Marseilles or a hotdog stand on Park Avenue South. If you want a Free State mielie farm, the stock catalogue offers you a big red barn against a Kansas wheatfield. For a Soweto shebeen, there are those sweet shots of cosy pubs in the Cotswolds named after people's body parts. Minor differences, but your average art director is picky and wants the real thing."


Touchlife Images effectively fills the gap in South Africa's creative market to consolidate some of the best photographers and images in the country under one roof. Their countless different styles and techniques, provides for images that range from the conventional to the highly creative, enabling Touchlife Images to cater for the advertising and design needs of magazine's editorial art buyers and book publishers, as well as the requirements of advertising art buyers, art directors and creative directors.


Easy access
All the Touchlife images have been digitised and are available on-line as medium-resolution watermarked images, with the high-resolution files sent directly to the consumer via email, ISDN, CD-rom or FTP. The site is designed by Mnemonic and powered by Global Vision Technologies.

The complete Touchlife selection of images, is easily accessible as it is viewable online via a fully interactive and searchable digital archive. There are 5500 images, all individually scanned, captioned and keyworded, on the website. Use of watermarks, has enabled Touchlife to allow completely open access to the entire selection of images.

Hi resolution scans can be ordered directly through the site or by contacting the sales team. Delivery is in digital format via e-mail or burnt onto CD and couriered to the client.

Promoting local talent
Touchlife is the first photographic image agency to exclusively represent South African artists and photographs, who previously, other than supplying the likes of Getty International, had no platform from which to market their portfolios. Mecer SA also used a number of Touchlife Images for a recent national print campaign.

Touchlife now has over 50 artists and photographers on its books, who submit their images at no cost and receive a commission on sales generated by the agency.

"It's the only archive to extensively and exclusively promote local talent, and although we are up against photo libraries with thousands of images on their books, we believe that we have an innovative product that is uniquely South African," comments Touchline Photo Division Head, Peter Milne.

To date, Touchlife images has predominantly supplied images for editorial usage in magazines and books and to a lesser extent provided advertising agencies with material. Magazines such as Discovery, Saltwater Girl, Elle and Cosmopolitan have made extensive use of the Touchlife library. The recently published book, The Good News about South Africa, a Terra Nova publication, utilized over 50 Touchlife images. Mecer SA also used a number of Touchlife Images for a recent national print campaign.

Touchline Photo offers it all
The establishment of Touchlife Images completes the Touchline Photo stable of sport, news, celebrities and showbiz photography at Touchline Media.

Touchlife Images is a division of Touchline Photo, South Africa's largest sports photographic agency.

The establishment of Touchlife Images complements Touchline Photo's expansion beyond its "just sports" image to now offer clients a one-stop-shop to all their imaging needs. By teaming up with Getty News (for showbiz, leading news, royalties and celebrity imagery), Allsport 's Concepts (model released sports images) and Profimedia (fresh new International creative images), Touchline Photo now offers art buyers, creative directors and art directors access to a comprehensive selection of international quality images with a truly South African flavour.

Touchline Photo is well known in the media industry and has a large network of retainer and regular clients with most SA newspapers and sports magazines. Touchline Photo is linked to its clients by ISDN lines, FTP and an online digital database of millions of images, enabling clients via telephone or internet, to source an image from the stock library or photographers in the field, at any time.

Touchline Photo represents various photo agencies around the world - most notably Getty Sport, based in the UK, USA and Australia. In doing this, Touchline Photo has built up a great international network and a huge library of international images, offering a comprehensive sports service.

For the real taste of the good life go to Touchlife Images!
...or contact Richard Berg on (021) 4083946 or rberg@touchline.co.za