Terry Smith who owned UK based photo agency -Universal Pictorial Press Agency (UPPA)- until its sale to Photoshot in 2002 has died aged 74. He died on Monday 17 January 2011 after a short illness.
UPPA was founded in 1929 by Terry’s father (Hector) and Terry worked within the agency all his life. He took over the running of the business in the early 1970’s when his father retired. His key achievements were introducing colour to the agency and providing one of the first colour daily services to newspapers, magazines and TV. This was originally provided as colour transparency and colour prints. He was also developed one of the first fully searchable digital picture archives which he set up in the very early 1990’s. In addition he also enabled UPPA to become a member of the Royal Rota for photographic events acting as treasurer of the Council of Photographic News Agencies (CPNA) for many years.
Terry retired in 2002 when UPPA became part of Photoshot
We are waiting for details of the funeral from Terry’s family.
Industry reaction:
Alan Smith. (Topfoto) “I knew Terry for many years. He was the guardian of a great virtual inheritance because much of the physical archives were destroyed by enemy action and it is rare to find a prewar Universal Pictorial Print. UPPA did what it did which was photographing people in London and supplying the results as a service to the media. It stuck to this last and it did very well. When television started if there was a snapshot of a person showing it was always a UPP. Election years were good years for UPP with a lot of new MPs to record and the year when there were two elections was a bonanza event.When Topham was an unknown in deep Kent Terry let us come up and have a one day show in his empty shop for no reward other than he was helping us to do a good thing. I believe he was very active in the organisation of CPNA for which his central position off Ludgate Circus was a help. For a time we operated a web site for him and I hoped to buy UPP when Terry was pulling out. It went to Charles Taylor of course who has kept it running as part of Photoshot.”
Anne-Marie Ehrlich “I remember Terry well, as a really helpful library owner in my hunt for pictures. Always cheerful and always finding something in my trawl in an area which was not my particular interest or expertise. So I am very sad to hear of his death and offer my great sympathies to his nearest and dearest.”
