About IMAGO

IMAGO

IMAGO is a Berlin-based photo news agency and one of Germany's leading suppliers of editorial and commercial imagery. Founded in 1997, the company operates as an umbrella brand uniting imago stock&people GmbH and imago sportfotodienst GmbH, and licenses photographs and videos to media outlets, publishers, and commercial clients worldwide. Its digital database held more than 800 million photos and videos as of January 2026, spanning news, sports, entertainment, politics, business, culture, travel, nature, and stock photography. With over 80 employees and management by Alexander Krabbe, Thomas Leistner, and Heiko Herzberger, IMAGO ranks among the significant independent picture agencies in the German-language media market.

Overview

In the ecosystem of news agencies, IMAGO occupies the visual niche: where text agencies supply words, IMAGO supplies the pictures and video clips that illustrate them. Its clients include newspapers, magazines, online portals, broadcasters, book publishers, and advertising and corporate communications departments that need licensed imagery for editorial or commercial use. The agency's offering covers the full range of press photography, from breaking news and political events to sports fixtures, red carpets, and celebrity coverage, complemented by a large stock collection for generic illustrative needs.

The database at imago-images.de functions as both archive and shop: customers search, preview, and license images through an integrated webshop, while professional users can connect via the media search engine picturemaxx (my-picturemaxx), through an API, or via FTP push delivery. This multi-channel distribution reflects the workflows of modern newsrooms, where picture desks pull imagery directly into their content management systems. IMAGO's scale, with hundreds of millions of images, places it in the top tier of European photo agencies, competing with international players while maintaining a distinctly German editorial core, particularly strong in domestic politics, Bundesliga football, and the German entertainment scene.

Beyond licensing, the agency has developed editorial products of its own. In 2020 it launched The Game Magazine, a digital magazine presenting interviews, articles, and photo features across its subject areas, and since 2023 it has operated the IMAGO Blog, publishing regularly on licensing, photography, lifestyle, and sports topics. These publications serve both as marketing and as demonstrations of the agency's photographic range.

History

IMAGO was founded in Berlin in 1997, in the early years of digital photography's transformation of the picture business. The late 1990s were a pivotal moment for photo agencies: the shift from physical slide archives to digital databases was beginning, and agencies that mastered digital ingestion, keywording, and online delivery gained decisive advantages. IMAGO built its business in this transition, growing from a Berlin startup into a major supplier of press imagery.

The company's structure evolved into its current form as an umbrella brand covering two limited companies: imago stock&people GmbH, handling the stock and people/entertainment side, and imago sportfotodienst GmbH, the sports photography service. This division mirrors the agency's two great strengths: the daily churn of news, politics, and celebrity photography, and the specialized, high-speed world of sports coverage, where photographers deliver match images within minutes of the final whistle.

Over nearly three decades, IMAGO expanded its database continuously through its own photographers, partner agencies, and contributing freelancers, reaching the milestone of more than 800 million photos and videos by January 2026. The agency professionalized its distribution with integrations into picturemaxx, the widely used German media search engine, and with API and FTP-push options for high-volume clients. The launch of The Game Magazine in 2020 and the IMAGO Blog in 2023 marked a diversification into owned editorial media, while membership in the BVPA, the German federal association of professional picture providers, anchored the company in the industry's institutional framework. Under the continued leadership of Alexander Krabbe, Thomas Leistner, and Heiko Herzberger, IMAGO has maintained its Berlin headquarters and its position as an independent German agency in a market increasingly dominated by global corporations.

Coverage and Content

IMAGO's content spans the categories that drive press photography. News coverage includes German and international politics, from the Bundestag and the chancellery to summits and state visits, as well as breaking news events, demonstrations, and disasters. Sports is a flagship category through imago sportfotodienst: Bundesliga and international football, Olympic sports, motorsport, winter sports, and athletics are covered by staff and freelance photographers positioned at the venues, with rapid delivery to desks working on tight deadlines.

Entertainment and people photography covers film premieres, award ceremonies, concerts, fashion events, and the daily movements of public figures, serving the celebrity and lifestyle press. Business imagery documents company results, trade fairs, and economic life; culture coverage includes theater, exhibitions, and festivals; travel and nature supply the scenic and wildlife material used across media. The stock collection provides the generic illustrative images, from business handshakes to family life, that fill the non-news pages of publications and the visual needs of corporate clients.

Video has become an increasingly important part of the offering, with licensable clips complementing the stills archive for online publishers and broadcasters. The agency's keywording and categorization systems are the invisible infrastructure of this content: millions of images are searchable by subject, person, place, and event, which is what makes a database of 800 million items usable for a picture desk on deadline. The Game Magazine and the blog showcase curated selections, demonstrating the agency's range beyond the transactional search-and-license workflow.

Organization and Ownership

IMAGO operates as an umbrella brand for two German limited companies: imago stock&people GmbH and imago sportfotodienst GmbH, both headquartered in Berlin. The management team consists of Alexander Krabbe, Thomas Leistner, and Heiko Herzberger. The company employs more than 80 people, a workforce that includes editorial staff, keywording and archive specialists, sales and client services, and technology teams maintaining the database and distribution platforms, alongside the network of staff photographers and freelancers who produce the imagery.

The company is a member of the BVPA (Bundesverband professioneller Bildanbieter), the federal association of professional picture providers in Germany, which represents the industry's interests on copyright and licensing questions. IMAGO's business model is licensing: clients pay for usage rights to images and videos, with pricing depending on the type of use, circulation, and duration. Distribution runs through the agency's own database with integrated webshop at imago-images.de, through connections to the my-picturemaxx media search engine, and through API and FTP-push integrations for professional clients with automated workflows. Details of the shareholder structure beyond the operating companies and their management are not publicly confirmed in the sources consulted for this profile.

Digital Presence

The website imago-images.de is the agency's central platform and primary sales channel. Available in German and English, it presents the searchable database of more than 800 million photos and videos with an integrated webshop for licensing. Professional clients use the site alongside the my-picturemaxx integration, API access, and FTP-push delivery, which embed IMAGO's archive directly into newsroom and corporate publishing workflows.

The Game Magazine, launched in 2020 as a digital magazine, publishes interviews, articles, and photo features that showcase the agency's photographic strengths, functioning as both a content product and a brand statement. Since 2023, the IMAGO Blog has published regular articles on image licensing, photography craft, lifestyle, and sports topics, addressing both clients and the interested public. The agency maintains presences on social media platforms, where it shares selected imagery, behind-the-scenes material from photographers, and announcements. For a B2B agency, these channels serve marketing and recruitment as much as distribution, keeping the IMAGO brand visible in the media industry's daily conversation. Contact with the agency's sales, editorial, and photographer-relations teams runs through the addresses published on the website.

As an independent German agency that has grown alongside digital photography itself, IMAGO illustrates how the picture business adapted to the internet era: from physical archives to a searchable database of hundreds of millions of images, from desk sales to API integrations, and from pure licensing to owned editorial media. For the German press, it remains one of the principal domestic sources of the visual material that shapes how readers see the news.