Our Mission

PCPP is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the work of photographers. Our goal is to match collections of important work with the institutional homes best suited to maintain them and ensure their accessibility. In that effort, PCPP functions as a source of information and relationships between the creators and custodians of important collections and institutions committed to historic preservation. We also serve as a connection to related professions, from curators, gallerists, and appraisers to archivists, collectors, and experts in fine art photography and photojournalism.

PCPP acts as a good-faith advisor to all parties, an advocate whose sole commitment is to the work and its preservation for scholars, the public, and future generations.

Our Story

Penelope Dixon developed the idea of PCPP after witnessing first-hand, throughout her long and distinguished career in the field of photography, the difficulties that artists and archives face in the maintenance and preservation of large bodies of work. By their very nature, collections of photographers' life's work are living, breathing, often sprawling entities, consisting not only of photographs in various forms but also related materials (ephemera such as letters, notebooks, etc.). Such collections are often left by their creators to friends or family members for whom the issues of archiving, digital storage, physical preservation, and legal ownership can be overwhelming. Meanwhile, the cost in time and money to make a coherent archive of such disparate materials can mount quickly if left unaddressed for even a short period of time. Negatives, contact sheets, and prints, for example, are delicate objects that require precise handling and storage, and born-digital objects are equally subject to degradation without meticulous and redundant backup.