What is your role at SPL?
I am the HR Manager, responsible for the recruitment, training, development and well-being of SPL employees. I also manage our payroll and pension scheme in addition to providing leadership, guidance and support on HR issues.

What is it like to work at SPL?
SPL is a unique place to work. I would describe the environment as relaxed, professional and flexible. The company treats its employees as individuals and nurtures their talent. Your opinion is valued and your ideas are listened to.

What is your background?
Before SPL I worked within HR in financial services, the NHS and local government as well as working in the digital imaging industry. I am also an Associate member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

What are your passions/hobbies?
When I am not spending time with my family you will find me on a hockey pitch either playing or coaching. My other passions include Pilates, cycling, swimming and baking.

Favourite SPL picture
B640/0714

What is your role at SPL?
I am the Head of Accounts at SP. I am responsible for the accounting function at SPL which includes photographer financial and taxation issues, payroll and our year end accounts.

What is it like to work at SPL?
SPL is a good place to work. As this is a relatively small company it is much more personable and you become very familiar with the people you come into contact with. There are some lovely people working here and they are really passionate about what they do.

What is your background?
My background has been in accounting and finance mainly for large organisations such as the NHS and UK government.

What are your passions/hobbies?
I do love to travel and visit new places. I also love to cook and love finding new and interesting places to eat.

Favourite SPL picture
There are so many to choose from as the collection is so vast and there are so many great images but one that has always caught my eye is: C009/2605
Every time I look at this image it brings back memories of great holidays to Jamaica and relaxing on the beach next to a tree very much like this one.

What is your role at SPL?
I am the Sales Director at Science Photo Library. My responsibilities include overseeing the direct sales teams in the UK and North America, the management of our network of distributors and partners, the direction of our work within Rights Control and company direction responsibilities alongside Giancarlo, Rose and Michael.

What is it like to work at SPL?
SPL is a great place to work. I started with the company in 2003 as Commercial Sales Executive, handling requests and business development for our corporate and advertising customers. A few years later I became International Manager working with our distribution network. I became Sales Director several years after that. The core reason SPL continues to be successful is the passion, knowledge and expertise of our staff.

What is your background?
I was born in a small town in the Midlands. I moved to London at 18 years old to attend university, graduating with a degree in environmental science. After university I travelled extensively including working for a media company in Sydney for several months. It was during this trip that I developed a passion for photography.

What are your passions/hobbies?
I love being outside in nature, walking with my family and dog. I have played 7-a-side football for the best part of 25 years and still do weekly. I enjoy riding my bike and I try to attend live music, theatre and cinema, as often as time permits.

What is your favourite SPL picture?
It is extremely difficult to choose just one. There is a real variety from microscopy to images from space; from the minuscule to the supermassive. I’m going to go with Z260/0013, Silverfish, SEM, from Eye of Science.

What is your role at SPL?
I am one of the three directors of SPL. Being a small/medium-sized company, my job covers many areas from finance, IT and our website, HR and constantly looking and developing plans to continue the success that SPL has enjoyed over the last 45 years.

What is it like to work at SPL?
For me, it’s a joy and I feel lucky and privileged to have been part of SPL for the last 32 years. I love science and I have worked, and continue to, with wonderful colleagues over the years. I think what’s key and what has kept me in this sector for so long is that most of the people I have shared this road with over the years – colleagues, photographers, illustrators and clients – genuinely share a passion for documenting science and making it available to a larger audience.

What is your background?
I was born and grew up on a small farm near Mantua in Italy and studied physics at the University of Padua where I graduated in 1990. My studies also formed my original connection with Science Photo Library. My partner Daniela saw a job ad in the Evening Standard where SPL was looking for a picture researcher, to be honest, the only box I ticked was a degree in a scientific subject. I was offered an interview but unsurprisingly failed to get the job, possibly given how poor my English was at the time. I was instead offered a part-time filing job, that was in December 1990 and the rest is history.

What are your passions/hobbies?
I have to start with stargazing as I have enjoyed looking up at stars and constellations for longer than I can remember. When not at work I like to get my hands dirty whether it’s working at the allotment or fixing my bicycle. Finally, I absolutely love trees and marvel at these giants wherever I happen to be.

Favourite SPL picture
This is a tough one with 1 million images to choose from, I would like to choose two if I can. The first one is C051/8517, One of the thousands of images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. The large galaxy on the left is about 300 million light years from us and, if you really zoom in, you can see that almost every other object in the frame is another galaxy much further away. There are about 100 billion stars in every galaxy and the image, despite creating a sense of hopeless vastness, does firmly anchor me on planet Earth.

I also wanted to choose H414/0056, a portrait of the German mathematician Emmy Noether (1882-1935), a true giant in her field and a symbol for all the women in science whose contribution is far too often not recognised. It was probably my first Eureka moment when at university I studied her famous theorem linking symmetries of physical systems with the conservation of quantities like energy and momentum.

What is your role at SPL?
I am the Marketing Manager at Science Photo Library.

What is it like to work at SPL?
Working at SPL is an enjoyable experience. Within my role, I have been given the opportunity to express my opinions and have my talents encouraged. I have been with SPL since 2019 and have been able to use my creative and marketing skills to further the goals of the marketing department and SPL. Other employees are a joy to spend time with and it’s easy to see why people stick around!

What is your background?
I studied Film and Television at University, this led to the start of my career in TV post-production. While working in post-production I began to show my design and content creation abilities and started my transition towards the marketing department. Since then I have enjoyed utilising my design, video creation and social media skills.

What are your passions/hobbies?
I’m lucky enough to live in Northumberland and love to get outside in my spare time. Bouldering and cycling are my two favourite activities along with a healthy dose of neverending DIY.

What is your favourite SPL picture?
E285/0150

Rosa works closely with contributors advising on content and editing new submissions from our talented contributor community.

Natasha’s role involves extensive market research, briefing and organising production teams to create visual content from start to completion.

What is your role at SPL?
My role at SPL is International Admin Assistant, which involves liaising with our international distributors regarding the sales they make for us.
I enter reports into our database, send invoices and respond to any related queries.

What is it like to work at SPL?
I have worked at SPL for 15 years, we’re a fun team to work with. Great colleagues, very approachable and can bounce ideas and solutions off one another.

What is your background?
My background has always been in admin, I really enjoy the data entry aspect of it all.

What are your passions/hobbies?
My hobbies are reading, knitting, and baking with my grandchildren.

Favourite SPL picture
F023/2157

What is your role at SPL?
I’m part of the Account/Finance team, my role as the Account Administrator is dealing with the sales and purchase ledgers and credit control.

What is it like to work at SPL?
I’ve been working at SPL for 26 years and had various posts in different departments before this current one. As a small company, the working environment at SPL has always been very good.

What is your background?
I’m French, I came to the UK in 1978 and my background was in catering.
I worked as a chef and as a restaurant manager for a few years and later I managed a theatre company performing shows in primary schools.

What are your passions/hobbies?
I like cooking, reading, and taking my dog for walks.

Favourite SPL picture
There are so many great images in the SPL collection but the one I’ve chosen is not a recent picture, but I’ve always found it intriguing and serene.
T280/0044

What is your role at SPL?
My role as the IT manager is to manage the many diverse systems that SPL uses on a day-to-day basis as well as plan for future enhancements. The website is the most public of these. I have worked on many versions of the website. The first site was a static page on Demon Internet back in the 1990s. As technology has improved, we’ve added bells and whistles to make the site more user-friendly and try to provide more value and features to our clients and end-users. We have striven to make the site as responsive as possible, for that the search engine is critical. Images and video need to be optimised for the websites too. More recently the focus has been on making pages mobile-friendly. There have been many good developers, designers and copywriters in the history of the website. The amount of actual coding I do these days is tiny but I still review all the code that is submitted for merging.

What is it like to work at SPL?
Working at SPL is enjoyable. I’ve been here over twenty years so I guess “the proof is in the pudding” as they say. I generally cycle to the office. The office has a cycle park and shower so that’s a huge relief for a sweaty bi-pedal like me. Office life has changed quite a bit over the years but the pandemic really shook things up. Remote working was rare before but is almost the norm for most staff. I still prefer the office though.

What is your background?
I was born in London, in Stepney, according to my birth certificate. I have not strayed far. I was schooled in Holloway and Kentish Town and went to university at the Metropolitan University (formerly North London University).

What are your passions/hobbies?
In my spare time, you’ll often find me at my allotment these days. I got one about 4 years ago and it’s like having a small child. It seems to need fairly constant pampering and attention. It can reward and frustrate you in equal measure. So while I’ve been rewarded by strawberries, asparagus and artichokes this year, my broad beans and garlic have been blighted by pesky black-fly and leaf miners.

What is your favourite SPL picture?
There are too many wonderful images to have a favourite. My wife and I liked C026/9150 because it would look nice on our living room wall but we haven’t got around to buying it yet. We do have a large print of the Milky Way (R800/0192) in the hall, apart from its stunning detail, it helps to remind you of how truly massive our universe is.

What is your role at SPL?
I am the Business Development Manager for North America. My responsibilities include managing current and past clients while seeking new ones, across all sectors. Most of our business is from the US and Canada, occasionally Mexico.

What is it like to work at SPL?
I describe my work at SPL as diverse, interesting and fulfilling, professionally and personally. Every day I deal with a wide variety of clients from some of the largest companies in the world to speciality artists needing just one image.

What is your background?
I’ve worked in digital content licensing for the past 14 years and only for UK companies. I started this phase of my varied career with ITN Source, focusing on education and transitioned to mostly TV/film production. When the ITN archive closed and the Reuters collection moved to Screenocean, I moved with it. When I was introduced to SPL, I was fascinated by the collection as it was very different from the historical footage I’d worked with. I continue to learn something every day and to be delighted by the beauty, importance and history of the materials we represent.

What are your passions/hobbies?
Adventure/active travel (biking, hiking, snorkelling, swimming) and trying new recipes!

What is your favourite SPL picture?
Too many to name, but love Arie van‘t Riet and C023/1419, C028/8959 and Dr K.H. Fung.

What is your role at SPL?
I am Science Photo Library’s Commercial Account Manager. My core client base covers the advertising, graphic design, communications and PR agencies and corporate business sectors. I predominantly manage clients in the UK but also have responsibility for many other European territories and in addition to these, the client accounts for South Africa, Asia and the Pacific.

My role involves initial contact and engaging with clients’ creative requirements. I then begin to help to identify and source the best content and guide to the most suitable licencing options. In addition, with clients who have a larger, specific and/or bespoke requirement, subscriptions, buyouts and commissioned content creation. The role is 360° and my education, experience and design industry knowledge allow me to be appropriately placed to assist clients from these creative-based sectors.

The commercial sector allows me to stay relevant in an industry that I have spent my entire professional career servicing and managing.

What is it like to work at SPL?
The working environment and atmosphere at SPL is a perfectly balanced one, highly professional, supportive and friendly. With so many varied staff members with various working and personal backgrounds, it makes for a vibrant, varied environment to work in.

I have enjoyed and learnt so much in my time here and this being down to the unfaltering support and management structure makes SPL such a great place to be.

All of this lends itself to why I have spent the last 17 years working here! Quite literally SPL has become my work family.

What is your background?
Educated and living in the home counties I studied for my BA at Falmouth University, a specialist university for the creative industries based in Cornwall, England. Graduating from there in 1998 with a degree in communication and design studies.

My working life started as a junior graphic designer in North London. After some time, I felt that I was more suited to dealing with the accounts and clients directly. It was at this point I made the move across the studio to client account manager. Since then, I have worked as a client manager in various agencies in London, the Isle of Wight, the South of England and the home counties. I have managed more client accounts than I can begin to remember, naming but a few of these have included, Apple, IBM, Disney, British American Tobacco, Coke, Carlsberg, the National Trust, Safestore, and many, many others.

What are your passions/hobbies?
Varied and eclectic these include 19th and 20th-century art/sculpture (Henry Moore), Edwardian maritime history and history in general, photography, motorsport and cars (especially my beloved vintage 1971 Mk1 Ford Capri), football and golf.

What is your favourite SPL picture?
An incredibly difficult one to make, but for its grandstanding, staging, scientific historical context – C036/8383 – Tesla coil experiment, circa 1899.

What is your role at SPL?
Account Manager responsible for looking after clients globally from the publishing, production and not-for-profit/charity sectors.

What is it like to work at SPL?
A relaxed atmosphere working with people who are passionate and knowledgeable about the content they help create.

What is your background?
Over 20 years of experience within the content licensing industry.

What are your passions/hobbies?
A supporter of Leyton Orient and a keen DIYer.

What is your favourite SPL picture?
No one favourite picture but a number of favourite collections and contributors such as Lennart Nilsson, Steve Gschmeissner and Arie van’t Riet.

What is your role at SPL?
I run the video department, Motion, having launched it in 2009. It’s a varied role: I liaise with our contributors about submissions and with our sales team about requests. I arrange shoots and commission new work. I analyse sales, content and web behaviour data to see what’s selling where, and to help find areas we can exploit. I work with our senior video editor and IT department to streamline workflows and reduce the storage space and processing burdens that working with video entails. I work with our content data department to get clips online as quickly as possible with accurate and helpful information attached. I try to stay on top of recent developments in both science and in video technology, so there’s a good bit of reading and research, following news stories and new trends on science and imaging sites. I also interact with the wider industry too: I’m on the board of the trade body FOCAL International and I’ve attended international industry events including the World Congress of Science & Factual Producers, Footage Marketplace, FootageFest, CEPIC, the FOCAL Awards and more.

What is it like to work at SPL?
Interesting – I’m surrounded by knowledgeable people and stunning imagery. It’s great to bounce ideas around, learn about new collections and delve deeper into the data that underpins our company and industry. After two years of Covid, it’s been a relief to get back to the office and have proper conversations again. I’m passionate about science communication and education, it’s great to be able to help people visualise and understand the fine details of the world around us.

What is your background?
I’ve always been an abject science geek. When I was a spotty young teen with a small telescope I cut out and framed the prettier space pictures from one of my many astronomy books, and found out when I started here 10 years later that they were all from SPL, supplied by the author himself. I studied medicinal chemistry and wrote for the student music paper at university, and that combination got me into SPL as a caption writer back in the late ‘90s. I’ve been here ever since, running that department for a few years before moving to set up the video department.

What are your passions/hobbies?
Music, food and drink, gardening, sport, Wikipedia rabbit holes…

What is your favourite SPL picture?
I have to choose a video – K003/9282. We shot this on Michael Faraday’s desk in the Royal Institution’s famous lecture theatre, with high-speed camera work from Pirate Industries. I remember in chemistry class at school when they wheeled out an old grainy video of someone dropping the alkali metals in water baths, going from the familiar sodium fizz through potassium’s pink flame to the ones you don’t get your hands on at school – rubidium and caesium. These latter two exploded and destroyed the glassware on the video and I loved it. Finding myself running a science video collection 25 years later, still with love for an explosion or two, it was a no-brainer to update those old shots. I love that the shockwave forms a perfect sphere.

What is your role at SPL?
Creative Director at Science Photo Library.

What is it like to work at SPL?
I’ve been here from the very beginning and have seen the company grow from a small collection of analogue images to a thriving digital business. SPL owes its success to the enthusiastic and dedicated team of knowledgeable professionals who ensure the visual content and information that accompanies it is of the highest quality. It has been an incredibly rewarding and fulfilling experience for me personally and for the whole team. Learning science and medicine through images rather than text is an incredible experience.

What is your background?
I studied Russian history in the UK and the USA and moved to the UK. A tip for life. Don’t ever miss a party – it’s how I got the job at SPL.

What are your passions/hobbies?
I spend most of my time searching and finding outstanding scientific imagery. I suppose if I have a passion it is the unstoppable collector’s urge to find the most beautiful visual ‘gems’ waiting to be discovered. The images are not only stunningly beautiful but deeply informative of the world around us.

What is your favourite SPL picture?
C054/2853 and C038/7703

What is your role at SPL?
Senior Motion Content Editor.

What is it like to work at SPL?
There’s a very fantastic atmosphere with great people. It’s relaxing to work at SPL.

What is your background?
I was a nurse and medic in the US Air Force and have a filmmaking degree. A perfect combination for SPL I’d say.

What are your passions/hobbies?
I have a huge passion for video game music and promoting it as a true art form. It’s such a passion of mine that I set up the London Video Game Orchestra.

What is your favourite SPL picture?
K004/5448

What is your role at SPL?
My role at SPL is as the Digital Imaging Specialist, basically that’s the company’s photo retoucher. I take care of the in-house creative retouching of our own commissioned photography shoots which involves image manipulation such as element removal or addition, constructs, colour changes, stylising etc. I also look after some contributors’ images before they go to the web, colour corrections, resizing, and clean-ups, as well as giving support with technical questions that may be posed by colleagues on behalf of contributors or clients.

What is it like to work at SPL?
It’s a pleasure working at SPL, it’s the longest time spent in my working career at the same company, That’s because of the environment within our relatively small and close-knit team.

What is your background?
After 10 years of working in electronics and telecommunications, it was time for a change. A new path was set for changing what was my hobby into a working reality and thus a journey into a career in photography began. After studying a foundation in photography in Liverpool and Brighton I attained a good degree in Photography and Digital Arts from Westminster University. Since then, I’ve worked in photography, retouching, and print.

What are your passions/hobbies?
When I have time away from our 4-year-old I enjoy the arts such as music, from popular to classical, theatre, cinema and photography. I also have a real passion for getting away from the city and can be found yomping through the elements around either Dartmoor, Exmoor or the Brecon Beacons. Finding targets of interest and a spot for wild camping, taking in and enjoying the beauty and quiet.

What is your favourite SPL picture?
It’s a tricky one with SPL’s vast collection of images, but I think my favourites relate in subject to photography. C021/1352 is an image of the photographer H G Ponting who was the official photographer on the British Antarctic Expedition, aka Terra Nova. It shows the large format camera of the time that had to be lugged around in such hard conditions. With glass plates for exposure, bellows and tilt and shift lenses it’s such a heavy device in comparison to today’s cameras, not straightforward to use and certainly not an easy one to carry with all the supporting equipment too! Lastly, C048/0221 which is showing a series of time-lapse images, a technique created and pioneered by Eadward Muybridge. He invented the zoopraxiscope which started the journey into what we now know as film.

What is your role at SPL?
I am the New Contributors Manager. My role is to find new sources of content for SPL.

What is it like to work at SPL?
I’ve been working for SPL since 1996 and it’s great here. I get to meet and work with super interesting people and I am passionate about the scientific content in our collection.

What is your background?
After I graduated from University (a degree in crop science and botany) I worked at another stock photo agency before moving to SPL.

What are your passions/hobbies?
I like art, music and sports.

What is your favourite SPL picture?
E439/0011 I like it as it was the first magazine front cover I sold for SPL and it is also a very fascinating, if gruesome, subject.

Caroline ensures high standards and accuracy of image and video data. She closely collaborates with the Marketing department.

What is your role at SPL?
Account Manager.

What is it like to work at SPL?
It`s a brilliant company to work for. I really love the flexibility I have as an employee which makes work and home life so much easier.

The people at SPL, your colleagues are the best.

What is your background?
I worked for Getty Images for 14 years.

What are your passions/hobbies?
Good food, good wine, my garden, running, biking and my family.

What is your favourite SPL picture?
C017/3719

What is your role at SPL?
As Research Manager, my role is to provide expert assistance to anyone requiring help finding the images or footage they need. I have access to the Science Photo Library online collections, as well as our offline resources and many other archives. I work closely with the editors and production team who can source new material or ask contributors to create specific content for particular projects. I keep abreast of scientific advances and trends and develop ideas for new topics to be included in the library, to help ensure our collection is comprehensive in scope and always at the cutting edge of science imagery.

What is it like to work at SPL?
It’s a pleasure to work at the Science Photo Library, which consists of a great team of experienced, knowledgeable, creative people committed to the visual communication of scientific ideas.
It is a privilege to have access to SPL’s extraordinary collection and witness historic events through the remarkable material coming from our contributors. I am constantly learning from working with clients from all over the world, on projects as diverse as breaking news stories about disease outbreaks, museum palaeontology exhibitions, medical texts requiring graphic clinical content, data sets for artificial intelligence diagnostic tools, illustrations for research papers, feature films about space, and documentaries on climate change.

What is your background?
I have a degree in medical sciences with history and philosophy of science, and I joined SPL as a caption writer in 1991. I later took on the role of picture editor, bringing new contributors and content into the library. I left SPL for a while to pursue other interests including photography and rock climbing which took me to the mountains of North Wales. I worked as a climbing instructor whilst continuing with freelance photography and caption-writing for SPL. In 2017 I was offered the role of Research Manager.

What are your passions/hobbies?
I have been interested in science and art for as long as I can remember, and my other enthusiasms include nature and the environment, beekeeping, climbing, hillwalking, cycling, and painting the landscapes and wildlife of Snowdonia.

What is your favourite SPL picture?
C008/8251, geckos’ feet; an image which illustrates the beauty, diversity, and exquisite feats of engineering which can be seen in nature, if we choose to look.

What is your role at SPL?
My role is to ensure a steady flow of images uploaded to the SPL website and to manage the content data. I research the topic of each image so I can write accurate titles, and captions and input the relevant searchable terms. I am constantly exposed to diverse scientific disciplines and learning about new concepts. I also handle any queries from clients or contributors.

What is it like to work at SPL?
It’s great to work at SPL. My colleagues are very knowledgeable and dedicated. There is clear communication, respect, and supportive behaviour between everyone. The work-life balance is great too, something that is not only preached but practiced and encouraged.

What is your background?
Science, science and more science. I started off with a Bachelor in Physics at the University of Bristol before moving into the engineering space with a Master in Nanotechnology at UCL. In the summer of 2023 I completed a four-year PhD in Biomedical Engineering and Materials Science at Imperial College London.

What are your passions/hobbies?
Music is a huge part of my life. I collect records, play piano, produce music and love going to gigs and festivals. My other hobbies include yoga, reading and rollerblading (when the weather is decent!).

What is your favourite SPL picture?
C038/1185

What is your role at SPL?
My role at SPL is to help maintain and improve the various computing systems we use. This includes our website, which is what people outside of SPL see. Part of my work involves regularly improving the site so that it works well with newer web browsers and mobile phones as well as the major search engines. There’s also a bit of monitoring, so if something goes wrong with a purchase or download, I will also forward information to the account managers who can reach out to the user.

What is it like to work at SPL?
I am really happy working at SPL. I’ve been here for several years, and the team is a creative and interesting group of people.

What is your background?
I was born in New York but was raised as a townie outside a university in the suburbs. I had various interests, studied philosophy and liberal arts, volunteered at a community radio station for many years and dabbled with computers. In the mid-90s I started making web pages and that quickly turned into a profession. I drifted across the Atlantic several years later and went back to university in Scotland, then worked more software development jobs in Scotland and England in various industries.

What are your passions/hobbies?
I enjoy hillwalking, wandering through forests and exploring forgotten spaces, ruins and standing stones. I also enjoy reading– from history, fiction, theory and even manga. And I never visit art museums or attend a concert often enough. But I also write and draw or paint when I can find the time and space for it.

What is your favourite SPL picture?
There are so many great images that it’s hard to choose. But one of my favourites is the popular but striking image of a water bear, C008/9246.

What is your role at SPL?
Picture editor.

What is it like to work at SPL?
I have worked at SPL since 1990, with a few years off to run a cooperative café venture (adventure) in the early 00s. In all those years we have been through the digital revolution and various economic ups and downs, to say the least. Through it all I have found SPL a great place to work, meeting a lot of interesting and creative people and being supported by a very close-knit team of highly professional and caring individuals. We work hard but we have also had some stonkingly good parties. The balance between professionalism and good personal relationships between suppliers, clients and work colleagues is what has been the most rewarding aspect of working at SPL.

What is your background?
I’m a trained geneticist and immunologist attaining a BSC Hons in Applied Biology. After deciding I didn’t want to spend my work life stabbing mice, I serendipitously fell into working at a Scandinavian TV company in their newsroom library. The combination of working with image systems and my science background got me through my interview at SPL, landing the position of picture researcher. After many years, (the staff turnover at SPL is famously slow!) I became the deputy research manager and then after a few more years, I joined the editing department where I still can be found beavering away.

What are your passions/hobbies?
I have a passion for all the visual arts in particular photography, fine art and all those weird installation things people get up to. I also enjoy theatre, film and dance as an audience member rather than a participant. I’m a keen cyclist and gardener, though frustrated by my garden being a balcony six floors up. This means I’m very Darwinian in my approach, it really is the ‘survival of the fittest’ up here. I’m also a Francophile and have been a practising Buddhist for longer than I care to remember (one day I hope to stop practising and get it ‘right’).

What is your favourite SPL picture?
C021/2763