BAPLA FOCUS 2025

Ami Bouhassane is Co-Director of Farleys House & Gallery Ltd, the organisation that manages the Lee Miller Archives and Farleys House, home of her grandparents Lee Miller and Roland Penrose.

Author, curator, podcast presenter and lecturer on both Miller and Penrose, Bouhassane has worked extensively with their material for over 25 years. Her first book ‘Lee Miller: A Life with Food, Friends and Recipes (2017) won 3 awards, including the IACP (International Association of Culinary Professionals) Jane Grigson award for scholarship. She is currently recording her fourth podcast series ‘Farleys 75, I remember…’ based on recollections of friends of Miller and Penrose that stayed at Farleys.

Image credit © Jim Holden

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Corky is a consultant and freelancer specialising in copyright licensing and managing third-party rights, with particular expertise in contemporary and archive editorial photography, broadcast and studio film content, sports and music rights, rights of publicity and rights of privacy, celebrity clearances, freedom of panorama, property, design and trademark clearances, data licensing and generative AI. He has twenty-eight years experience in the broadcast, commercial and corporate industries’ exploitation of copyright and associated third party rights, from the point of view of both licensor and licensee. He has project managed hundreds of clearance projects for brands such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, NatWest, HSBC, Google, FaceBook, Samsung, Guinness, Heineken, Verizon, British Telecom, Jaguar Landrover, BMW, Bulgari, Chanel, Rolex, etc. and works with businesses and individuals to help monetise their own Intellectual Property.

Corky also works with UK industry stakeholders and government on legal, economic and ethical issues relating to synthetic imagery, artificial Intelligence and machine learning, especially in relation to global laws.

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Image credit: University of Suffolk

Lucinda Gosling began her picture library career back in 1993 when she got her first job at Pictor International. After seven years at Science Photo Library where she was Sales Manager, she moved on to manage the archive of the Illustrated London News. Both Luci and the ILN archive now reside at Mary Evans Picture Library where they've been since 2007.

A history graduate, Luci is also a freelance writer on subjects ranging from royalty to illustration, the First World War to feminist art. She has contributed to various publications including Tatler, Country Life and the Radio Times, and is author or co-author of over fifteen books, the majority of which are inspired by the unique material found at Mary Evans Picture Library.

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Nick is a professional photographer, working on commissioned and personal projects, and a member of the Association of Photographers (AOP) team. He spent 6 years as a non-executive director of the AOP board, two years of which as Chair.

Nick has been involved with various working groups and committees concerned with copyright and photographers' rights at the AOP and other organisations. He is the business & legal adviser to AOP members on matters relating to professional practice, licensing, issues with copyright and infringements.

Harriet Bridgeman founded the Bridgeman Art Library, now Bridgeman Images, in 1972, to provide both a central source of fine art, cultural and historical images for reproduction as well as to bring additional income to museums and galleries.

Prior to founding Bridgeman Images, Harriet worked as a journalist and editor for numerous art publications and books, including Discovering Antiques and The Masters weekly art monograph. She was awarded the European Women Achievement Award in the Arts (1997) and International Business Woman of the Year (2005) and is also the Chairman and Founder of the Artists’ Collecting Society, established in 2006 to administer Artists' Resale Rights in the UK.

Anna started her practice as a solicitor in the mergers & acquisitions at the international law firm of White & Case LLP. Over time she specialised in transactions involving IP assets leading her to focus on the protection of creativity.

In 2016, drawn back to private practice, Anna founded Open Plan Law with the ambition of offering innovative, engaged and collaborative legal services to creators of all kinds.

As legal relationships become increasingly complex in the globalised and tech-dominated economies, she firmly believes that those who treat legal advice as an indispensable element of their business will be at a competitive advantage.

She is a firm believer that legal services should be accessible, affordable and practical while delivered to the highest standards.

In 2018, Anna was shortlisted for the Law Society’s Excellence Award (Private Practice) and singled out for her contribution to the photography industry.

Anna is a photographic copyright expert on the British Copyright Council, and is a member of the Copyright Editorial Board at Lexis.

She is an Associate Lecturer in Media Law and Ethics at the University of the Arts (UAL) where, since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Anna has led a journalistic student project on the impact of the coronavirus on human rights.

Christina Vaughan is a pioneering image industry entrepreneur and the Founder and CEO of Cultura Creative and CulturAI, two organisations redefining visual storytelling and data ethics for the digital age. With over 30 years of experience in commercial image licensing—having previously founded and scaled Image Source into a global leader—Christina now leads efforts to diversify visual culture by investing in underrepresented photographers and building the world’s first ethical, rights-cleared AI training dataset focused on inclusion.  Christina is the Immediate Past President of CEPIC and a former Vice President of the Digital Media Licensing Association (DMLA) in the US. These roles reflect her international leadership in shaping industry standards for rights, access, and visual equity. A passionate advocate for inclusive innovation, she brings deep expertise at the intersection of archival tradition, synthetic media, and commercial visual systems. Born in Sheffield to dual heritage parents, she is globally connected with a deep connection to reshaping the future of imagery so that everyone sees themselves reflected in it. www.culturacreative.com and www.culturai.ai

After graduating from Northumbria with a degree in History of Modern Art, Design and Film, Annabel started a career working with archives, including managing the marketing for art and history specialists Bridgeman Images.  

Annabel joined IWM in 2017,  during the centenary commemorations of the First World War, to head up their image and film licensing operations. As well as responsibilities for developing the licensing business,  Annabel is part of a leadership team supporting IWM’s Commercial & Marketing Director and works closely with IWM’s curatorial teams.

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Paul Seheult is the CEO of PICSEL, a visual arts collecting society in the UK, and a long-standing leader in the photographic and visual content industry. With nearly 40 years of experience in the photo agency sector, Paul has played a central role in shaping the business, rights and advocacy landscape for image creators and distributors. He is a board director at BAPLA and serves as BAPLA’s designated representative on the board of CEPIC, the international coordination body for picture agencies in Europe. He also sits on the boards of AVLA, which licenses public broadcasts of AV material, and ERA, which manages licensing of television content within the education sector.

Under his leadership, PICSEL has become a key player in ensuring that visual artists are fairly compensated in a rapidly changing media environment. Paul also continues to run two specialised photo agencies with international reach and remains an active advocate for the industry's evolution from copyright and licensing reform to AI policy and post-Brexit frameworks. When he isn’t leading organisations or advising on industry strategy, Paul still picks up a camera, staying close to the craft that launched his career.