Piemags
One name behind millions of licensed images, rare historical archives, military video footage and world-class aviation photography.
An Editorial Powerhouse for Specialist Stock Photography
From first stock images in 2008 to one of the most distinctive specialist archives licensing imagery around the world.
Piemags was founded by Paul Fearn, a former Royal Air Force serviceman and qualified private pilot who has worked in stock photography since 2008. He built Piemags to bring rare and carefully curated material to museums, art collectors, publishers and enthusiasts, and what started with archive licensing has grown into a wide-ranging visual business.
Today the Piemags name spans more than 30 million images licensed through Alamy, dedicated collections with Getty Images, Pond5, SuperStock and the German agency IMAGO, a professional aviation photography service, military and archive video footage. The collections reach across art, history, science, space, military and aviation, telling stories where words alone fall short.
Eight sides of one archive
Aviation photography, specialist stock, moving footage, three history archives and AI training datasets, all under the Piemags name.
Aviation Photography & Licensing
Military jets, airliners, business jets, warbirds and airshows, including exclusive air-to-air work as the home of Aviation PhotoCrew. Instant digital licences and premium fine-art prints.
Visit the aviation site →
The Aviation Journal
In-depth guides and articles on aviation photography, from airshow technique to choosing lenses, written from real experience in the field.
Read the Journal →
Specialist Stock & Archives
A vast historical archive sourced from leading galleries, museums and private collections, covering art, history, science and space, from old master paintings to rare photographs.
See the agencies →
Military & Archive Footage
Moving imagery and military video footage on Getty Images and across dedicated Pond5 channels, Milmotion and MilitaryMotion, ready for documentary, broadcast and editorial production.
Browse the footage →
The Wartime Archive
Photographs, maps, documents, postcards and posters of the World Wars and the conflicts around them, scanned from the originals at full archive resolution and licensed for editorial and creative use.
Visit the Wartime Archive →
AI Training Datasets
Ten million rights-cleared image-text pairs, cut to your specification for AI and machine learning training.
Explore the datasets →
The County History Archive
American county and town histories, city directories and family genealogies, all published before 1931 and sold as the complete book in a searchable PDF. Each book’s page lists the surnames found inside it, and one search covers the lot.
Visit the County History Archive →
The Railway History Archive
Railway company reports, acts and charters, engineering treatises, timetables, rule books and the railway press, all published before 1931 and sold as the complete book or paper in a PDF. They name more than a thousand railway and railroad companies, British, American and Canadian among them.
Visit the Railway History Archive →Licensed across the world’s leading agencies
Piemags imagery and footage are distributed through major international libraries. Follow the links to each collection.
Alamy
Over 30 million Piemags images, spanning history, art, science, aviation and editorial subjects.
View on Alamy →Getty Images
Military and archive video footage, licensed for documentary, broadcast and commercial productions.
View on Getty Images →Pond5
Dedicated Piemags channels for imagery, military footage and space material.
Images → Milmotion → MilitaryMotion → AstroStockMedia →IMAGO
Official German distribution partner, carrying the Piemags archive across reportage, culture, nature and science.
View on IMAGO →SuperStock
Piemags collections distributed through SuperStock, a US agency established for over forty years.
View on SuperStock →The Wartime Archive
The Wartime Archive: original war photography, maps and documents from the nineteenth century onwards, licensed direct at full resolution.
The Wartime Archive →Piemags also operates its own aviation licensing site at professionalaviationphotography.com, the Aviation Journal blog, and the County History Archive, a shop for American local and family history published before 1931. It also runs the Railway History Archive, a shop for railway books and papers published before 1931.
World-class aviation imagery, from air-to-air to the archive
The aviation arm of Piemags is the exclusive home of Aviation PhotoCrew, specialists in striking air-to-air photography captured from a viewpoint few will ever witness. Alongside this modern work sits an extensive aviation archive covering over a century of flight, from the Wright era and WWI biplanes to Cold War jets and current military aircraft.
Every image is available for commercial licensing, editorial use, advertising and high-resolution download, as well as premium fine-art prints on archival paper. The collection supports publishers, advertisers, filmmakers, museums, model makers and private collectors alike.
Paul Fearn
Paul’s path into imagery was an unexpected one. He began in the Royal Air Force, where commissions from various military museums first opened the door to photography. He has photographed aviation since 1986 and moved into stock photography in 2008, and that work led him into licensing rare archive material. In 2019 he founded Piemags to bring carefully curated images to museums, art collectors, publishers and enthusiasts under one name.
A qualified private pilot with a deep love of aviation, Paul combines first-hand flying knowledge with an archivist’s eye for the rare and the historic. Under his direction Piemags has grown from a single archive into a multi-platform visual business trusted by buyers around the world.
You can read more in his Photo Archive News interview or connect with him on LinkedIn.
Latest from the Aviation Journal
In-depth aviation photography guides, aircraft history and insight, fresh from the Piemags blog.
Castle Bromwich: Inside the Spitfire Factory That Failed First
Castle Bromwich built over half of all Spitfires and for thirteen months built none. Told from an unpublished album of factory photographs.
Read more →Adding Motion to Historic Photographs: Higgsfield, Tested on Seven
Seven original archive scans put through Higgsfield and measured. What moves, what it costs, the prompt that gets the best results, and why the tool is worth it.
Read more →Aviation Image Licensing: A Buyer’s Guide to Costs and Rights
What an aviation photograph costs to license, how to find a specific aircraft by its registration, and the permissions a copyright licence does not give you.
Read more →In their words
I had the pleasure of getting to know Piemags Aviation and using their services and historical archives. Thank you for your helpfulness and professionalism, as well as your ability to understand the needs of the person on the other side of the screen. Highly recommended.
Morvo, Italy
License imagery, footage or prints from Piemags
Whether you need a single historical image, exclusive air-to-air aviation photography or military footage, the Piemags team can help. Image research and contributor enquiries are welcome.