In Memoriam: Craig Aurness, 58

Former stock photo agent and National Geographic photographer Craig Aurness died December 14 in a Panorama City, California hospital where he had spent the last two months undergoing treatment for lung and anemia complications, according to photographer Charles O'Rear. Aurness was 58.

Aurness founded stock photo agency Westlight around 1980 with O'Rear. "He intended it to be a photographer's commune," says Aurness's wife, Daphne.

"Craig was the exception to my feeling that the last person to run a stock agency should be a photographer," says Jane Kinne, another former stock agent and Westlight competitor.

A creative and disciplined marketer, Aurness was one of the first stock agents to distribute images successfully on a large international scale, says Kinne. He also had a knack for mining data to figure out what images were most likely to sell, says Sarah Fix, a former Westlight employee who now works for Blend Images.

Aurness made his operations transparent to his photographers, to the annoyance of some competitors. "He really looked after our interests," says photographer Randy Faris, a close friend and business partner.

By all accounts, Aurness was a generous mentor to his employees and photographers, and he helped some start businesses of their own. For instance, he helped Alexis Scott start Workbook Stock, a stock photo sourcebook. "He gave her the idea in exchange for free advertising for a couple of years," his wife says.

Aurness sold Westlight to Corbis in 1998 as the stock business began consolidating. "He saw the terrific amount of money that would be required for marketing, and he realized direct contact with photographers would be further and further removed from day to day operations," Kinne says.

Aurness apprenticed with Look magazine photographer Earl Tyson in the 70s before launching his own freelance career as an editorial and industrial photographer, according to his wife. He shot his first story for National Geographic in 1978, and traveled the world for the next decade on various assignments for the magazine.

Aurness grew up in Hollywood as the adopted son of actor James Arness, who starred as Matt Dillon in the 60s television series Gunsmoke. He had a difficult family life, and growing up in the glare of his father's publicity "made privacy very precious to him," says Fix.

After selling Westlight, Aurness and his wife started a business raising alpacas--a life that hearkened back to the summers Aurness spent on his father's ranch as a child helping to raise cattle and quarter horses.

In addition to his wife, Aurness is survived by two grown children and his sister, Holly Morton, who helped him run Westlight. The family is planning to hold a memorial in February in Southern California.