IMAGO IAGA 2023: News and insight from Aputure

The 2023 IMAGO IAGA (Annual General Assembly) takes place in the ground floor conference room at the Movie Movie Hotel adjacent to Cinecittà studios, and as is customary with such an event, the sponsoring companies making the whole thing possible are showcasing their product just outside the conference room.

We had a word with Daniel Maior, account manager, Europe, for Aputure Europe, who have a selection of their latest lighting gear in the showroom just outside the IAGA conference. Maior is located at the European branch office, which is in the Netherlands close to Amsterdam, and from here they handle all of Europe.

“Our decision to sponsor IMAGO and the 2023 IAGA,” Maior explains, “stems from a deliberate focus to make our products more ubiquitous on ’major league’ productions than they currently are. Here at the IAGA among the delegates and guests are many heavyweight directors of photography who have great influence over which products will be used on the shows they work on, so it’s an irresistible opportunity for us to connect with them, and to show them what kind of tools we offer for their always expanding tool box. IMAGO members are the ones in the field, and we listen intently to their suggestions and needs and aim to develop the ideal lights to meet those needs.”

Maior continues to explain the back story behind the company Aputure. ”The company name is a play on words, aperture combined with future. The company was founded by Ian Xie back in 2005 and is originally a Chinese company. Mr Xie is still very much involved with the company, focusing primarily on product design.

Maior has been with Aputure since 2019 and came onboard just in time for the shift to LED fixtures. “Aputure were actually into a more diverse portfolio at the time, offering  monitors and signal transmitters etc, but decided to focus on lighting in the late 2010s and went with LED fixtures immediately. Ian saw a big opportunity in that and he managed to deliver the right products at exactly the right time.”

”Our newest release is the Infinibar,” Maior continues. “It’s another play on words, and we’re talking about a LED bar which can be configured to create shapes like panels or strips etc. All our lights are LEDs and chip-on-board (COBs) are now one of our main focuses in our portfolio. At the BSC Expo in 2022 ‘hard light LED was the big thing’ and COBs are the key to that technology.”

Words: Lars Pettersson FSF