Blake Sell directs AP's business strategy around photos through the AP Images division. He is directly responsible for product development, content initiatives, partner acquisition and relationships. The job involves overseeing AP's relationship with newspaper members as it relates to photos and the sharing of photo images through AP's ImageShare program and the Photostream product that distributes photos to customers.

Previous to joining the AP as a fulltime employee, Sell provided it with legal consulting services, specializing in copyright and intellectual property issues. Before this, he provided management consulting for photo related media companies.

Sell previously was the director of special projects at Getty Images, working on company acquisitions and strategic partnerships with large and small companies and worked on overall company strategic initiatives. There he managed a number of business units within the organization.

Before joining Getty, Sell was the senior executive at two smaller photo agencies, WpN and SIPA Press, directing both the editorial and sales operations and well operating the companies. These companies had staffs of 34 and 12 respectively.

Sell has a 12-year career as a photojournalist, working for Reuters for as a regional photographer, chief of the West Coast photo operations, White House photographer and senior photo editor. Sell covered stories in more than 50 countries and over the 12 years averaged 250 nights on the road. Prior to Reuters, he was UPI photo bureau chief for the Pacific Northwest based in Seattle, at a time when UPI was still a worthy competitor to the AP.

Sell started his career as copy editor and reporter at the Pasadena Star-News, at the time a Knight-Ridder newspaper, where he worked for five years.  He holds a journalism degree from the University of Southern California.