Those who’ve known me for a while, know that I love photography. I was thinking lately that there’s been a shift in what I read (or look at) photographically speaking. I used to read stuff like Shutterbug. I don’t anymore. Don’t get me wrong, the
magazine is fine. I bought it more when I was looking at which camera I should buy. They have lots of “tests” (I don’t think there is anyone out there which performs a comprehensive set of tests on photographic products properly) and they present a lot of products. I just got tired at some point of the sensationalistic headlines like “How to make your vacation picture perfects!” and “The art of Black and White Nude explained!” It’s just not that simple. So I’ve started looking for something else. Recently, I decided I would start buying more the periodicals that simply present art. So my favorite, now, are Lenswork, JPG and Aperture. Each with something particular about them. Lenswork prints portfolios (mostly) in black and white. They have interviews with photographers in pretty much each issue with a lot 
of emphasis on the personal creative process.
Good stuff, really. Everytime I open lenswork, I’m surprised by what I see.
JPG is something special, which I enjoy very much. The publication is community driven. Imagine facebook for photography. You create a (free) account, you log onto the site, you upload pictures, maybe some text. Maybe it’s an essay, maybe it’s only a single image. It could be also an interview with a photographer or a short article on a technique. Whatever it is, you put it up there. Then along comes an issue announcement. Issue 12 (which is out now shown here) has the theme Fashion. You think your picutres fit in? You submit to the issue, the other users vote and whomever has the best stuff makes it in. Maybe there’s some editorial leaway which the publishers take (the publishing company is the small 9 person team 8020 Publishing), I’m not sure. I don’t think it’s too much, otherwise the members of the community would get fed up pretty quickly. The same company is coming up with a new periodical on the same concept, Everywhere Magazine, a travel publication. I just think this concept is brilliant.
Finally, there’s Aperture. This is a photography magazine produced quarterly by a foundation whose purpose is to advance fine art photography. To be honest it’s only the second time I buy it, but every time I’ve bought it because there was some nice, thought-provoking stuff in there. In this issue, there’s a series of images of inmates inside South African prisons. It’s good stuff.
So between those 3, I think I’m covered for a while. I think I make good images, just not interesting images most of the time. I do like Brooks Jensen’s (of Lenswork) constant suggestion: “Present images in a portfolio.” Maybe it’s something about how, when assembling images in a coherent set, you’re not just telling a story with a single image, but you have an overarching epic saga overlaid on top of the group of images. Like writing a novel. At least, that’s what Jensen says. I’ll just have to try it!
Now, this whole discussion about art periodicals does tie-in with my constant complaining and occasional constructive criticism of the scientific communication scene. Here we have three periodicals (and I didn’t make the list up to suit my discourse, I really read those three) with vastly varying degrees of “internet use”. At one extreme, we have Aperture, which uses “the tubes” in the 1998 way. They have a staff to pick what goes into every edition. They put it in. They print it and you buy it at the shop. Their website is used to let you know that the latest issue is out (or maybe to let you know what they’re about entirely). It’s a one-way talk. That is, they walk and we listen. Don’t get me wrong, they have really good things to say! There’s just no direct channel to have a conversation. It’s like going to a lecture on photography every three months.
