View Camera Magazine Subscriber Only Section

[tim atherton]

Steve - I just quickly checked the past articles index (and I can't remeber if anything was published recently), but I can't find any mention of a serious article on either Atget or Walker Evans - arguably two (among others) of the most important and influential photographers in the history of the medium - both of whom where also "large format" photographers. I seem to recall more Ansel Adam's articles than you can shake a stick at, but to my mind, not to cover this sort of ground (while avoiding becoming a tome of historical photogorpahy) seems somewhat out of balance and leads to what I think a number of people have expressed in different ways - that the outlook of View Camera can be somewhat narrow in photographic terms. (es, you have looked at say Sally Mann or Jock Sturges or Mary Ellen Mark in the past - but most of those do seem to be a while ago now and perhaps, the exception?

The influence of Atget and Evans, for example, can be seen in the work of many of todays LF photographers. Not only that, but their work is also often as fresh, incisive and new as much of the work being done today.

Again, just one example.

Oh - and in the contemporaries, another one - Ed Burtynsky

[steve simmons]

Lots of god suggetions. This is just the typeof response that is very helpful.

We have not done Atget or Evans because so much has already been done in books and articles. Evans is one of my favorites

steve simmons

[Brandon Draper]

I have only been subcribing to VC for only two short years. And have only used maybe 50 sheets of film through my new (3 yrd old) 4x5 camera. It hadn't been used for the past year and half. And have lost the reason why I bought it in the first place. I was about to sell it, when I dicided to find that lost love. The darkroom! So I dug out my zone system manual, all my past VC magazines and read them cover to cover. Started testing film & paper. Then thats when I came out from under a cloud. Oh what a wonderful feeling. Have been so caught up in the portrait/wedding business. And the weight of "should i start shooting digital?". I am so tired of it. How nice it has been to take a step back, and ask myself what I love about photography. The darkroom is where I fell in love with photography. The reason I first started to subscibe to VC is for some guidance in LF and some darkroom techniques from professionals. I was alittle disappointed in the content. But still a great publication. I really enjoy articles from photographers that photograph old building's and factories. I would like to see more how-to's and techniques on how they were able to photograph a particuler subject. I guess I would like to see it as a more learning experience with also a different perspective to certain subjects. Something you don't see everyday. Anyway it is still a great. I would keep reading no matter what.

Thanks!!!

[Crispin Agnew]

"We have not done Atget or Evans because so much has already been done in books and articles. Evans is one of my favorites"

Come on Steve, you ask for positive input, you get some good ideas, then you come out with something like this? There always seems to be a reason why you won't do something

Presumably there are not enough books or articles out there about Ansel Adams then, or architectural photography? You've never had a problem doing those?

There are plenty of hooks that VC could find for some interesting and relevent articles on Atget or Evans. Are you trying to tell me it's all been done? I'd even wager there is a good percentage of your readers who have never heard of Atget, for example...

PS - in fact if you need to free up more space, drop the monotonous architecural photogoraphy pieces

[Paul Metcalf]

Yeah, we might end up seeing something like this:

http://www.masters-of-photography.com/A/atget/atget_archeveques.html

[Donal Taylor]

or even this

http://www.masters-of-photography.com/A/atget/atget_tree_sceaux_full.html

a photograph that is more contemporary, intriguing and original than 99.9% of the work I see in books and magazines

[Kirk Gittings]

"There are plenty of hooks that VC could find for some interesting and relevent articles on Atget or Evans."

"PS - in fact if you need to free up more space, drop the monotonous architecural photogoraphy pieces."

Funny, for more than 20 years I have had the opportunity to write or talk or teach about the history of architectural photography and the names Atget and Evans always have a prominent place! I think we all have our preferences and prejudices. They to me are consumate architectural photographers. I of course never find the arch. photo articles boring because that is my profession, as it was Steve's. I think 6 or 7 of those articles over the years were by or about me! Yikes! I would personally be happy with a magazine that only did architecture and landscape. To me those are inexhaustable subjects, but then each issue would cost $1000.00 dollars because only 50 people would want it. Has anyone ever done a breakdown of the mag. content based on the genre of the artist or article? I am curious what that would be, but I am willing to bet that it would be overwhelmingly landscape and non-genre related technical articles.

[steve simmons]

Here is a quetion I posed in an earlier post and no one responded

Lets look at some reality. If we expand the articles in each issue to include what is on the web we can pull an article to make space - ok which one????? three different readers will have three different suggestions .

Once again, no magazine puts all of the related material bout a topic in an article. There is always material edited out. Always!!!!. Most magazines simply disgard this material We did for several years. About a year ago we decidd to make this extra material available. We were not in a position to add pages to the magazine so we put it on the web. If we did not do this no one would feal cheated. We are rewarding our best customers by making this info available to them. Retail buyer provide very little support to us as you are really supporting the store and the distributor. Yes we do get some benefit from retail sales but not nearly as much as from subscribers.If you buy 3.6 issues a year you have already paid for a subsciption and you would get 2.4 issues free, access to the supplemental info on the web, and we would benefit much more. We send each issue in a plastic wrapper so it should arrive safely.

I d appreciate the suggestions for photographers to profile. We have saved the list an will begin working on them. Stephen Shore will be in the July/Aug issue.

steve simmons

[Struan Gray]

Steve, here are a couple of Swedes who have influenced me:

Gerry Johansson - Although not the sort of photographer to use process as a crutch, he recently overwintered in Antarctica with an 8x10, which makes Rowell look like a rank beginner.

Dawid - The most consistently elegant photographs I have ever seen, in both his commercial and personal work.