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Thread: Traditional Black and White / View Camera Magazine / Kerfuffle

  1. #21

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    Traditional Black and White / View Camera Magazine / Kerfuffle

    IMHO, View amera, Camera Arts, B&W and Lenswork do a pretty good job covering traditional B&W though they are not 100% dedicated to traditional photography. While I honestly don't have a clue as to whether traditional B&W enthusiasts would support a 100% traditional B&W publication, I suspect such a magazine would be an annual or quarterly at the most and have to be of such quality as to be unforgettable between publication dates in order to survive (which as Mr Simmons pointed out, didn't work for Anchell!) OTOH, the excellent traditional B&W coverage in the mags we read goes a long way in promoting the genre among our digitized bros & sis's thus avoiding the "preaching to the choir" issue that tends to lead to forgettable reading. My 2-cents.
    "I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White

  2. #22

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    Traditional Black and White / View Camera Magazine / Kerfuffle

    While I know this is kind of hijacking the thread to be about View Camera Magazine, I would also like to add that I am glad to hear that steps have been taken to improve proof-reading. I have emailed Steve a couple of times over the years about it, usually when ever I see the word "Linhoff" on the cover.

    As others have pointed out, budgets are limited, and so I do limit my photo mag purchases. The only ones I subscribe to are Photo Techniques and View Camera. Occasionally I buy Camera Arts (2 or less per year) or rarely a Lenswork (1 every couple of years) on the newsstand.

    I enjoy the technical articles most - not so much new gadgets like digital printers and cameras which seem to be here today - gone tomorrow, but ones about lenses, films, and darkroom techniques. Articles on other photographers are occasionally interesting, but not always.

    I don't find articles on Photoshop techniques interesting at all these days - there are specialty magazines that are just loaded with that info as well as book, and many web sites for which to get this type of info.

    I'm not interested in magazines like the American B&W - it is geared toward selling photos to and from galleries. The French Photo mag is old. My impression of the English mags are they do have lots of how-to's, but they are usually so basic that I'm not willing to pay for them. Especially when it cost $10 or so for 3 pages of info.

    I do want to say that I find View Camera to be very readable - the layout is nice, things aren't too crammed together and there is space on the page, the printing quality is generally good. The only layout issue I can think of is the article where you were shooting in the trainyard and had the panoramic photos printed vertically on the page. It was OK for the photos, but I found it hard to read the text. But that was a special circumstance.

    Steve - in reference to Ralph's suggestions above, you should put a reader survey page on your web site - maybe have pages for the last 3 issues and rotate out old ones with new issues. I know it is not scientific, but it would give both you and us a form to supply you with easily readable feeback. Do the "rank each article from 1-5" with a small field for comments on each article. I know you may not get many replies, but at least it give the readers some direction in the style or type of feeback you are looking for. Put a little blub in each issue reminding readers to fill it out. Also, put it in the "free" section so newsstand readers can access it too (or subscribers like myself that immediately throw the plastic cover in the garbage and loose their access code...)

    Kirk

  3. #23

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    Traditional Black and White / View Camera Magazine / Kerfuffle

    In the discussion forum on our web site we do have a section for commentary on our content. We have the same for CameraArts.

    www.viewcamera.com

    www.cameraarts.com

    steve simmons

  4. #24

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    Traditional Black and White / View Camera Magazine / Kerfuffle

    PS

    I have printed out all of the comments from this thread and passed them around the office. I appreciate the time people are taking and we are listening and discussing.

    thanks

    steve

  5. #25

    Traditional Black and White / View Camera Magazine / Kerfuffle

    John, you ae correct, the B&W enthusiast magazine is a quaterly issue, but you missed the mark on the quality. The magazine has very good quality, at least IMO:

  6. #26
    Founder QT Luong's Avatar
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    Traditional Black and White / View Camera Magazine / Kerfuffle

    To echo Brian's comment about "generosity", note that the policy of View Camera is not to pay for published photographs. On the other hand, in the first contest they organized, although the prizes were sponsored, you had to pay a substantial fee to submit photographs, and were not guaranteed the return of your submissions (correct me if I remember wrong, it was several years ago). For reference, in this first half-year alone I've turned down two requests from magazines that wanted to do a full feature on me with unpaid image usage. View Camera is a good magazine, however it could be argued that its strength is more reflective of the strength of the Large Format community than from the strength of its editorial direction.

  7. #27

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    Traditional Black and White / View Camera Magazine / Kerfuffle

    Mr. Luong;

    If you would like to buy this magazine and run it correctly then please do so. You have benefitted greatly from my generosity in the last year or so and your attitude sucks. We did the article on you as a peace offering because of prior conflicts we've had. Yes Kerry wrote the article, as you reminded me more than once but I gave the approval for his doing so. Yes, it is our mission to run articles on photographers doing interesting work. However, we turn down many more people than we accept every year. We also listed your personal web site. We have not paid anyone for doing an article about them. You were treated the same as all previous and subsequent subjects. People far more notable than you have not had a problem with our policy but you seem to need to remind me privately every so often and now make a public issue out of it. I also invited you to the conference as a way of trying to include you. You again reminded me that you weren't given a free room for a one day trip down and back. I knew you would promote your site here and you did according to several people who reported to me about your activities during your talk. I have promoted this site at APUG and on the AOL large format rec group. Again all you can do is be sour. Well live sour and feel bitter and used.

    As for the topic of my generosity if you think VC is a get rich quick scheme then buy it and get rich quick. Show me another mag publisher who spends time on these groups answering questions for people. Go ahead. Yes, I do refer people to free articles on my web site because the articles there are far more complete than a quick type answer that is given in this type of forum. If you have a problem with this then start providing the same range of complete answers as we do on our site. These are not just come ons but comlete articles that we think will be helpful to people interested in getting involved in lf photography.

    The world is best when there is a give and take. I have tried to make you part of this give and take and you continue to be bitter - or so it seems.

    steve simmons

  8. #28
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    Traditional Black and White / View Camera Magazine / Kerfuffle

    "it could be argued that its strength (View Camera Magazine) is more reflective of the strength of the Large Format community than from the strength of its editorial direction"

    I also think that the opposite may be true-that the strength of the Large Format community may be due in part to the long term commitment that Steve has made to the promotion and education of LF. I know about this forum because of Steve and I am familiar with QT Luong's images only through VC magazine. There is great value potentially in the exposure of being published in VC. I personally have benefited from that exposure.

    View Camera was the second magazine to publish a portfolio of mine (The Journal of American Photography was the first-remember that?), and I am very grateful for that. It helped my career alot. And the articles on my class at the Art Institute of Chicago have helped to recruit students and raised my stock as an instructor. View Camera is the only magazine that I have let use my images for free over the years (6 articles/portfolios, I think). I consider it something that I give back to the community and to VC and Steve, who I think has served this community pretty well. Steve does make a living doing this but he certainly is not getting rich off of our backs. he could make alot more money doing a different kind of magazine like a home or architecture magazine. Steve used to be an architectural photographer. I think Steve does this because he loves it and it provides an adequate living. I know the heads of many "non-profits" that make far more than Steve.
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

  9. #29
    Founder QT Luong's Avatar
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    Traditional Black and White / View Camera Magazine / Kerfuffle

    Mr Simmons, unlike you, I have not tried to bring out in the public personal gripes that I would have with you, and I prefer not do so, although I think what would come out would be vastly more damaging to you than to me (FYI, I have a complete record of my email correspondence, and there very little that I am ashamed of). I have just stated two facts that can be checked by everybody. The same cannot be said of your allegations. I could easily refute each of them since you didn't even try to reply to any of the points I made in the rebuttals I wrote to you in private. However, as I said, unless you continue to provoke me, I do not wish to engage in this kind of debate in public.

    I appreciate and acknowledge the efforts you had made to "make peace", however, my perception from the emails you sent me is that, as a result, you seemed to expect some kind of special treatment which I don't think would be fair. If you find that participating in this forum is worthy of your time, then you have to accept the actions of the moderators.

  10. #30

    Traditional Black and White / View Camera Magazine / Kerfuffle

    This forum was created by Tuan, exists only because of Tuan's generous and completely unpaid efforts, and is now the only decent online community where LF stuff is discussed. Rec.photo.equipment.large-format used to be worthwhile, but when Steve Simmons found it and used it to spam for his magazine and other commercial ventures, it went into the rat-hole, just as the forum on compuserve did when Steve appeared.

    It's ironic that Steve is using this forum to attack Tuan.

    It's probably worth noting that Steve has done nothing to refute what Tuan says - he's leapt immediately to the ad hominem attack. I think we can safely conclude that Tuan is perfectly accurate, that it's his accuracy that pisses Steve off, and that if there's anyone who's engaging in 'being bitter' it's not Tuan.

    Frankly, I'm amazed that Steve continues to be permitted to post here. Haven't we had enough of his petulant whining and abusive attacks like this one?

    Steve has his own forum on the View Camera website. Let him go play there, and let the rest of us get on with discussing large format photography instead of the endless arguing about whatever topic Steve feels obliged to raise to produce yet another thread that will promote his magazine.

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