Magazine editors should not eat peote buttons

[Duane Polcou]

This is just something for the "shake your head" category. I'm in Barnes and Noble and see "Silvershotz" magazine, a UK magazine devoted to "fine art" photography. The editor publishes an opening column about how "analogue" photography is now truly dead, with this sort of "We have thus declared it so it must be so here yea here yea" vibe. Then they have a lengthy article about how to make carbon prints. Hey, Silvershotz, I think you should re-name your magazine "Tequilashotz", or
"I don't actually read the content first that's someone named Ian's job shotz", or "isn't it ironic that silver is in our title and now we pronounce it dead shotz"

[Walter Calahan]

Ignore them and they will go away.

[MIke Sherck]

I've bought several copies of this magazine from Barnes & Noble over the course of the last couple of years. In some ways I feel sorry for them, in other ways they really tickle my sense of humor. It has to be tough, really tough, to start an 'art photography' print magazine in these times and I suspect that the editors are doing this out of love, in their spare time, while they try to hold down jobs and families. I admire their optimism but I also feel that they would have better chances of long term success if they took the time to figure out just what the heck they want to say. It has seemed rather scattered from what I've seen and I assume it is because they're doing the job in bits and pieces after long days making a living. If they survive I assume they'll find some coherency in thought and message but in the mean time, while my better nature wants to laud their admirable effort, my dark side wants to kick them in the pants and shout "think first, publish second!"

Oh, well: I wish them the best of luck.

Mike

[Aggie]

OMG film is dead? whoops someone forgot to tell me...... I guess Emulsion is dead.....NOT!

[sanking]

This is just something for the "shake your head" category. I'm in Barnes and Noble and see "Silvershotz" magazine, a UK magazine devoted to "fine art" photography. The editor publishes an opening column about how "analogue" photography is now truly dead, with this sort of "We have thus declared it so it must be so here yea here yea" vibe. Then they have a lengthy article about how to make carbon prints. Hey, Silvershotz, I think you should re-name your magazine "Tequilashotz", or
"I don't actually read the content first that's someone named Ian's job shotz", or "isn't it ironic that silver is in our title and now we pronounce it dead shotz"

I would have to read the editorial myself to know exactly what was said to understand the intent. Most of the material I have seen published in Silvershotz was prodocued by analogue methods, or by a combination of analogue at the front end with film and digital at the output. In fact, they are publishing a lot of alternative work. They did a three piece series on pt./pd. by Tillman Crane, and the article on carbon printing (mine) is the first of a three part series, with the last one scheduled to be on color carbon prints. Much of my own work involves analogue capture on film which is then scanned and the file corrected in Photoshop, from which I print a digital negative, and from that contact print the carbon print. The fellows who are doing color carbon are also all working from digitally produced negatives.

So on the whole it sure does not appear to me Silvershotz is proceeding as if analague were dead. Of course, I don't believe it unfair to say that analogue as a most of us knew it ten years ago is in fact dead, and has been dead for some years now. You only have to look at the change in the commerical market (portrait, weddings, sports, news, etc.), together with companies like Agfa and Kodak getting out of many of the analogue markets, to understand this. I would say that even in the area of fine art photography pure analogue photography, of the type promoted on APUG, is very much the exception rather than the standard.


Sandy King

[steve simmons]

I've heard through the grapevine that Kodak has experienced an increase in film sales the last year. This must be confusing the experts!

steve simmons
publisher, view camera magazine
www.viewcamera.com

[Duane Polcou]

Maybe I read too much into that little editorial, but the editors probably should not announce film's demise if they intend to include it as part of their publication's content. I agree with Mike, they should figure out who they are and what they believe in and what they want to say.

[sanking]

I've heard through the grapevine that Kodak has experienced an increase in film sales the last year. This must be confusing the experts!

steve simmons
publisher, view camera magazine
www.viewcamera.com

I would not be at all surprised to hear that there has been an increae in LF film sales. I could be mistaken, but my impression is the LF is more popular now than it was ten years ago. Perhaps View Camera or someone else has done some surveys on this? If not, that would be something interesting to know.

On the other hand, I would be rather surprised that sales of MF film have increased, since large numbers of professional users have switched to digital capture. And shocked to find out that sales of 35mm film have increased. Almost all of my friends who are casual users of photograpy (family snaps and such) who used to use 35mm have switched to digital.

Sandy King

[BrianShaw]

I've heard through the grapevine that Kodak has experienced an increase in film sales the last year. This must be confusing the experts!

steve simmons
publisher, view camera magazine
www.viewcamera.com

It will only confuse the experts who actually seek out and look at the data. For all of the other "experts"...

[Daniel Grenier]

....... my impression is the LF is more popular now than it was ten years ago. .......Almost all of my friends who are casual users of photograpy (family snaps and such) who used to use 35mm have switched to digital.

Sandy King

How true. LF, especially ULF, sure seems to be far more popular than 10 years ago.
I'd be curious to see hard numbers to back that up but I do have my own numbers to show how fast the decline was for 35mm. For years, and until 3 or 4 years ago, we used to shoot upwards of 10,000 rolls per year (yes, ten thousand) where I work. Now, we shoot Zero !