Before anyone reads this, I am in no way affiliated with Emulsion Magazine. I do not control anything that happens with Emulsion, nor do I have any influence whatsoever over Aggie or anyone else on the staff of Emulsion. The purpose of this thread is to create a discussion about the current status of Emulsion magazine and to discuss its potential future. I am only someone Aggie has chosen to E-Mail about this. I have no knowledge if the information I've received is public knowledge or I am the only one to know. I can't even have the honor of saying that I am a friend of Aggie. All I did was e-mail her a few months ago and asked if there was any way, using the resources I have, I could be of any help to her. I recently received an E-Mail from her again discussing the things her son mentioned to me. To date, I have received one e-mail from her son and one from her. I have no knowledge that upon her recovering to full health whether or not she intends to continue running Emulsion and whether or not it will continue publication without her. It may or may not -- I have no knowledge of that whatsoever.
For those who do not know, Aggie has been extremely ill for a while now. I don't know for how long, but the illness is definitely a serious one. I cannot disclose what it is -- but if any of you had it, you would be down for the count for quite a while. There were two points in a recent E-Mail I received from a recent e-mail from Aggie. Number one: She is very sick. Number two: There has not been an overwhelming amount of support from the photography community. She does not feel that the level of support she received before she landed in the hospital warrants a feeling that no one really cared about Emulsion. I don't have specifics as to who is "no one", however; it can be assumed that a large majority of people who are in this community have not felt that Emulsion does not offer the content it wants.
Since I do not have the ability, nor desire to visit APUG, which I believe consists of over 10,000 photographers who sit and talk analog photography all day, it would be great if someone could post these questions over there:
First if you are a subscriber to Emulsion, what made you subscriber in the first place? Upon receiving your first three issues what did you like, what did you not like? What would you improve and how? What would you take away and why?
If you are not a subscriber to Emulsion, why are you not a subscriber? What have you heard about Emulsion that you made you not subscribe or have you never even heard of Emulsion whatsoever?
The purpose of this thread and other threads on other forums is to take a sample of the people who visit this and other forums and test the level of support. If there is an overwhelming amount of support, when Aggie is physically able to run the magazine again, I'm sure she will use this as motivation to run it. However, if there isn't enough support, maybe Emulsion just isn't a good idea and needs to be re-tooled.
What I can say for certainty is that when the owner of a small business is very ill, the business grinds to a halt. I do not, for one second, believe that the support or lack thereof is any reason why Emulsion has been suspended.
I'll start. I am not a subscriber. I chose not to subscribe to Emulsion because I felt the magazine was too niche. Then again, until very recently, I wasn't a subscriber to ANY photography publication as the magazines always arrived horribly damaged at my doorstep due to my horrible postman. This has recently changed. I do think that the world is overly digital and that in order to properly understand photography, one must understand the roots of photography, where it came from and how it came to be today. I know that there are a good 10,000 - 20,000 people in the world who continue to print traditional fine art photography... whether or not they do it well is another story. I think those numbers are enough to support editorial based on traditional photography -- but not just techniques. Editorial based upon the market for traditional photography along with a few galleries of photographers who print traditional photography... the newsstand is a hot place right now for fine art photography magazines. Publications such as LensWork, B&W, CamerArts, ViewCamera, Blindspot, Aperture and Focus are kicking ass and taking names on newsstands right now... even when the average American consumer has less money to spend due to higher fuel prices and interest rates on mortgages. I think Aggie has the right idea and with a little tweak here and there, Emulsion could re-launch into a very successful super-niche publication.
Whatever the results are of this and other threads on other forums, I do wish Aggie luck in a speedy recovery and I hope responses from this thread generate enough positive response for Aggie to continue Emulsion. I think there is an opportunity with David Vickers trying to start a new magazine for photographers and Emulsion's hiatus. I think the two of them should start a conversation... who knows what could result from that.
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