That's correct. However, should he ask us to post a note on his behalf, we would, provided it is within guidelines.Originally Posted by Kirk Keyes
That's correct. However, should he ask us to post a note on his behalf, we would, provided it is within guidelines.
I tend to avoid these threads, but I do want to put in that I've been a subscriber for quite a few years, and evry issue was delivered. If a few were late, I took little notice, they were welcome whenever they came.
I contributed an article last year, and asked no payment. I had no problems working with Steve Simmons; in fact, he went the extra mile in accomodating my last-minute schedule, and comped me quite a few extra copies, including shipping, for my students.
If View Camera was a big corporate production that was raking in millions, perhaps I'd be more demanding. However, it's scraping by serving a fairly small niche, and most problems are small and understandable. Personally, I'd hate to see it go, no matter how much that would apparently please others...
"I love my Verito lens, but I always have to sharpen everything in Photoshop..."
I will add a big ditto mark to Mark Sawyer's post #64. His experiences match mine almost exactly.
Steve Simmons seems to be the pinata de jour, but most of the other photo magazines have taken their hits, too - for equally spurious reasons. It seems all together too easy for some people to criticize. Far harder would be to produce a large format magazine themselves to their own exacting armchair standards.
If Simmons has been defensive or cranky on occasion, that may be the altogether human response to being a pinata.
Here is a note from Steve Simmons.
let me try and take the points one at a time.
For 21+ years I have never missed an issue. I have kept my personal dramas of the forum. If there have been family deaths, illnesses, injuries, etc., etc., I have continued to put out the magazine. As I tell people I am too old to do anything else and too young to retire, so it will continue. We have added online access for those who want it, and if not fine. We are contracted to put out six issues a year and we have always done so. If you have a problem receiving magazines it will be a more efficient use of your time to contact us directly. As for the people complaining in this thread about not getting magazines, we do not have any record of your subscription. Call us, show proof of payment, and we will send you anything and everything we owe you with an apology.
The Subscriber Section. We do not have the resources to do the integrated data base work to allow each person to have their own password, etc. given that subscriptions expire at all times of the year. I have explained this many times. A year or so ago we listened to criticisms about the password being on the address label and moved it to the cover of the subscriber's copy. We print two versions of the cover, one for retail with a bar code and one for the subscribers w/o the bar code but with the password. We added the subscriber's section as an extra for the subscriber's. We did not cut the magazine. If you do not want to use the subscriber's section, you are still getting the full magazine. We have not raised the subscription price since the very early 1990s. This section is updated frequently - by that I mean several times a month. Since last Summer we have stepped up these efforts.
Foreign distribution - Yes we had a problem. We solved it by developing relationships with distributors in the South Pacific, Canada, England and France. Since doing this the draw that each of them asks for has gone up which means they are getting more subscribers which means the system is working.
Payment to contributors - This is the first I'd heard from Amy Rafferty regarding alleged unpaid invoices for Ted Harris. Since she had contacted us earlier re tax info for herself I do not see why she was unable to contact us about these invoices. Regarding Michael Mutmansky, he and I talked last Fall, I explained that the recession has caused a significant slowdown in our receivable and he agreed to wait until we got caught up. The conversation was very friendly and the recession has deepened. If he had a problem with what he agreed he should have contacted us. He did not do so.
Here is a definition of a shell game
1. A fraud or deception perpetrated by shifting conspicuous things to hide something else.
For him to make this agreement and then come on and accuse me of running a shell game is ________________. There was no shell game and Michael knew exactly what he was agreeing to and did so willingly and in a very friendly manner. With regard to an earlier problem with Bruce Barlow, a few years back, we had a problem related to my sale of CameraArts which went badly. However, after I got things straightened out, I contacted Bruce, apologized for the problem, acknowledged I had handled the problem badly, and paid him in full. Regarding Eric Biggerstaff, he has been a great friend to View Camera and we have made arrangements back and forth and we are both happy with these details. Beyond that it is no one's business and for someone to demean him for this is just a cheap shot.
Re the magazine's layout. A few years ago we began experimenting with changes which included bleeding photos across the gutter, more dramatic title pages etc. We were criticized for this so we went back to a simpler design.
View Camera provides concise information that can not be found anywhere else. We are developing lists of lenses that are much more complete than anything else available anywhere. We have done articles on up and coming and new large format photographers, as we've been asked to do, and on well established photographers who are doing new work. Our reproductions have been good enough for George Tice (several times), David Muench (several times), Paul Caponigro (several times), Timothy Greenfield Sanders (several times), etc. etc. We have done articles on camera movements with diagrams unlike anything that can be found on the internet, we have done articles on metering for large format photography that have been very popular with our readers and visitors to our web site, articles on the proper use of filters, etc., etc.
Yes, we are not perfect. However, some of our harshest critics here are people who have had their work rejected, not everyone but some. We deserve criticism for occasionally being late, for miss-spelled words, errant commas, etc. However, those with private agendas should be honest and provide a possible context for their hostility. The same is true of the moderators who have had a prior relationship with View Camera before becoming a moderator or had a relationship with me out side this forum before they became a moderator. Neither of these should play a role in your moderating and, in fact, you should disqualify yourselves from any decisions related to View Camera as an act of basic integrity.
With regard to my participation on the forum I decided last Fall to leave the forum. I did this for several reasons. The moderating is erratic. I was once banned for simply answering a question about the subscription price of View Camera. I have had posts deleted when I was showing a new cover and listing the upcoming issue's table of contents while other publications were allowed to do just that. I have watched repeated scams happen here and be supported by the moderators, the forum owner, and many of the people who are the most critical of me (think J and C, Jorge with his alleged illness (was their every any proof) and his failure to supply the promised prints, and then he was allowed to come back on and sell the same equipment to multiple people and not send it to anyone while pocketing the money), I have seen small garage companies make one excuse after another about why they are late and then have it become known that they still have not supplied product they know they collected money for a year previous and still be allowed to continue posting, I have watched some come on and bellow about their key roles in certain activities while I know this is a complete fabrication because I was told so by other players in that particular game. and I have seen personal issues with the moderators come into play with their decisions to publicly ban me (unprecedented on this forum) and the watched them lie repeatedly about their accomplishments and places in the photo world, and I have watched malcontents hijack one thread after another with their personal agendas with personal attacks that clearly violate the forum guidelines yet be allowed to continually do so. This is one reason I started the View Camera forum again. The activity there has been small but I am after quality rather than quantity. I am not interested in ugly behavior.
I have expressed these concerns to QT and the moderators many times and I am met with either a deaf ear or completely illogical excuses.
View Camera has never missed an issue, we have shown work by the best and the newest, we provide information that can not be found anywhere else, and we work hard to deliver magazines to those people we know are subscribers. We are not perfect and never will be. but as I have been told many times "They hate you Steve because of who you are" or "They hate you because they want to be you"
As an additional note. We just did a big renewal campaign and had a 79% renewal rate which is extraordinarily high. Of those renewing, 70% did so for two years.
Steve Simmons
With respects to comments about the Forum, there are a number of factual errors and statements potentially misleading by omission in the previous post, but I do not wish to discuss them here, especially since Steve Simmons has stated that he does not have an interest in participating in the forum anymore.
I would love to see some of the people here who criticize photography magazines with reckless abandon to put their money where their mouths are. I'm not defending Steve Simmons, I don't know the man - but I am defending the product that so many people do appreciate and enjoy. You bash VC, you bash Steve, you bash the product.
I put my money where my mouth is by not buying his magazine (and yours FWIW, which I don't think is much) - clearly lots of other folks do too. I actually take time out to relate the particularly poor experience I've personally had with VC and Steve with other photographers - almost always, it's not news to them.
Quit whining David - you're all for freedom of speech aren't you - oh, of course, only when it suits...
David,
Your reply to my post is perhaps one of your most foolish posts by you that I've read.
I'm the customer (or was). In the businesses I've been associated with there was always the presumption that the customer isn't expendable, but the employees are. Traditionally there are only two groups that a company should have loyalty to: their customers and their investors. Since I assume View Camera is a privately owned company wholly owned by Steve Simmons, Simmons has been disloyal to his self and to his customers. VC wouldn't be in hot water if it were not for his failures.
You attempt to fault the customer for the failure of the business to satisfy the customer's needs or expectations. I've registered a fair complaint which has been echoed by other customers and contributors (both former and current) and you suggest that the customer should somehow be held liable for the failure of the business in question and feel guilty about it. Businesses that can't make the grade deserve to fail, that's the way capitalism works. However I didn't make my comments to attempt to put View Camera out of business, I simply shared my experiences. You seem to discount and ignore the fact that I was a customer for a very long time before abandoning the magazine.
As for you personally, you claim to have no association with Steve Simmons or View Camera magazine. I accept your word on that, but as far as I know you are not a large format photographer so I don't understand what you base your participation here on. My impression is that you posit your opinions as though they should somehow be considered superior or more pertinent than other forum members all because you are a magazine publisher.
This forum is certainly not a democracy but you are attempting to suppress or discredit legitimate opinions about a product targeted to this specific community. In doing so you have broken an unwritten rule by attempting to squash fair commentary in a public forum. And since you don't own the forum I don't understand how you think your position is correct. I've avoided ad homonym comments and tried to present my view fairly. Granted the thread has veered off course but that is only because the primary subject, View Camera magazine has become such a hot button issue for all the reasons discussed.
So why shouldn't we air our opinions good and bad about View Camera magazine? Certainly not for the reasons you cite.
Don Bryant
QT, I am not willing to let the errors that concern me go by. You and Kirk were copied on an email Steve sent me this afternoon, you saw my response, and I trust you will understand if I refuse to let the "omissions" that concern me stand. Since I am now accused of failing to contact Mr. Simmons after my husband's death about money owed, I will repeat what I said in my earlier post, to which Simmons chooses not to respond either privately or here in public.
I should not have had to contact him about those invoices. He knew they were there and he knew they were unpaid. He had the invoices for months, each one acknowledged by him in emails I can easily produce. The last time they were re-sent (for the third time that I can count in Ted's email), Simmons told my husband they'd be paid in due time. They were not paid in the 30 days Simmons confirmed in writing was to be expected for payment, and they are unpaid to this day.
Simmons sent me a 1099 for payments made to me for my work on the magazine during 2008, and none was received for Ted -- I assume because Ted was sent none. Certainly the IRS has no indication that he was paid anything by Steve Simmons Publications, and neither do I... so the invoices my husband spent countless emails and calls trying to collect remain outstanding. He died before he could send an invoice for work done on Foto3 for months, with the understanding that he would be paid for that after the conference, which agreement I have as well. There was no need for me to remind Simmons of that work done and not paid for; he knew. Every blessing has a price, and the blessing of having Ted safe from Simmons was worth that money to me; but Simmons knew.
Simmons wrote me privately earlier today, and I told him as much in my response and sent the invoices again, which he has not acknowledged either in email or in his post above. I do not prefer to do business in public, I couldn't care less whether View Camera lives or dies, and I have long since accepted the fact that Simmons took advantage of my husband's death to "forget" what he owed him. But he is not going to be allowed to post half the story here unchallenged, as if he doesn't know what I'm talking about, and doing this feigned innocence act again. It's like a bad imitation of Claude Raines in "Casablanca" -- "I'm shocked -- SHOCKED -- to learn that I owe your husband's estate money!!!"
Michael can speak for himself and I'm not doing this to invite comment. I have nothing else but what I know to be true, and on top of everything else Simmons has taken from me, he's not going to take the truth.
Steve, thanks so much for celebrating the anniversary of Ted's death in such fine style, and for giving me the chance to relive it all again. You're in better form than ever.
Who needs TV with threads like this?
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