Allow me...

Delicious food in SF
Crabs in the piers, soup in a bread in Market St, all kinds of delicious seafood (I dunno why but the fishes from the Pacific are tastier than those form the Atlatic)

inkedmagazine said:

What kind of food does San Francisco have? I'm going to have to have a soda and a pie at Vinnie's before I leave. Hold the sausage!

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Dave Wooten wrote: "...and I have not found New Yorkers to be rude at all..."

Neither have I. When my New York friends ask me how a sweet and delicate blossom like myself survives in the face of the rude attitude I tell them that I see plenty of tolerance and respect, but no rudeness. Not even in Adorama (well, maybe a little in Lens and Repro). After living in London, New York is niceville.

Anyway, back to the plot. Dave Inked wrote, back there on page one: "You can stand anywhere in any environment and paint and sculpt or write or sing...but to be a photographer, you have to have the right chemicals, the right film, be at the right place in the right moment with the proper amount of light and contrast..."

... but only if you want to fit the world into your preconception (which you may wish to do of course, and that's OK, just in case you think I might be being judgemental).

Anyway, my offer of help with the developing still stands. I've sold the movie and TV rights already, so you'd better take it up.

Best,
Helen of Hell's Kitchen

Helen,

are you a Hell's Angel too?

lee\c

Anyway, my offer of help with the developing still stands. I've sold the movie and TV rights already, so you'd better take it up.

Best,
Helen of Hell's Kitchen

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Thank you, Helen. Allow me to organize my booth at Photo San Francisco and get my 3rd issue out and I might just take you up on it.

Isn't Hell's Kitchen one of those new artsy/trendy areas where all of the Williamsburg hipster kids are moving to now that they're being forced out by rich yuppies? Hell's Kitchen, DUMBO and Red Hook are supposed to be the hottest places in NYC from what I understand.

http:/www.hellskitchennyc.com

Its too bad "Bighead" is taken as well.......

Well, I guess I would have to read every one of your posts to understand everyones discust with you but, who really has the time??

Welcome....

"Isn't Hell's Kitchen one of those new artsy/trendy areas where all of the Williamsburg hipster kids are moving to now that they're being forced out by rich yuppies? Hell's Kitchen, DUMBO and Red Hook are supposed to be the hottest places in NYC from what I understand.'

I'm speechless. Artsy/trendy? Enough of your insults! We'll show you 'trendy' when the MTA give the green light to my red light plan to turn the West Side Yards into the biggest immigrant hooker theme park ("They said she'd been transported to Van Diemen's Land, but here she is...") in the world, and that includes Hartlepool. Well, maybe.

"are you a Hell's Angel too?"

Lee,

Only in my dreams, and possibly Texas.

Best,
Helen

Helen B said:

"Isn't Hell's Kitchen one of those new artsy/trendy areas where all of the Williamsburg hipster kids are moving to now that they're being forced out by rich yuppies? Hell's Kitchen, DUMBO and Red Hook are supposed to be the hottest places in NYC from what I understand.'

I'm speechless. Artsy/trendy? Enough of your insults! We'll show you 'trendy' when the MTA give the green light to my red light plan to turn the West Side Yards into the biggest immigrant hooker theme park ("They said she'd been transported to Van Diemen's Land, but here she is...") in the world, and that includes Hartlepool. Well, maybe.

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What's wrong with immigrants? C'mon -- we're all imigrants! And the West Side Stadium, when finished, would've brought lots of money in revenue to the communities. As will the Nets Stadium, the Jacob Javitz Center Expansion, the new Shea Stadium, the new Yankees Stadium, the new international airport and the few dozen new million dollar condos on the waterfront of Greenpoint and Williamsburg. I was always told as a kid that one day we would build too much and one day New York City and Long Island would sink.

Helen B said:

Lee,

Only in my dreams, and possibly Texas.

Best,
Helen

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Gee Helen, never thought of you as a Biker Babe...changes everything...his mind race's putter...putter.................sputter.................................................................................................plat!!!

Sorry, can't go that speed anymore

photomc said:

Gee Helen, never thought of you as a Biker Babe...changes everything...his mind race's putter...putter.................sputter.................................................................................................plat!!!

Sorry, can't go that speed anymore

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I joked to my wife that I was going to trade her in for two twenty-year-olds, and she quipped, "You aren't wired for 220."

Wow, what an introduction. I for one wish you good times as you start your photographic hobby. I was 28 when I saw my first print come up in the developer. Even then it was with amazing.

Good luck
Randy

inkedmagazine said:

Dave or David.

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Dave (or David)

Welcome aboard. I don't know why so many folks around here are upset by your introduction? Perhaps being a former NYer myself I can understand where you're coming from better than some others. I too have been from NY to FL, but now I'm in TN, and I like it better than either place, but that's only because I don't like being around people, and there are less of them here than in NY or FL!

One piece of advice... When you're young (you are), and just learning a new hobby, it's usually better to listen more than talk.

The only thing about you that I don't understand is: You're publishing a magazine (that's what you're doing, right?) about a subject you're still learning about?

-Mike

Inked isn't a magazine that talks about the process of creating photography, it is a magazine that talks about the business-end of photography which I have studied and learned about. The market for fine art photography makes up about 4% of annual sales of fine art, which for the year of 2004 was over a $34 billion market.

That number 5 years ago was 2%.

The estimated number of collectors adding black and white fine art photography to their collections has almost doubled in the past 10 years as has the number of fine art photography galleries.

Annual sales of black and white film products have risen every year since 1996 with the exception of 2001.

The number of stand alone traditional photography labs has decreased dramatically in the past 5 years with the introduction of digital camera technology. The number of digital printing labs has increased 3 fold in the past 5 years.

I can go on and on. I have a vast knowledge of the market for fine art photography, which is what my magazine is about.

Now sit me down and talk to me about paper and chemicals and it's like talking Chinese to me, or trying to teach my dog how to sit. Either way...

weeeelllll
I think I told you this before, but I believe you should try to learn a bit about this
Not in detail but just the basic concepts.... given that you are such a fast learner it shouldn;t be a problem.

While knowing the "bussiness" of photography is good, not knowing the basics of the craft may be detrimental to what you believe you know

inkedmagazine said:

Now sit me down and talk to me about paper and chemicals and it's like talking Chinese to me, or trying to teach my dog how to sit. Either way...

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titrisol said:

weeeelllll
I think I told you this before, but I believe you should try to learn a bit about this
Not in detail but just the basic concepts.... given that you are such a fast learner it shouldn;t be a problem.

While knowing the "bussiness" of photography is good, not knowing the basics of the craft may be detrimental to what you believe you know

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I can always respect a differing opinion than mine, but since my magazine is targetted to collectors, my choice of articles for the magazine wouldn't change. For any reason a photographer would read the magazine, my knowledge of how to develop a photograph wouldn't be one of them. I'm not the decion maker on who's photography is accepted and I have a team of people on the editorial end, all of whom are photographers and collectors, who advise me on the stories to go into each issue. The only photographer related articles collectors can also find useful.

inkedmagazine said:

I can always respect a differing opinion than mine, but since my magazine is targetted to collectors, my choice of articles for the magazine wouldn't change. For any reason a photographer would read the magazine, my knowledge of how to develop a photograph wouldn't be one of them. I'm not the decion maker on who's photography is accepted and I have a team of people on the editorial end, all of whom are photographers and collectors, who advise me on the stories to go into each issue. The only photographer related articles collectors can also find useful.

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This statement is rather odd. Not because you are not worried about the how to and only concerned with colletors but because you think knowledge in one area does not require knowledge in the other. I am not talking about rudimentary knowledge either. It has to be more than that.

Plus
No where in your intro did you mention that you were or are a collector. I am going to make the assumption that you do collect fine art BW photography and did not come by this expertise through study alone. I can't imagine someone with zero real world experience behind or infront of that study could imagine that they have any sort of expertise at all. I mean if you are not a serious collector or even a semi serious collector then you would have no experience with either aspect of the niche your magazine is attempting to fill.

I wish you luck, David, but look at how Henry Rasmussen has built his magazine. He's been in the magazine publishing world for a long time. He knows both the technical side of B&W photography and the collecting side and has lots of contacts in the gallery and museum worlds to draw on and write for the magazine, and he knows a lot of photographers personally. He ran an excellent website for some years with some of the best B&W discussion boards, which eventually became the B&W forums of photo.net. There's really a lot of substantive experience behind what he's doing, and it shows in the quality of the publication. It's not a bad model to follow.

mark said:

No where in your intro did you mention that you were or are a collector. I am going to make the assumption that you do collect fine art BW photography and did not come by this expertise through study alone. I can't imagine someone with zero real world experience behind or infront of that study could imagine that they have any sort of expertise at all. I mean if you are not a serious collector or even a semi serious collector then you would have no experience with either aspect of the niche your magazine is attempting to fill.

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Although I'm not a serious collector (it would take more years than I am on this Earth to become one), I am a semi-serious collector, but even if I was a serious collector, there would be more for me to learn every day.

I guess, in the end, you have to decide if you like the editorial content of each magazine or not.

some good points here Mark,

however years ago I was a member of the trumpet section of a fairly decent symphony orchestra (which will remain nameless) and I'd say 99.9% of the people in the organization behind the orchestra-publicity, foundations etc., organizational structure, and such,

were not instrumentalist or composers or vocalists! Nope and nay......couldnt play "Come to Jesus" in whole notes, let alone a 12 tone scale!

Many were quite arrogant and more than a little obnoxius.

Most were wannabees etc. but in their own right gave great service to the success of the orchestral family.....

David A. Goldfarb said:

I wish you luck, David, but look at how Henry Rasmussen has built his magazine. He's been in the magazine publishing world for a long time. He knows both the technical side of B&W photography and the collecting side and has lots of contacts in the gallery and museum worlds to draw on and write for the magazine, and he knows a lot of photographers personally. He ran an excellent website for some years with some of the best B&W discussion boards, which eventually became the B&W forums of photo.net. There's really a lot of substantive experience behind what he's doing, and it shows in the quality of the publication. It's not a bad model to follow.

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I'm very well aware of Henry's background and the quality of B&W. For reproduction and the print/paper quality of the magazine, I'm on the same level as Henry because I'm using the same paper and printer (happened completely by accident that I found the same printer as B&W who recommended I use the same paper). My first issue was with Brown Printing company who I felt had absolutely no clue how to reproduce black and white photos in a magazine.

Chris Winfield from the Winfield Gallery recommended I give a Toronto Printer a call to get a quote. Turns out he was the same printer LensWork uses and quoted me something about $5,000 - $6,000 more expensive than Publisher's Press. Not only that, but there's a limit as to how many magazines he can produce at one time and the turn around time he takes with a publication is almost triple what it takes my current printer.

Back to B&W: You will never hear me criticize B&W's quality. Never. My goal is to have a superior quality article-wise, photography-wise and every other aspect-wise than what B&W has. That's going to a hard goal to achieve but I will do everything in my power to do so.

As far as following his model, one size doesn't fit all. I don't really want another B&W magazine on the newsstands. His magazine has an incredible sell-through rate on newsstands and I'm sure the subscribers that he does have are extremely loyal to his magazine. Like every other publication, he has flaws. I have a lot of ideas for Inked in the future, starting with my 3rd issue. There are a lot of areas in the market for collecting fine art photography that Henry either doens't cover enough of or doesn't cover at all.

Now, as a publisher I have to sit back and say "Is there a reason why he doesn't cover this, even though most collectors are very interested in this?" and assume that either he doesn't have the resources to cover it, he's going to be covering it soon, or it's not worth covering it. Since I doubt I can have a daily phone conversation with Henry, I have to try to make the best decision for the future of the publication. I try it out for a few issues, if it works, then it was a great idea. Then B&W may come out with a similar idea, but do it better than I am doing it, which means I'll then have to change my strategy. Going up against B&W is going to be a huge challenge, but I have never been one to back away from a challenge. I think the market is big enough where people see two black and white photography magazines devoted to the art of collecting, people will take notice at the resurgance of the market for fine art black and white photography and in the end that could help galleries, photographers, Henry and myself.

Of course, I do have a little fantasy that by the time my 37th issue comes out on newsstands for Henry to be chasing me circulation-wise. Whether or not I will fulfill that fantasy or not remains to be seen.

I had curator of a gallery out of California who will be attending Photo San Francisco call me the other day. He said that he likes me almost as much as he likes B&W. He said to take that as a very high compliment because he holds B&W in such a high regard. As I said, I love challenges...no matter how impossible they may seem.

I'm not suggesting that you should produce a magazine like _B&W Magazine_ or use the magazine as a model, or that there can't be many types of magazines about B&W photography, as indeed there already are. I'm also not talking about reproduction quality. I'm suggesting that Henry, personally, is a good model to follow as a person, and his success comes from the kind of person he is.

He's a person with a lot of integrity and respect, because he really knows his stuff, he knows the people in the field, and he has a history and reputation for dealing with people in a reasonable way. He doesn't have to send out calls for submissions, because he knows who is interesting and he knows who knows who is interesting (sorry if I'm sounding like Donald Rumsfeld), and because from the very beginning, potential contributors knew who he was and wanted to be involved. He didn't get there just by doing some market research. He really is part of the field, and it took time and a good deal of work to get there.

Very well said David.

David A. Goldfarb said:

I'm suggesting that Henry, personally, is a good model to follow as a person, and his success comes from the kind of person he is. He's a person with a lot of integrity and respect

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I'll have to respectfully disagree with you. His success might come from having contacts in the photography and collectors world, but he has, thus far, gone through his market un-challenged. I don't know him personally, so I can't comment on his integrity or the amount of respect people have for him. I've only once spoken very briefly with Henry, and let's just say I've had friendlier conversations in my life.

because he really knows his stuff, he knows the people in the field, and he has a history and reputation for dealing with people in a reasonable way.

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Just because a few people on an analog photography user group don't like me doesn't mean I'm not a person who doesn't deal with people in a reasonable way.

He doesn't have to send out calls for submissions, because he knows who is interesting and he knows who knows who is interesting (sorry if I'm sounding like Donald Rumsfeld),

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David, in the past year, B&W has made two public calls for submissions. One was a "photography contest" the other is a "submissions contest." They're basically the same thing. I don't really know how much of a pulse Henry has on the scene...his magazine certainly doesn't reflect that.

[qupte] and because from the very beginning, potential contributors knew who he was and wanted to be involved. He didn't get there just by doing some market research. He really is part of the field, and it took time and a good deal of work to get there.[/QUOTE]

He has his methods, I have mine. So far, mine are working. I would love to know what his circulation numbers were by his second issue. His page count wasn't even as high as mine in his second issue. And you, as a photographer may not think 20 or so pages matter when comparing the two magazines, you're a subscriber to both magazines, but people on the newsstand who spend 3.5 seconds looking at one magazine will decide on the thicker, cheaper magazine. Disagree as you much as you like, but it's a proven fact. The better my sell-through rate, the more subscribers I have, the more bookstores I'm distributed in, the better advertisers do, etc. etc. etc.

inkedmagazine said:

Just because a few people on an analog photography user group don't like me doesn't mean I'm not a person who doesn't deal with people in a reasonable way.

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It's not a question of "likes and dislikes", but of an established reputation. That takes time.

inkedmagazine said:

David, in the past year, B&W has made two public calls for submissions. One was a "photography contest" the other is a "submissions contest." They're basically the same thing.

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... after having actively dissuaded contributions for a long time. He was swamped with good portfolios, and chose not to accept more. When he felt he was catching up, he invited new entries in this way. So what?

inkedmagazine said:

He has his methods, I have mine. So far, mine are working.

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His has been working for quite a while now - it is one of the two photography magazines I buy regularly.

Ole said:

It's not a question of "likes and dislikes", but of an established reputation. That takes time.

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Agreed that it takes time and many issues. People shouldn't snap judge based upon one or two issues. They should see the long-term overall product and judge from there. In my opinion, Henry's doing a great job and I hope he's around a long time for me to compete with.

... after having actively dissuaded contributions for a long time. He was swamped with good portfolios, and chose not to accept more. When he felt he was catching up, he invited new entries in this way. So what?

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David had made a comment stating that B&W doesn't make calls for submissions. I just correcting him on that.

His has been working for quite a while now - it is one of the two photography magazines I buy regularly.

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No matter where I go, I can't find Silvershotz. I've heard it's quite good.