Camera Arts gone?

Bill Hahn · Apr 3, 2006

According to A. D. Coleman, the magazine "Camera Arts" is
gone. See:

http://www.nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/cspeed/burner.html

(scroll about 2/3 way down page, or look for "Camera Arts".)

Sorry if this is old news, I looked for "Camera Arts" and didn't see
any reference to it going out of business....

celluloidpropaganda · Apr 3, 2006

I'm not surprised. The content to cost ratio of CameraArts (and View Camera) was always fairly high.

wildbill · Apr 3, 2006

They should've added a Digi in there somewhere, then sales would go crazy.

roteague · Apr 3, 2006

I think the magazine was a little too esoteric. I can only remember buying one issue - only because it featured Christopher Burkett.

david b · Apr 3, 2006

Didn't the "new" owner just buy the mag a few months ago?

Kimberly Anderson · Apr 3, 2006

I advertised in both magazines for 6 months and got very very few e-mails or phone calls. My advertising with them ceased when my self-imposed trial period ended.

IMO the readership that was promised to me as an advertiser just didn't exist. I would suppose that other advertisers experienced the same or similar results.

I did find their content at times very good, but as with most print magazines and newspapers I am finding that there is equal if not significantly superior content online. This site would definitely qualify within that statement.

I surf various 'enthusiast' sites that compete with print magazines and the trend is the same regardless of the subject matter.

I do not remember the last time I paid for a photography magazine.

grahamp · Apr 3, 2006

I had decided not to re-subscribe. Something about the content was getting to me - the tone was not right. My wife, an artist, looked at the last issue and said ' I can see why you are not renewing - the pictures are (dreadful)!'.

I do not envy anyone trying to develop a print magazine. It has to be popular, but it needs to be distinctive enough to stand out. It has to be good quality, but it has to be cheap enough to be popular (or very expensive).

Ultimately one has to look at the costs and benefits for oneself.

jimgalli · Apr 3, 2006

My children bought me a subscription as a gift one Christmas past. IMHO it was nothing but fluff and will not be missed. I can't recall a single significant article. Whereas I keep old issues of many of my favorite mags like B&W and Lenswork, I pitched each issue of CA.

toddstew · Apr 3, 2006

I actually just saw the newest Camera Arts at Borders yesterday. It's now printed almost as small as lenswork.

toddstew · Apr 3, 2006

After reading the article, I should of said the 'last,' instead of 'newest'

Jim Chinn · Apr 4, 2006

At one time it was a pretty good magazine. I have not paid much attention to it for a couple of years since the content was more and more about digital. Plenty of magazines that already do that.

I still buy the occasional photo magazine. A few issues each year of View Camera, Lenswork and B&W. But now I would rather spend the money on a good book of photographs or a print.

photobum · Apr 4, 2006

I had subscribed for many years. Steve sold it and they went even more digital. Then they went heavy into do your own thing cross processed type weird color. Ugly photographs with a lot of text to explain why it was art.

I did not renew. I dropped Aperture for the same reason quite a while back.

Lenswork is the best. Brooks has gone digital but still has good taste. View Camera because I love view camera's but boy the edit and printing has been sloppy of late.

Peter Schrager · Apr 4, 2006

Camera Arts

Is this death toll official? I happen to have quite a few CA from the mid nineties that kick butt. Some really well written and informative articles. Worth picking up on the cheap on that site...
Best, Peter

Richard Fenner · Apr 4, 2006

Camera Arts FINE!

I was just assured by Tim Anderson that Camera Arts is fine - that costs forced the format change, but that a new subscriber has nothing to fear. Since the change in ownership, I like the changes. Many magazines have good images, some have good printing, few have good writing. This is in-between - I get better images from some, better writing from some. Overall, it also seems less amateurish.

Sportera · Apr 5, 2006

I don't care for the printing or for some of the photography in Camer arts, but I always thumb through it and if it has something interesting I buy it.

Sportera · Apr 5, 2006

speaking of bad photography, can someone explain "Apertature" to me! I don't get it.

clay · Apr 5, 2006

Sure.

What you do is get some toy figures and toy cars and trucks. Stick them on a plywood board that has some tiny little fake trees, bridges and roads. Make a toy truck look like it has crashed, have a green toy soldier with a gun threatening a little red riding hood figure. Maybe scatter a few plastic figures around to represent dead bodies.

Photograph the whole scene with color film using a holga. Don't worry about stuff like exposure or focusing.

Now write some incomprehensible prose using phrases such as "constructed realities", "metaphors for war and the american war machine", "identity politics", "alternative realities",and "gender police". Alternatively, just use the postmodern essay generator here:

http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo

Send Aperture magazine the scans and your "statement", and print your negatives to 6x6 feet for the breakout show in which you will be lionized as the next great thing.

It's easy once you know how.

Sportera said:
speaking of bad photography, can someone explain "Apertature" to me! I don't get it.

photobum · Apr 5, 2006

Clay, I said "Ugly photographs with a lot of text to explain why it was art".

But you, you just gave an entire MA degree sylabus in four paragraphs. Can I study with you and become famous?

clay · Apr 5, 2006

Sure, but there is a huge waiting list. You might want to go ahead and get some black jeans, black turtleneck and beret. Oddly sculpted facial hair is also a big plus.

photobum said:
Clay, I said "Ugly photographs with a lot of text to explain why it was art".

But you, you just gave an entire MA degree sylabus in four paragraphs. Can I study with you and become famous?

John Koehrer · Apr 5, 2006

Sportera said:
speaking of bad photography, can someone explain "Apertature" to me! I don't get it.

I think it's some kind of potato with a hole in it.

celluloidpropaganda · Apr 5, 2006

The Holga diorama sounds more interesting than another godforsaken St. Ansel-lite landscape, actually.

livemoa · Apr 5, 2006

celluloidpropaganda said:
The Holga diorama sounds more interesting than another godforsaken St. Ansel-lite landscape, actually.

Just what I was going to say. I think a lot of the people who hold Ansel and the other f64 group in high regard, and use them as the unbending yard stick of what photography should be, would have ridiculed them at the time for their "ugly, un-naturaly sharp and unromantic images".

jd callow · Apr 5, 2006

From the other side...
It can take guts, imagination, empathy, analysis and skill to produce a successful image with intellectual, and or emotional value. I wonder what it takes to follow someone's formula and go do an intellectually inert time exposure of a waterfall or brook?

People should check the build of their domicile before they start throwing stones.

celluloidpropaganda · Apr 5, 2006

Speaking of Aperture - I don't buy it or Blind Spot anymore ($15 apiece is too rich for my blood), but there's a stunning Darfur documentary portfolio in the latest issue.

Sportera · Apr 5, 2006

"People should check the build of their domicile before they start throwing stones."

Are you directing this at anyone in particular?

Camera Arts gone?

Moderator

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency