Newest Issue of Black and White Photography

Jerry, I don't see much in the way of "chipping away at what she's achieved with B&W". It is perfectly legitimate to make suggestions where someone sees something happening that they do not like.

As I said above, I would prefer no general equipment reviews: those that there are should be targeted to B&W issues that are never covered elsewhere. That does NOT mean that I think the magazine is rubbish, nor does it mean that I am belittling Ailsa's success in getting such a niche magazine off the ground with ever increasing circulation (which is, frankly, an amazing feat, flying as it does in the face of the general movement in the industry). Likewise, those who want less digital content are making a legitimate request. It is up to Ailsa and her team to decide if these requests make sense to the magazine.

Most of us realise that the world does not dance to our tune 100% of the time, and have long since given up expecting it to do so....

As for putting our money where our mouth is, almost all the people who have posted here have praised the magazine and report that they buy it on a regular basis. If we didn't care, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Cheers, Bob.

Nicely put, Bob. You speak for me too.

Jerry, I think your post is a bit off target.

I'm sorry, I didn't intend to sound quite so antagonstic.

I just feel it's a shame when people say they don't intend to stick with B&W because it's gone x % more digital - if you leave it to market forces in that way it will simply go further in that direction.

However you look at it, it's the best channel to promote trad B&W there's ever likely to be and for that alone it should be cherished. A magazine solely devoted to analog would probably have to be very expensive luxury item and would tend to be cliquey whether this was intended or not.

My point about submitting views and work to the mag was serious. As Ailsa has said "If you think your work is good enough, it probably is".

I'm pleased to be involved with B&W because it's tone is emphatically encouraging and democratic as opposed to over technical and aloof.

Jerry

jerry lebens said:

I'm sorry, I didn't intend to sound quite so antagonstic.

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No harm, no foul. One of the weaknesses of this medium of communication is that it is easy to have the tone of one's words misinterpreted.

jerry lebens said:

I just feel it's a shame when people say they don't intend to stick with B&W because it's gone x % more digital - if you leave it to market forces in that way it will simply go further in that direction.

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Surely if the supporters of analogue stick with it no matter what then we are reinforcing any swing towards digital! :confused:

For me, the feedback process is one of the purposes of this thread. I agree that an all-analogue magazine on the news-stand is probably unrealistic. That doesn't mean that when a magazine starts to move more towards digital it should not be commented upon.

One of the strengths of APUG is that it gather a large number of (mostly! ) likeminded individuals together; that in itself is a "market force".

I know that Ailsa is one of the best advocates that traditional photography has in the UK today. I have the very greatest respect for her, both as an editor and a photographer. Speaking for myself at least, it's some of the rest of the magazine's contributors at which my comments in this thread were aimed.

jerry lebens said:

However you look at it, it's the best channel to promote trad B&W there's ever likely to be and for that alone it should be cherished.

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I disagree. My personal opinion is that APUG is the best channel to promote traditional photography.

I agree that B&WP UK is probably the best magazine in the UK to promote trad B&W... ...until the balance moves more towards the digital, in which case it stops being an advocate of traditional photography, B&W or otherwise.

To dip into your previous post on this thread -

jerry lebens said:

In short, put your money where your mouths are.

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Quite so. I do subscribe to B&WP UK. Will you be subscribing to APUG?

Touche, on that last point... I'll ask Ailsa for a more money (Ho ho ho).

But you raise an interesting point regarding whether print or the web is the "best channel".
Personally, I prefer looking at prints and I don't spend much time looking at images on the web. I return to printed images and I also like to have them in my hands and the same goes for magazines.
How about a web site defending the purity of magazine based images?
AMUG anyone...?

Jerry

jerry lebens said:

Touche, on that last point... I'll ask Ailsa for a more money (Ho ho ho).

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Lot of luck. The lady has Scottish blood in her veins...! (Nearly as bad as my Yorkshire heritage!)

jerry lebens said:

But you raise an interesting point regarding whether print or the web is the "best channel".
Personally, I prefer looking at prints and I don't spend much time looking at images on the web. I return to printed images and I also like to have them in my hands and the same goes for magazines.

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Yes, I agree with you in that. As far as images go then prints beat screen images hands-down for me too.

However, I think that for the promotion of the methods and interests of traditional photography APUG is a stronger medium, simply because that's all it is interested in.

(This is probably a sign that I was thinking of a different meaning of "best channel to promote trad B&W" than you were! )

I do take your point re submitting work to B&WP UK. Currently I don't think my work is good enough; maybe one day (although I'm currently stuck in a dry-spell that's making the Sahara look like the Atlantic! ).

One suggestion - we've seen quite a few articles in B&WP UK and elsewhere from people explaining (usually in rather evangelical terms) why they're going digital. It'd be nice to see the flip side of that coin and have someone explaining why they're not, putting forward the pro's of traditional photography and exploding a few digital myths.

I agree with you that it's a shame there is this great divide between some of the traditional and digital camps, but when we have Nikon discontinuing almost all of their film-based cameras and the CEO of Kodak announcing "film is dead" I think you'll understand why some of us are feeling that the processes and medium we love are under a very real and immediate threat...

To have "the best channel to promote trad B&W there's ever likely to be" placing more of an emphasis on its digital coverage, however slight, however gradual (and however inevitable!) is for some of us a worrying sign.

FrankB said:

To dip into your previous post on this thread -


Quite so. I do subscribe to B&WP UK. Will you be subscribing to APUG?

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Frank, It’s customary to offer the recipient aesthetic before slipping these in.

Dave Miller said:

Frank, It’s customary to offer the recipient aesthetic before slipping these in.

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"aesthetic"?!

Looks like you've been dipping into your own supply there, Dave!

I think I'll withdraw one of those slices of cheesecake I owe you... The combination might be too much for a man of your advancing years!

FrankB said:

"aesthetic"?!

Looks like you've been dipping into your own supply there, Dave!

I think I'll withdraw one of those slices of cheesecake I owe you... The combination might be too much for a man of your advancing years!

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The results of accepting a spell chequer's changes without looping closely at what it was clanging the weird two, eye suspect ....

Bob F. said:

The results of accepting a spell chequer's changes without looping closely at what it was clanging the weird two, eye suspect ....

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I spell with a lisp, and I NEED MY CHEESECAKE.

Dave Miller said:

I spell with a lisp, and I NEED MY CHEESECAKE.

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Yeth, all right. I thupothe you can have your cheethcake...!

If you were to ask Liz Roberts, she'd probably have me dipped in aesthetic and held under...

jerry lebens said:

I just feel it's a shame when people say they don't intend to stick with B&W because it's gone x % more digital - if you leave it to market forces in that way it will simply go further in that direction.

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Jerry,

You missed the whole point. It wasn't about the magazine having digital content, we all agree that it will continue to do so, and will probably increase. The whole complaing is about the issue with the front cover telling us, in essence "Hallelujah!! Julien Busselle is going digital". As if those of us still doing film/paper are dumb clods lost in the dark ages.

FWIW, the Christmas 2005 issue just hit the newstand here today, and I snapped up a copy, along with the Christmass 2005 issue of Outdoor Photography (my favorite magazine - can't get enough of Joe Cornish's work), right away. But, I didn't purchase the last issue.

Great work John. Congratulations!!

Jerry,

You are not going to tell me that your magazine is not driven by market forces?

Hans

Hmmm. I didn't really intend to get drawn into such a hydra headed argument.

Although I write regularly for B&W, I don't flatter myself that I have any influence over the editor's choice of content. However, regarding your point on Julien Busselle, Roteague (incidentally I've never met JB - Ailsa likes to keep us in seperate cages). I can understand your feeling that it looked like an acclamation but I suspect it was meant as shock/surprise.

I recall nearly falling through the floor myself when Eddie Ephraums told me he'd gone digital, a couple of years ago, when I was interviewing him. It came completely out of the blue and my immediate response was "this is news" - and that's how I wrote it.
Should I have drawn a veil over the unpleasant facts and walked away? Or did I have a responsibility both the readers of B&W (and to Eddie) to try to explain his position?
I would read Julien's piece as an honest explanation of his position and it isn't his or anyone else's intention to antagonise - but it is "news" in the small world of B&W.

As for your point Clogz, I agree with you - in the world of magazines, market forces may inevitably prevail.
However, Ms McWhinnie is something of a force of nature herself and probably exists in geological time. When the rest of life on earth has been exterminated, she'll be poking around in what's left looking for the last roll of Agfapan 100 (Bottles of Rodinal will, of course,present no problem).

Seriously. That's why I say that people wishing to preserve trad photography should support B&W - market forces may be inevitable but they also work both ways, it's not just about what the advertisers want to sell, it's about what the readers want to buy and read.
I can't think of anyone I'd trust more, to maintain the balance as strongly in favour of film in the face of such impossible odds, than Ailsa. Yet she still maintains the trust and goodwill of the industry.
That's why I believe she deserves support. She feels as strongly as you do - but somebody has to do the job and juggle the situation.

Now I have got to finish an article that's already 24 hours late. And, you know what, she'll have read this and she'll still be on my back...

Jerry

Well you know Jerry, Boses are like dipers...........
To me B&WP is the best mag in the world. Outdoor photography is not imported here so I have never been able to pick it up.
Even though I havn't got much time to take photos and I have given up my darkroom I still enjoy reading B&WP and I still pick it up when it hits the newsstand.
B&WP stand out in the stream of mags looking the same. I personally don't like the D parts in it but thats the way the market wan't it. We APUG's are a minority so we can't always have it our way. One thing is important though. The magazine needs to stand out and be different from the others people don't need two mags cowering the same topics the same way.
Ailsa keep up the good work.
Regards Søren

It might be worth mentioning that MONO magazine (subscription only) is the other UK based magazine excusively devoted to monochrome. This has a digital/analogue balance that is very similar to that of B&W and you sense that the editor is fundamentally pro-darkroom but cannot afford to ignore digital.

I subscribe to MONO simply because that is the only way to get it, but buy most issues of B&W from the news stand. The two magazines are quite different in many respects but both promote the art of darkroom monochrome.

Long may they prosper

Les

Thanks for that info Les!

Do you have any info on the Mono subscription?
Dave in Vegas

MONO magazine

Their web site is www.arempublishing.co.uk

Subscriptions are £12 for 6 issues a year (in the UK). It is a smaller magazine than B&W but if you subscribe you can enter your work for publication in the annual yearbook which is a collection of 160-170 of the 'best' monochrome prints from subscribers (some of those included are from the USA). The company that publishes the magazine also does mail order for chemicals, paper etc.


Les

After all that was said what I didnt see recognized was the fact that Ailsa gave APUG another plug. It was her pick for best thing found on the internet.