Lenswork - Ouch!

[jeroldharter]

Originally Posted by Lee Shively

Barnes and Noble encourages this and it doesn't appear to hurt their sales any. That's why the chairs are there. And what's the difference in going to the library to read a magazine or book for free and going to the local B&N?

But my opinion aside, I don't frequent the bookstore reading chairs much anymore due to the constant cell phone conversations taking place all around.

Based on the information from Lenswork here, why would B&N not encourage it? You can buy their coffee at a huge markup while reading the publisher's soon to be shredded magazine for free. I can understand someone standing in the aisle, browsing magazines for something to buy. But I think it is pretty poor form to take a stack of magazines over to the couch and sack out for an hour with no intention of purchasing them. Could I test drive that Toyota for about 150,000 miles and then return it?

[Jeremy]

Originally Posted by MurrayMinchin

One way to sell your work is to create a following...a body of people who'll buy your work. Picker did it, Michael and Paula are doing it, and so is Brooks. This can be a good thing for the rest of us if we value the band wagon they're hawking their wares from.

I benefited from Pickers technological leaps and I enjoy LensWork's quality reproductions, even if they are always warm.

Murray

Murray, I agree with you and I don't know what I would do if I were in his place, but from my current perspective I now question how/why portfolios get picked for publication.

[lenswork]

I do hear you and the comments about publishing my own work. This came up in another thread a while back. Sorry it offends some of you, but may I ask a couple of questions?

I am a photographer, too, and was long before I was a publisher. If I'm not permitted to publish my own work, who would? What do you suppose would be Henry Rassmussen's, or Tim Anderson's, or Steve Simmons' reactions if I were to submit a portfolio of my work to them for publication in their magazines? It may not have occurred to any of you (like it has to me), but I am probably the one fine art photographer in the world who has no possibility of ever being published in any magazine, anywere -- except LensWork. So, at the risk of offending a few folks, I've taken the risk and published my own work three times in the magazine -- issue #15, issue #37, and issue #70. Three times in 14 years. I guess that's too much for some people.

BTW, does it also bother you that Michael and Paula publish their own books? What about John Sexton and Ventana Press (his wholly owned "publishing" company)? Is it wrong when Al Weber publicizes his own workshops in his newsletter? Should Bruce Barnbaum not use his own images to illustrate his workshop catalog -- or sell his own prints while he's teaching?

I chose to publish my Wakarimasen folio for two very specific reasons: First, it illustrated a point which we fully developed in the Editor's Comments of the following issue. My work -- alongside Joe Lipka's portfolio from the exact same location, photographed at the same time -- made, I think, a strong case illustrating the point of that article. I thought it was a good point and a lesson that was worth sharing both in concept and in finished form.

Second, in the fourteen years we've been publishing LensWork, we've received so few portfolios of abstracts I can probably count them on one hand. Oliver Gagliani in issue #14; Carl Chiarenza in issue #29, Tom Florio in issue #35, David L. Smith in issue #39, and my work in issue #70. That's an average of one abstract portfolio every three years. As those of you who have been reading APUG threads know, sometimes LensWork gets criticized for too many "rocks and trees" portfolios (although there are actually fewer of them than folks think) so we do like to spice things up from time to time with something a bit more "visually challenging." I really like my abstract work -- a lot. Okay, I am obviously not at all objective about it , but it's the truth. I think it's damned good. I thought it looked great in the magazine. Some folks agreed and wrote some very nice emails about it which I appreciated more than they know.

But, this is artwork we're talking about, and it is not to be expected that one body of work could be everyone's cup of tea. That's life. If I offended some of you, I guess that's the risk I take. I'll probably do it again. Maybe in another 4 or 5 years you'll see another project of mine in the magazine. I guess I should apologize in advance.

In the meantime, I have a compromise that we started with issue #72. We published an "Editor's Gallery" as a part of LensWork Extended (but not in the magazine) so I have a place to show some of my own work in a venue that might not ruffle feathers so much. And for those of you who think that it's an acceptable idea that a publisher of a photography magazine is a photographer himself, well, you're welcome to take a look from time to time at some of my work there. Acceptable?

Brooks

[Curt]

One of the reasons APUG exists is because some photographers feel the process is just as important as the composition. That is the reason for the complaint.
I discriminate against those using DSLRs for fine art, simply because I find digital capture inferior to using film, and don't find it a tool for fine art. Digital is fine for reporting, but LensWork is supposed to be about fine art. So, I choose which issue based upon this.

That about sums up what I was saying.

Thanks Robert,

Curt

[Curt]

Based on the information from Lenswork here, why would B&N not encourage it? You can buy their coffee at a huge markup while reading the publisher's soon to be shredded magazine for free. I can understand someone standing in the aisle, browsing magazines for something to buy. But I think it is pretty poor form to take a stack of magazines over to the couch and sack out for an hour with no intention of purchasing them. Could I test drive that Toyota for about 150,000 miles and then return it?

How true, I often have to pull a copy from the back of the stack to get one without major use.

[Jeremy]

Originally Posted by lenswork

In the meantime, I have a compromise that we started with issue #72. We published an "Editor's Gallery" as a part of LensWork Extended (but not in the magazine) so I have a place to show some of my own work in a venue that might not ruffle feathers so much. And for those of you who think that it's an acceptable idea that a publisher of a photography magazine is a photographer himself, well, you're welcome to take a look from time to time at some of my work there. Acceptable?

Brooks

Brooks,

Thank you for adding to the discussion. You make a very convincing case and I agree with you, though it did give me pause when I saw your work in the magazine without this information here.

As for your comparison to self-published books I think there is a correlation here, but it may be spotty. Michael and Paula do publish other people's work, but the core of their publishing company is to print high quality books of their own work. As you said, you've only published your own work 3 times and therefore the point of Lenswork is obviously not to print your own work. I think my problem is that I don't think of Lenswork as "yours" even though it is because I'm not used to thinking of a magazine in such a way; this is obviously my hang-up and not yours.

I still think Lenswork puts out a great, high quality magazine.

[lenswork]

How do we select work? Here is the short version. . .

First, we look at every portfolio we receive and some of them get immediately rejected -- primarily because they are simply not good enough for further consideration. They may be printed poorly (common), a random collection of images that don't hold together as a project (common), or just badly executed (less common).

Of the work that survives the first cut, passing the next hurdle is where most work fails to progress. Quite simply, it is all too common that the work is boring or derivative. We've been doing this so long now, we can often tell whose workshop someone has been to based on the submission we receive. For example, I cannot begin to count the number of submissions we've seen over the years of the Anasazi ruins, the slit canyons, sand dunes, lacy Havasu waterfall, etc.

Next, is there enough? We really struggle with some work, because it's wonderful work, but only, say, 6 images or so. Sometimes there are 8 or 10 great images and then another dozen that are not so good. If there isn't enough to be a full portfolio, we have to reject it even though we really like some of it. (We're working now on an idea that can help with this problem. Stay tuned.)

Next, if it's an abandoned place, we set it aside. We sometimes publish them -- they can be very interesting portfolios. But, in general, it's a rare submission review around LensWorkland that doesn't include at least five or six portfolios of some abandoned factory, abandoned house, abandoned farm, abandoned cemetery, abandoned town, etc. I've come to think of this kind of work as being "easy" in the sense that abandoned places usually don't require permission to enter, are often nostalgic by nature, and no one is going to come up and ask you what you are doing there with a camera. Whatever the reason, we reject far, far more of the these than we could ever publish.

There is usually a small pile we reject because every single blasted image is dead center. Bullet composition. Boring.

So, with what's left, we add them to our "publishing board." This is the roster of candidates that we are interested in publishing. Each time we approach a deadline, we sit down with the publishing board, review all the work that is there and start looking for combinations that we think would make a good issue. We don't -- for example -- want to have two landscape portfolios in the same issue. To preserve the "anthology" nature of LensWork, we mix and match for good combinations of work that seem to complement one another, or at the very least don't compete with one another. We also look back a couple of issues (and forward a bit) to try to select work that is not too similar to something we've recently done. This is often harder than you might guess, because the minute we publish a body of work, it seems to communicate to other photographers that we like that kind of work and we suddenly get a number of similar portfolios all arriving at once. Bad timing.

We move things around on the board until we feel we have a good fit, good timing, and strong work. Eventually, we make a decision what goes in and the rest of the portfolios on the publishing board are carried over to the next issue for re-consideration. If they repeatedly don't get selected, eventually we send them back. That's about it.

The one thing that often shocks people when I describe this may not be obvious until I mention it. We never look at what equipment they use; we don't care how it was printed; your fame or status in the photo world is never a factor in selection or rejection. I can honestly say that in 14 years I am yet to read a single curriculum vitae. Simply not interested in your degrees, experience, exhibition history, publishing success, etc. The work must stand on its own. Period. For some, this might seem ruthless. We think of it as a strict meritocracy.

Hope this gives a bit of insight into our process.
Brooks

[roteague]

Originally Posted by lenswork

How do we select work? Here is the short version. . .

First, we look at every portfolio we receive and some of them get immediately rejected -- primarily because they are simply not good enough for further consideration.

...

We never look at what equipment they use; we don't care how it was printed;

Brooks,

Thanks for passing along how your submission process works, that is very helpful. You may want to remember that what equipment is used may not mean anything to you, but it means quite a bit to a lot of APUG members - just a thought. FWIW, I have no problem with your film work being presented in LensWork; you are an accomplished photographer, with a very interesting, and enjoyable, body of work.

[jeroldharter]

Brooks,

I have enjoyed reading your posts. I will traveling soon so I will buy a copy of Lenswork for the trip and then subscribe.

[michael9793]

Now there is a class act. This is how you handle Misc. BS information and getting it right from the horses mouth. [...]
My favorite work was from one of the last issues the (can't remember her name) one from the antarctic.
thanks again for the issues.

michael andersen