Lenswork Online

[ckimmerle]

Last week I transferred my Lenswork DVD subscription to an online subscription (still get the magazine), and so far am really enjoying the experience. In addition to the standard DVD content, Brooks and company have included quite a bit of additional materials such as video and audio interviews, reader profiles and portfolios, and a couple of instructional videos which they previously charged for.

As is usual with any new business model, there are positives and negatives. I reduce waste by no longer getting a DVD in a plastic case which inevitably gets thrown out (can't recycle that type of plastic here), I get all of the extra content, and I can choose between versions for my computer or a tablet or both. I do have a couple of issues, though, and both are minor. For one, the interface, while perfectly functional and easy to use, is a bit low end and simplistic. Lenswork is such a high-quality publication, I think the online interface should be a bit more elegant. The second, which comes with the territory, is that each profile (interview/portfolio), if I want to save it to my computer, must be downloaded individually. It would be nice if we were able to download the entire issue with a single click. I just right click, save as..., right click, save as..., to save all of the PDF's, so it's still pretty simple and quick.

Those issues aside (and please don't, for a second, think that they're big deals), it's a great way to get the digital content of Lenswork.

Like it or not, that's the future.

And, FWIW, I think the latest issue, #96, is very strong.

[Geoff Wittig]

I find the difference in perspective fascinating.
I exchanged e-mails with Brooks Jensen expressing my concern that this was the first step on a slippery slope toward the death of the print version of Lenswork. He assured me this was not the case.

However, to my eye the print quality of Lenswork, always extremely high and a large part of the magazine's appeal, has begun to slide a bit. The most recent issue is printed on such thin stock that the high key images bleed through to the opposite side of the sheet. It may be that it's just an artifact of the content of that specific portfolio (lots of high key photos as opposed to the usual rich dark images), but I remain very concerned that Lenswork Online is the beginning of the end. As more content appears in electronic form, we may see a rapid death spiral where print subscriptions quickly decline until it's no longer financially viable to keep printing them.

That would make me extremely sad. I consider the print version of Lenswork a real work of art, one I've been collecting since around #30. No matter how compelling the content, Lenswork Online will still be just another website with images existing solely as 'here today, gone tomorrow' electrons.

[ckimmerle]

There's no denying that the day of hard-copy periodicals and books is coming to an end. It's a natural progression which will replace most paper with pixels, no different than what digital has done to photography. It's not a question of "IF".

Personally, I find it sad as I very much like the tangible feel of Lenswork, but that's nothing more than nostalgia, I guess. I no longer miss film and, when the time comes, I'm sure I'll feel the same way about paper....maybe.

As to the latest Lenswork issue, I, too, noticed that the paper stock wasn't thick enough to be opaque with the high key images. Comparing it to LW #59, it's noticeable thinner for the same number of pages. I'm guessing they went from 80 lb. stock to 60 lb., perhaps even changing manufacturers. It was rather annoying for the high-key Juracek portfolio. When I commented that I thought the latest issue was quite good, I was speaking about the image content, which I still think is impressive all around.

[Geoff Wittig]

You're arguing that image content is the only thing that matters, not the artifact of the print or the form the image takes. I could not disagree more. I don't consider it 'nostalgia' to value a genuine tangible physical work of art more than a vaporous stream of electrons that disappears the moment the power is turned off. Image content trumps presentation if you're talking family snapshots or photojournalism. But photographs that have some pretensions to art? I don't think so. The physical print explicitly presents a wide range of interpretive and aesthetic choices: this tonal distribution, not that one. This surface texture and gloss, not that one. As an artist, this is what I want you to see.

Presenting the image as a dis-embodied electronic image amputates it from all that aesthetic nuance. It's a cartoon version of the image. I'm reminded of an excellent essay in the New York Times magazine circa 1997 on the subject of the paradigm shift from the traditional music CD or record album to disembodied single digital files. The writer noted that this eliminated all nuance, sequencing, and implicit meaning from a song intended to fit into the context of a larger work. I believe that disembodied jpeg's are basically 'castrated' when compared against the carefully and deliberately crafted print.

The magazine business is certainly on the skids, but I believe this has more to do with the collapse of advertising revenue than anything else. And my understanding is that sales of photobooks are stable or rising, though the the collapse of the retail bookselling system is worrisome. It's hard to buy photo books sight-unseen from Amazon, without the chance to personally examine print quality. Which I think supports my contention.

[Chairman Bill]

We don't see Lenswork on UK newsagents' shelves, so never having seen a physical copy, comment becomes less informed. That said, my tuppence worth ... we used to have some good quality photographic journals here in the UK - Camera was excellent, heavy-weight paper, good quality reproduction of 'art' photography. Not a commercial success. Alongside such doyens were Practical Photography, Amateur Photographer, and a couple of others, aimed at the 'lower' end of the market. Today we seem to have eleventy thousand crappy magazines devoted to digital photography. Camera is no more, and the British Journal of Photography is really no alternative. Black & White Photography is pretty much as good as it gets here now.

The US is a much larger market, and can no doubt sustain publications of the quality of Camera, which is where I suspect Lenswork fits into the grand scheme of things. Long may that continue, for I'd hate for you to have to end up with anything like the UK market. From where I sit, the electronic version of Lenswork sounds interesting as a potential 'high end' publication the UK so lacks.

Edit: typo

[ckimmerle]

Black & White Photography is pretty much as good as it gets here now.

The vast majority of U.S. photo magazines are horrible, as well. They're a lopsided mix of ads, gear reviews (ugh!), and Photoshop tricks, with a few pages devoted to portfolios (they seem to prefer those with gaudy, overly-saturated colors). There are only a handful of high-quality magazines.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

There are only a handful of high-quality magazines.

A very tiny handful, I'm afraid, of which Lenswork is quite lonely at the top.

Eric

[ckimmerle]

Image content trumps presentation if you're talking family snapshots or photojournalism. But photographs that have some pretensions to art? I don't think so. The physical print explicitly presents a wide range of interpretive and aesthetic choices: this tonal distribution, not that one. This surface texture and gloss, not that one. As an artist, this is what I want you to see.

Your talking about magazine reproductions as if they're artist's prints, which they are not. They are simply representations of original art, and inexact representations, at that.

[louoates]

I enjoy each issue of the magazine and the DVD. The DVD is especially good at showing the color work and the additional content that is beyond the size of the magazine. If the magazine were to stop tomorrow I'd be perfectly happy with the DVD.

[Geoff Wittig]

Your talking about magazine reproductions as if they're artist's prints, which they are not. They are simply representations of original art, and inexact representations, at that.

Well, yes and no.
If you mean typical 'lowest common denominator' magazine reproduction, that's obvious. There's simply no comparison between a fine inkjet or darkroom print and the reproductions in the average consumer magazine. It's not apples & oranges, it's apples and week-old coffee grounds. On the other hand, Lenswork manages a D-max and tonal range that just about matches a good darkroom or inkjet print, and with diligent on-press attention to quality and consistency during the print run, it's amazing what can be achieved. This is the one area where I feel a bit of disquiet regarding the primacy of a hand-crafted fine print as the genuine art work; Brooks Jensen has pointed out that high end duotone offset printing, with a lot of skill and care, can produce output that is virtually indistinguishable from the best inkjet or darkroom print you can make. Richard Benson (former head of Yale's art department and author of The Printed Picture) actually uses his own personal 4 color offset press for much of his photo printing because he's become so expert in its use. Of course, you need a warehouse and $100,000 to own one, but still.

And any image in print form, even a magazine reproduction, is a (relatively) stable, real, physical artifact with fixed properties. Well, until the ink starts to fade. Images on screen by comparison are like nailing jello to a wall. Between the vagaries of conflicting colorspaces, deficient or absent profiles, fading phosphors, drifting LCD's, ambient light on the screen and "who knows?" screen contrast, the 'photograph' the viewer sees may bear scant resemblance to the original intent.

As an aside, I swapped e-mails with Brooks Jensen, and he indicates that Lenswork will be shifting to a slighty heavier and more opaque paper due to the bleed-through problem we noticed in #96. Yay!