Hi Doug,
As many have mentioned, Lenswork is an inspiring read. I would however suggest Lenswork is largely caught up in the 'West Coast American' black & white ideal of photography (steming from the aesthetics of Paul Strand, Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, etc).
I'm always on the look out for a good article OR ten on photography, but I find that it's hard to find decent interviews with inspired photographers and image makers. There are plenty of inspired photographers out there, but maybe inspiring writers/interviewers are harder to find?
Why is it that nearly every photography article is written to this age old formula of: Where did you begin? Who influenced your direction? What equipment do you use? How have you found the transition to digital? These formulated questions have little scope for new and inspiring reading.
It's because Lensworks editior Brooks Jensen thinks a little outside of the square that Lenswork continues to provide engaging reading.
At the same time, maybe it's me... I spend so much of my personal and professional time considering creative practice, workflow, pricing, business and imaging that it's getting harder to find engaging reading within photography periodicals.
I can however suggest a couple of Australian based magazines that I think deliver a similar level of reading to Lenswork, yet they open us up to a wider scope of photography creatives.
Check out:
Better Photography (published quarterly)
http://www.betterphotography.com.au/and
Capture Magazine (published bi-monthly by Yaffa Publishing)
http://www.yaffa.com.au/mags/cphmag.htm'Capture' is directed at professionals and in my opinion blows both 'Professional Photographer' and 'Rangefinder Magazine' out of the water.
'Better Photography' is probably the best written and printed
general interest photography magazine around. (
general interest, meaning it covers from enthusiasts to professionals through a wide range of fields in photography and digital imaging.)
Two other notible mentions are:
Digital Photo Pro (published bi-monthly)
http://www.digitalphotopro.com/and
Picture 'For the emerging professional photographer' (published bi-monthly)
http://www.picturemagazine.com/However, after reading a few editions of any these magazines I do find they become formulated in their scope. No doubt, variety is the spice of life.
When the writing style contained within a magazine starts to get stale, I just look to the photographs within these magazines. Better yet, there comes a time when one has to stop reading and start seeing the world through their own eyes.
Das Bosun
