Changes are coming and I would like to add a few comments. I look at this site almost every day but post very little. This is because I come here to learn – techniques, styles, ideas, you name it, from a large group of like minded people. This site exists because people respect the others on the site and the management, and they feel that contributing is a worthwhile activity with its own rewards.
With that in mind I join with all the others who have offered their thanks and best wishes to Chris and Kevin, and I wish them well for the future.
But respect needs to be earned and the people here by and large offer huge amounts of evidence of their work and a long history of photographic talent. People like that want to relate to similar people. Forum posts and articles come here because it is a place to share knowledge.
It then becomes appropriate to review the background of the new management and I found a website from October 2017 promoting a meditational event hosted by Irene Cortes and Josh Reichman:
https://readymag.com/u57659439/831053/They describe themselves as:
“About your hosts
Irene Cortes is a mother and longtime student of meditation, qigong and gongfu. She has studied the danjeon breathing tradition and seon meditation in Korea with masters in daily practice and in retreat, mentored in Shaolin xinyiba while living with Sifu Wu Nan Fang and his family in China and is a close student of Tibetan high lama Acharya Zasep Tulku Rinpoche.
Josh Reichman is a father and has been in recovery for over 13 years and is a student of Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism. Josh is a counselor practicing Contemplative Psychotherapy with a focus on addiction, offering meditation instruction and various spiritual healing practices.”
I don’t know about you but I am personally thrilled to contemplate a future for Lula unencumbered by classical photographic knowledge. Several of our most voluble forum denizens could do with spiritual healing and I can see thousands of respected photographers fighting for the privilege of contributing in a more contemplative framework.
Quite sincerely I look forward to learning a more meditative style of photography and I cannot wait to see the impact of danjeon breathing on camera reviews.
But I offer a warning. As a long time business consultant grossly overeducated with multiple degrees in real subjects, it seems to me that the accumulated respect that keeps this site going could disappear overnight unless managed carefully. Assuming Lula is a profitable enterprise I can see little that would stop Kevin and/or Chris from copying the concept and creating a Rockhoppalula or something similar.
My 2 cents.
