I've had the benefit of a personal exchange with Josh, and came away from it believing him to be thoughtful and well-intentioned. As a result, I'm absolutely willing to "wait and see."
With regard to Kevin's style and his departure, I understand what confidentiality agreements often stipulate. And the stilted acknowledgment of Kevin's hard work after Michael's passing is likely all that was possible. When those agreements are reached in "change of control" events, little else is ever said, and that's intentional. Two parties rarely wrap up this sort of transition amicably on either side. Both tend to walk away, agreement in hand, disappointed that something easier and genuinely better wasn't possible. If you want to blame someone, most likely blame attorneys.
Complaining that Kevin wasn't Michael is specious and silly. A gifted photographer he certainly is. But he's a completely different personality. And his genuine enthusiasm allowed him to play the perfect foil for Michael's persona. The videos they made together make clear that their collaboration was much more than merely the sum of the parts. With Michael's loss, Kevin soldiered on and almost immediately reached for a series of others who could speak to the high creativity and art of photography. His interviews were enthusiastic, thoughtful and appreciative. The interviews with Charles Cramer and William Neill make that clear.
Kevin's effort to stay apace of evolving photographic technology, and to bring it to LULA readers is something I appreciated and from which I benefitted. The Back to the Print series was very valuable to me. So was his interview with John Pannozzo from Colorbyte. I adopted the ImagePrint Black workflow, and it's proved a complete game-changer for my printmaking. So dismissing him as a Sony fanboy missed the point completely.
Mastering the chemical process took time and effort. At least it did for me. But I did master the use of a 4x5 view camera, and used it extensively for 25 years. The transition from chemical to digital photography is, frankly, far from done. And the technology continues to evolve rapidly. We're barely 20 years past the debut of the Nikon D1 , the first commercially viable DSLR which boasted a mere 2.7 megapixels. The first commercial mirrorless camera supporting interchangeable lenses appeared less than a decade ago. Printing technology has changed and advanced just a quickly and steadily. In the face of that pace of change, a measured focus on developing technology is warranted, and has proven very valuable to me. Wrap it in Kevin's enthusiastically positive energy, and the technical becomes both useful and highly engaging.
So I have enjoyed the Yin and Yang of the art and technology of landscape photography. More, I've benefited from both. Do I have a great deal of use for art and artist profiles that read like wine reviews? Not especially. Writers appear to struggle at times to find meaning in the otherwise meaningless, and to appear thoughtful and deep when there's no depth to be found. Some of us continue to believe that the ancient Greeks had it right in their pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty as the highest ideals and the elements of real art. Vacuous, nihilistic ugliness is no substitute. And I've been glad to see nearly none of it in LULA.
Josh has my best wishes as he finds both his feet and his voice. I choose to remain hopeful. I will, however, miss Kevin's presence, energy, and relentless, self-deprecating enthusiasm. He, too, has my very best wishes.