It was pretty obvious since Josh took this over that the quality of Lula unfortunately, noticeably declined. Although there is occasionally an article of interest, it is much rarer than it used to be. Starting with the badly handled transition to Josh to articles of lesser interest - I totally agree with the comment about the Master series, nothing even close to that has appeared - it's just not the go-to site that, for many of us, it used to be. And, no, I don't think it's about the lack of exciting new equipment. Lula used to be a learning place, whether it was about equipment or technique. No longer. Now, it is about Josh's self-indulgent writing that I find terribly off-putting.
Well there you go: I never read his writings because I have no access to the pay-for bits of the site. As such, I cannot comment on his musings. But, as with the single member of this site whose posts I have blocked, it makes no negative difference to my life and I can still enjoy the bits of LuLa that interest me.
Pretending that the writing immediately previous to Josh's time was in any way wonderful is surprising: I often found it quite tedious. As with the video "performances", a lot less was often a lot more; I think Chris Sanderson did a wonderful job in getting anything out of the process and making a show for us to see. There is a reason why superstars become superstars and the rest not even eye candy.
As far as I can tell, all the expertise upon which you need to draw to get yourself going in digital photography and printing is still freely available on LuLa, from those very experts who have historically been so generous with both time and patience. What more does anybody require?
If LuLa was ever meant to be a learning-only place, then it would have no long-term membership. Once you know what's what and can fly with your own wings, you would move on to something or somewhere more fulfilling of your newly discovered abilities. How many times a day, week, month, year or even decade do you go back to visit your old school? I have never been back.
However, unlike school, LuLa has provided a meeting place - a forum, would you believe? - where one can correspond with people one likes by choice, not from any sense of obligation to something larger.
Master series. Be wary of developing crushes on any photographic hero; perhaps the worst aspect of the now technically possible access to them that the Internet allows, is that when you see a few interviews with them, they mostly turn out to be little more than endless loops running the same jokes and contrived anecdotes. It's like watching several different takes of the same scene, and wishing the editor would make up his mind and settle for one goddam cut! The graveyards of heroes are littered with the remains of their shattered feet of clay. If you can find two or three with whom you can travel the course of your life, you have done well; many more than that and you have just let your judgement slip right on down and over the cliff.
Interesting articles demand two things: interesting topics and capable, imaginative writers. In this modern photographic world, we have pretty much consumed them all. The supply is not infinite.
If one wants to make LuLa interesting, then become a nett contributor, not just a reader who, in other than fiscal terms, can contribute nothing. It's the chat between members and enjoyment of some occasional photographs that make it all worth the electricity bill.