Kevin DeMaria, former Art Director at Gourmet Magazine took photographs of his final days at the magazine (here).
I almost wrote a piece not too long ago about food magazines because I’d unsubscribed to Gourmet but then discovered that having access to millions of recipes online is really a pain in the ass and what you need is an editor and some beautiful photographs to get your mouth watering so I resubscribed. Too bad Si killed it off. I hope they bring it back someday.
via, Will Steacy Blog
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Editing content is a big deal and getting bigger. Don’t you think?
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Posted 02 Nov 2009 at 10:14 am ¶I got my start with Romulo Yanes at Gourmet three years ago. He was one of the first photographers in New York to offer me a position as an assistant. I learned a lot in that studio and those test kitchens. I have fond memories of that place. I’m sad to see it go.
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Posted 02 Nov 2009 at 11:58 am ¶Interesting, I did the same thing at Jupiter: http://altphotoimages.com/Fine_Art/Pages/redundant.html
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Posted 02 Nov 2009 at 1:03 pm ¶First of many that will fall…?
How sad! Those pictures are heartbreaking.
My best to everyone at the magazine! You’ll be fine.
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Posted 02 Nov 2009 at 1:22 pm ¶Don’t even get me started on Conde Nast and its practice of diluting its own market share by offering multiple magazines aimed at the same readers and advertisers. Their strategy was a disaster waiting to happen — as soon as the economy turned the house of cards collapsed. One top-quality magazine is better than multiple mediocre ones. We’ll see if they now invest in Bon Appetit to make it better.
Vacated office space looks universally bleak. I wish DeMaria had done a Bill Egglestonesque shot of an empty (or past-prime contents) refrigerator in the Gourmet offices. That probably would have said it all.
As usual, it’s a shame to see good people lose their jobs because of management ineptitude.
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Posted 02 Nov 2009 at 3:51 pm ¶think I said it before but I really LOVED the photography in Gourmet. Actually not so much in the current issue I saw today. But I thought in a lot of the issues they had just great ” I wanna live like that” food photography. Real food, dark athmospheric colours, great locations. Best food mag ever!
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Posted 02 Nov 2009 at 6:25 pm ¶Apart from the story behind, those pictures of the empty offices and co-workers are very good.
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Posted 02 Nov 2009 at 6:40 pm ¶Sitting in a doctor’s office last summer, with my ill father in Paramus, NJ. I discovered GOURMET. The photography transported me to another place. They had some superb ways of shooting food, by not hiring “food photographers” but just good shooters.
Conde-Nast closing down GOURMET is like General Motors deciding to axe Cadillac and keeping Buick, Pontiac and Chevy.
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Kent Johnson Reply:
November 2nd, 2009 at 10:03 pm
@Andy,
As the song goes from The Three Penny Opera,
“(They know) the price of everything & the value of nothing.”
Well it is a song about capitalism.
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Great job Kevin!
hope you Amy, Richard, Megan, Hollis and everyone else land on their feet.
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Posted 03 Nov 2009 at 12:31 am ¶I just sent some sympathy and quick thanks to Amy K. for a shoot back in 2004. Email accounts are already dead, o if you read it here.—thanks (to everyone that put it together.)
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Posted 03 Nov 2009 at 3:12 am ¶It’s unfortunate that Gourmet has to be a casualty of the industry’s lack of imagination. Or maybe it’s a lack on the part of the money people. But at some point, someone will come up with a business model that will make magazines and newspapers viable. It probably just won’t be delivered on paper. But there is a need for such publications as Gourmet, but they probably won’t be published in the forms we have come to know.
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Posted 03 Nov 2009 at 8:22 am ¶Christ, if you’re looking for a quality recipe magazine you will not go wrong with Cooks Illustrated. Their online component is one of the few subscriptions I will pay for among all else.
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Posted 06 Nov 2009 at 8:15 pm ¶Post a Comment