Category Archives: Blog News

this is not the salvation that most publishing companies have been looking for

…because nothing can save publishing as it’s been operating for the past several decades. The iPad does nothing to change the brutal mandate that has been pushing publishers to change for these many years; if anything it compounds the imperative.
via Subtraction.com.

Fashion mags post March win

The recovery is underway for the nation’s fashion magazines, which many consider a bellwether for the rest of the consumer magazine industry.
via NYPost.com.

Condé Nast’s Culture Shift

Editors also are tasked with coming up with new revenue ideas, in another culture shift for Condé Nast, said another source, adding, “At this company, editors spend money.”
via MediaWeek.

why it’s so important to get it right when you can

“This is also why poor photography, published poorly is so damaging. People are only going to look so many times. Once their quota on the subject is filled, they’ll stop looking. This past week has shown me very few memorable images. I’m afraid as photographers we’ve missed our window to make a lasting impact on [...]

‘Mad Men’ Haven’t Changed Much Since The 1960s

“…if an anthropologist wanted to come back and see what discrimination [was] like in 1970, you’ve got it right here in the ad industry.”
via NPR.

Failing Like a Buggy Whip Maker? Better Check Your Simile

There were 13,000 businesses in the wagon and carriage industry in 1890, Mr. Kinney said. A company survived not by conceiving of itself as being in the “personal transportation” business, but by commanding technological expertise relevant to the automobile, he said. “The people who made the most successful transition were not the carriage makers, but [...]

Inside the Minds of Bill Stockland and Maureen Martel

“…we are very clear: We’re not the muse. We don’t want to be. They have to come with a muse or their own inspiration. They have to do personal work. Personal projects, editorial outside of the advertising arena so that we can take that work and package it and bring it to our communities.”
via Resolve

sexy women, sexy vampires and sexy lighting

…it’s crucial that young talents understand that photography is about more than sexy women, sexy vampires and sexy lighting. A photographer needs time to develop their voice and vision- listening, learning and shooting is the best way to get there.
via HeatherMortonArt buyer.

Abort Now – Become A Truck Driver!

My primary objectives right now are to breath and survive. I’m at that point, 3 years in, when most sane people get out. It’s the true test, are you crazy enough to go forward when a brontosaurus-sized neon sign is flashing “ABORT NOW – BECOME A TRUCK DRIVER!” As photographer, Keith [...]

Google is “F-ing with the magic”

Mel went on to explain that back when he was the CEO of CBS, advertising had no accountability – no return on investment.
“You buy a commercial in the Super Bowl… and you had no idea if it worked! You had no idea if you sold product… if it did any good,” Karmazin said. “I loved [...]

A Gift Waiting at Every Corner: Notes from a Life in Photography

I am both humbled and hopeful when I think of the number of times all over the world that I have seen people define themselves not by their possessions or wealth, but by the grace, courage, and profound decency in their gestures and behavior.
– Peter Turnley via The Online Photographer

how to make a living playing music

“determine if you are actually called to be a musician. if you aren’t called, all the gyrations in the world, won’t make it work. if you are called, no matter what you do, it’s going to work. this determination will solve most of the problems you are going to encounter.”
via Ol’ Danny Barnes.

Irving Penn – He Got Beneath the Surface of People — and Things

Brodovitch, impressed with Penn’s eye for graphics, hired Penn as an unpaid assistant.
via NYTimes.com.

Technology Predictions Are Mostly Bunk – WSJ.com

“The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys,”
Sir William Preece, chief engineer at the British Post Office, 1878.
“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”
H.M. Warner, Warner Bros., 1927.
via Gordon Crovitz:- WSJ.com.

2010 Is All About Getting Personal

I’m actually phasing [E-blasts] out of my marketing plans for the coming year. The open rates and click through rates are down considerably…click through used to be almost 20%, now I’m lucky to get 2 or 3%. And all the art buyers I talk to are actively opting out and/or deleting without viewing.
2010 is all [...]

Always At Your Best

“Only the mediocre are always at their best.”
–Jean giraudoux

Ernest Hemingway’s Tips For Writing Well

“I write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit,” Hemingway confided to F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1934. “I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.”
via  Copyblogger.

The Future of Photography (Popular Photography 1944)

I FEEL THAT the camera finds its main importance as a recording and communicating mechanism, and I should like to see it develop until it takes its place with the pencil and the typewriter as an instrument of our everyday language. Photography should be taught in the schools along with penmanship as part of postwar [...]