Magazines Drop on Newsstands

MediaWeek Reports:

Vanity Fair lost 12.8 percent at newsstand, part of an overall circ drop of 6.3 percent to 1.2 million—but in the second half of 2006, the magazine published much-sought-after photos of baby Suri, spawn of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.

GQ’s sales dropped 9.1 percent to 913,580, after subscribers to the shuttered Cargo were transferred to GQ but opted not to sign up for that title when renewal time came.

Read it (here).

Canon Iris Watermark Patent

Slashdot is reporting on a patent filing by Canon for a process where the viewfinder takes an image of your iris to use as a biological watermark. Sweet.

Read it (here).

How To Be Creative

Great old post about creativity on the Gaping Void.

1. Ignore everybody.

Read the other 35 (here). Thanks to Dave Cone.

Money Advice for Creatives

Written for writers but it reads the same if you’re a photographer.

Money quote:

“If you don’t mind your own business then others will do it for you — and make no mistake that you will lose out, not because the people you are working with are evil or shifty, but simply because they are approaching their end like it is a business and will naturally take anything you leave on the table. That’s business. That’s how business works.”

Read it *here.* Via, Ben Casnocha.

Irving Penn’s Blue-Collar Portraits

Acquired by the Getty Museum in LA. Everyone will find this part of the story very interesting:

“Weston Naef, the Getty’s senior photography curator, said that the museum had been working to acquire the series for more than five years, but the sticking point had been copyright ownership of the images. In many cases, he said, Mr. Penn and Condé Nast, which owns Vogue, share the copyrights to Mr. Penn’s images. And the Getty, which had long insisted that it be given copyright power over the trade series, along with the master set of the photographs, decided in the end to abandon the copyright demand.”

Thanks Bruce. Via NYTimes (here).

Discusson on Portraiture Over at Conscientious

Joerg and Miguel Garcia-Guzman asked a whole swath of the photographic community what makes a great portrait. All the different opinions makes for great reading.

Love this quote from Bill Hunt: “…My own take on this genre, after many years of looking at and collecting photographs, most always images of people, is that portraiture by and large fails to connect the viewer and the sitter in any sort of revelatory and meaningful way.”

Link (here).

More On Sartorialist As A Photographer

This one was worth the wait. Robert Wright begins his Yale MFA dissertation (kidding) with “The Farmer, The Skilled Tradesman, The Woman, Classes and Professions, The Artists, The City, The Last People and The Sartorialist: an Appreciation or, Its the economy, Stupid.”

Money quote: “…it seems to be “attention aesthetic” is a good way to describe the style of The Sartorialists photographs. The photography only has to be good enough to create and keep your attention. It is not a photograph or a question of fine art but a kind of a conversation,…”

Read it (here).

Thomas Broening Interviews Art Buyer Jen Small

A couple highlights.

On using her experience to suggest photographers:
“The art directors I know are not interested in having a photography education. …They want to own the whole process because they have to stand and say I made this decision. And they don’t care about my opinion. It would be naive to think that my opinion is the decisive one.”

On the conference call try-out with a photographer:
“…It is really hard because it boils down to a personality contest. I am sorry but there it is.”

Read it (here).

What’s Really Wrong With Newspapers

From, Rogue Columnist:

… What’s less noted is how newspapers themselves contributed to the dumbing down of America.

… A startlingly conformist agenda emerged all over: design over content; short, uninteresting (but non-irritating to advertisers) stories, etc. The universe of different tactics, strategies and innovations that a competitive industry would have evolved never happened. The industry became strikingly inwardly focused, insulated from a changing world.

… Leadership collapsed under the weight of these forces. A generation of managers that would go along with these dictates rose, while those with other ideas were pushed out or aside. These surviving managers – of course with honorable exceptions – were singularly incapable of dealing with the historic turning points facing newspapers

Link (via, Boing Boing)

Vanity Fair Exhibition- No Shortage of Hyperbole

Next month sees an exhibition of 150 of Vanity Fair’s defining images open at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

If Hollywood is a dream factory, then this magazine is its ethereal brochure.

[Vanity Fair editor] Graydon [Carter] commands a serious loyalty and that filters down to the photo department. They are so down to earth and straightforward.

To all intents and purposes, Vanity Fair is not just a window on the dream, it is the dream.

Via, The Independent (here).  Thanks John.

I just barfed on my shoes.

Joerg Offers Portfolio Reviews

Joerg Colberg of Conscientious is offering very inexpensive portfolio reviews (here). I actually can’t believe how cheap they are ($75) and I’d grab one before the price goes up. Who wouldn’t want a review from someone who’s spent the last 5 years cataloging the finest photography on the planet? Hell, I’d throw 75 bucks down a well if I thought it would make me a better photographer.