Photography Magazines Crack Me Up!

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BillRogers

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The mainstream photography magazines always manage to crack me up. Here are three examples from current issues.

Popular Photography, February 2007, Page 17. In the third column, near the bottom, here are PopPhoto's standards for submitting JPEG files - "72 dpi is fine." I guess that means it's OK to send them a 5000 x 5000 pixel JPEG file, as long as it's at 72 dpi.

No magazine consistently tickles my funny bone like Professional Photographer, however. January 2007, page 6, under the big photograph. "Living a conscious life nourishes Hollye Schumacher ..." Living a conscious life? Well, I certainly hope so. It's better than the alternative.

And on page 72, here's a fine quote from Doug Box. "With the technique described here, ambient light acts as fill light. I call it ambient fill lighting." Doug, what a clever name to give this technique! I call it a clever name to give this technique.

:bang:


Bill Rogers
 
trittium said:
Funny Bill. I always like recieving my Rangefinder magazing where they never mention anything about rangefinders.
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It's not a real magazine. It's just an advertising platform. Its content is zero. I made a big mistake subscribing, even tho it was free. And they even send me TWO of the damn things now.

/Ira
 
Topdog1 said:
It's not a real magazine. It's just an advertising platform.

/Ira
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That sounds like a lot of magazines I can think of :)

One UK photo magazine once trumpeted their review of the then new Canon D60. The "review" turned out to be a corporate jolly to Japan (obviously at Canon's expense) for several of the editorial staff who, perhaps unsurprisingly, loved the camera. They made it their camera of the year, again unsurprisingly. Three months later the camera was discontinued. If that's not advertising I don't know what is.
 
Sad, but true. That's why I don't spend much time with photo magazines anymore. In fact, that's why I spend all of my time HERE - on the great RFF!

/Ira
 
Topdog1 said:
Sad, but true. That's why I don't spend much time with photo magazines anymore. In fact, that's why I spend all of my time HERE - on the great RFF!

/Ira
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Same here. Stopped reading photo mags many years ago.
 
The only two I find worth anything are Black and White Photography (UK) - good darkroom techniques and tips, and Lenswork (although I wouldn't call this a magazine) - great images.
Nick
 
A few years ago Pop Photo was caught in a gross error in a camera review. Their excuse was, 'they just used the CD provided by the manufacturer'. I guess they don't have to really evaluate the products anymore, just take the promotional CD and reproduce for an article. :cool:
 
I still read PDN and ViewCamera - but that's about it. Magazines in general have been getting worse. I think they've all cut their proofreading jobs to save money.

Yay for sacrificing quality.

Some argue that provided that the content/intent is clear, usage carries the day, and the rest is too costly for the relatively minor improvement.


I hate those people.
 
Bill,
Read carefully PopPhoto mag. They want files no more then 100kbytes for first evaluation. If you enter the first 3, you will know and then they will ask you to email them real image 300 dpi and the story about. I already was in last year.
 
Well, there's also Camera Arts, which I did subscribe to a few times (in both its incarnations), and which I'll subscribe to again when I can, along with LensWork. Other than that, yes, the mainstream photo mags truly bite, at least here in the States. (Of course, I feel the same about most mainstream mags here).


- Barrett
 
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I'm gradually letting my subscriptions lapse. Aperture is gone from my mailbox, and Professional Photographer soon will be. But where will I get my chuckles? I don't watch telly ...
 
There used to be few nice tutorial-type magazines published from time-to-time -- sort of special editions that are interesting. However I find the full court press by photography magazines towards digital just revolting. I also find most of the award winning photos published in magazines like Shutterbug just awful. Even some of the arty expensive magazines are pretty banal IMO -- everyone seems want to get a 4X5 and imitate Ansel Adams.
 
BillRogers said:
The mainstream photography magazines always manage to crack me up. Here are three examples from current issues.

Popular Photography, February 2007, Page 17. In the third column, near the bottom, here are PopPhoto's standards for submitting JPEG files - "72 dpi is fine." I guess that means it's OK to send them a 5000 x 5000 pixel JPEG file, as long as it's at 72 dpi.
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That IS exactly what they mean, and there's nothing wrong with it. I have the same kind of problem every day at work, dealing with marketing people who get to make demands without knowing anything about what they're demanding: "Send me a high-res file." [me] "What do you mean by 'high-res'?" [marketing person] "You know, 300 dee pee eye. That's what the vendor says he needs."

Now in fact, I could send them a 150-pixel-by-150-pixel icon with its resolution set to 300ppi in Photoshop, and that would be exactly what they asked for -- but it wouldn't be useful for much.

All that really matters is pixel count, and the people at Pop know that, so by telling you that 72dpi (screen default for Photoshop) is fine, they avoid the risk of telling people to do something they don't really understand, and having them generate uselessly large files.
 
jlw said:
That IS exactly what they mean, and there's nothing wrong with it. I have the same kind of problem every day at work, dealing with marketing people who get to make demands without knowing anything about what they're demanding: "Send me a high-res file." [me] "What do you mean by 'high-res'?" [marketing person] "You know, 300 dee pee eye. That's what the vendor says he needs."

Now in fact, I could send them a 150-pixel-by-150-pixel icon with its resolution set to 300ppi in Photoshop, and that would be exactly what they asked for -- but it wouldn't be useful for much.
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I'm the AD of a magazine - we ended up clarifying the requirements by saying 300dpi at publication size of 5x5 inches.

Of course, every once in a while somebody just takes their web file, and resamples it up. But that seems to have caught most of the worst offenders.
 
This was from a 1946 issue of Pop Photography.

"When the time comes that defeated Japan is again permitted to enjoy the benefits of world trade, a vast market for photographic goods of all sorts will open to American exporters. Japanese photographers recognize the superiority of our photographic products over theirs and are anxiously awaiting the opportunity to purchase American cameras and equipment".

So much for their ability to predict the future of photography.

Dean
 
The photo magazines here in Sweden are quite good, at least FOTO (old magazine, been around for ever) and Kamera & Bild. Good reviews, OK articles and in FOTO you can usually find interesting interviews and articles on photographers and not just technical mumbo-jumbo and this-is-how-you-take-nice-pictures-of-your-dog-articles.
 
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Topdog1 said:
It's not a real magazine. It's just an advertising platform. Its content is zero. I made a big mistake subscribing, even tho it was free. And they even send me TWO of the damn things now.

/Ira
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I finally (I hope) got them to end my "free subscription" by continually refusing to respond to the "RENEW NOW - OR THIS COULD BE YOUR FNAL ISSUE"! Of course I got the same notice on issues for six-months before they finally (?) gave up!
 
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