If you have a passion for photography, or, for that matter, any artistic medium, and do not read LensWork magazine, I would highly recommend that you stop reading this post for a moment (yes, it's that important :>) and visit this page of the LensWork website instead.....but please do come back!
LensWork is a magazine (actually, journal sounds like a better word, as a magazine sounds like something you throw away, and you won’t) that deals purely with the creative aspects of photography.
What you won't find:
Equipment reviews
How-to articles
Technique articles
Advertisements
Articles about creativity and the creative process
Wonderful black and white photographic portfolios (usually three or four per issue)
Cutting humor (c’mon, you know it’s there….Bill Jay’s endnotes, what a great way to end each issue!)
Ideas worth thinking about and discussing
In my opinion, it is simply the best photography journal available today. I look forward to the arrival of each and every issue and can say with total honesty that I read it, literally, from cover to cover. My only complaint is that I wish it were published even more frequently than every other month. It is a bargain at any price.
By the way, take a look at LensWork Extended as well. It is a multimedia extension of the magazine with extended portfolios, interviews with the photographers, exceptional video presentations and articles that are not in the print version. When I first purchased Extended, I wondered if it would be repetitious paired with the print version. Trust me, it is not. It is a whole additional experience that, again, would be worthwhile at many more times the actual cost.
LensWork, the journal as well as the Extended Version, will keep you thinking and open your mind to new possibilities. I don’t know of any better compliment that one can give to a magazine, er.....journal.
5 comments:
I recently switched to the Extended version instead of the print copy. The two issues I've received so far have been superb -- the video features make the Extended the right choice for me. And when there is a featured photographer I really like, the Extended offers a lot more images.
Cheers,
Joe
I am not a subscriber but I've subscribed to their podcast and must say it's really well done and informative. A great magazine indeed.
I think LensWork is a great publication, little in size but big in content.
Just to add my thumbs up for Lenswork. I stopped subscribing to magazines years ago when they turned into endless consumer reviews. As Howard says Lenswork is different. In an age of mega proliferation of images, we need to focus on the creative process rather than the technical. I like getting the hardcopy through the letterbox, but will probably now subscribe to the extended version as well
I really hate to say this but I subscribed to Lenswork Extended a while back and, from what I see, I will let it expire when the subscription runs out. I really like the darkroom tours and many of the portfolios but it's really a one-man show staring Brooks Jensen. He's a nice guy if a little on the pompous side but he does all the interviews and everything is filtered through his subjective taste. Brooks also has an irritating (for me) way of seeking profound meaning in the most mundane things and his interviews can be agonizingly long. Take for example his interview with Joe Lipka in Lenswork Extended 71. I don't like to be unkind, but Lipka's portfolio consists of a bunch of images that are almost identical and very boring, to put it mildly. But he is a personal friend of Brooks so the interview is incredibly long. With that buildup, I expected some fine work but it simply wasn't there. Lenswork needs some fresh viewpoints. It needs the perspective of people besides Brooks. Also, I know that they avoid technical stuff except perhaps in their darkroom tours, but it would be nice to know more about the creative techniques used by photographers whose work is shown. Strange as it may sound, I have to almost force myself to watch Lenswork Extended lately. It needs less boring overblown talk. Let the work speak for itself.
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