picture window # 15 ~ the big grey dog is rolling ...
Wednesday, July 16, 2008 at 10:12AM 
2 fer 1 • click to embiggenThere seems to be a blog virus that's an intrinsic (and some might say, inevitable) component of blogging - the need to stuff it all after a protracted period of involvement. A number of blog notables - Alec Soth being the most obvious example, Tim Atherton being a lesser one - just decide, seemingly all of a sudden, to just quit. Soth with notice, Atherton without. Even Mike J. over on T.O.P. recently posted a "Gone Fishin'" entry and announced he was depending on guest contributers (for a while) for content.
Without a doubt, there is a kind of blogging "fatigue" that can set in. I know the feeling. As Carl Perkins, George Thorogood, and others have sung:
Well, I walked up to the window
And I said gimme a ticket please
She said where to mister
I said that's alright by me
I'm just restless
I got to get on out of town ...
Run this greyhound far as it will go
Drop this country boy a little farther down the road
I'm just restless
I got to get on out of town ...
Continuing with the big grey dog metaphor, I feel like I have to get on down the road a piece. Not that I am going to abandon my hometown, The Landscapist (remember, it's a meteaphor). I plan to keep on keeping on with that, but, as luck / fate / karma would have it, I have received an offer to be a beta member / tester of a new print on demand magazine service. I find this to be a very exciting prospect.
Part of the reason that I am restless, re: blogging, is that it is such a virtual thing - hey, if SquareSpace has a server, software, virus seizure, just like the turkey in A Christmas Story, it's gone, all gone. Then there's the fact that photographs are best viewed as printed pieces, not as virtual representations on a computer monitor where they all tend to look (a)like ... well ... a picture on a computer monitor.
The other "problem" with blogging is that on The Landscapist - and many other photo blogs as well - there is a wealth of valuable stuff buried in "archives" (past entries) that, for the most part, might just as well be buried six feet under for all the viewing that they get. I mean, I save lots of photo pubs, not to mention my photo book collection, that I revisit and savor over and over like old friends. Can't say I've ever done that on a photo blog, The Landscapist included.
No, the web is far less than it's cracked up to be in so many ways. It's great for a "quick fix" but has very little to offer in the way of "longevity". My rule of thumb for "savor", for "longevity", for "satisfaction" is rather simple - if I can't lay in bed or sit on the can with it, it's just a passing fancy kind of thing.
So, get ready for The Landscapist, the magazine.
That said, I am putting out a call for portfolios (of the virtual kind) for review. I would appreciate it if those of you with photo blogs would link to this entry on your blog in order to get the request for portfolios out there as wide-spread as possible. I am not looking for bleeding edge, next big thing stuff - that's OK if you've got it, but I am much more interested in work that is ... well ... kind of "quiet" and low-key. I am growing weary of pretentious, deliberately "arty" pictures.
BTW, all manner and genre of work is accepted - landscape, street, people, nature, still life, bw/color, "straight", "staged", etc.
I am also putting out a call for writing contributors - regular or occasional. I know this is an intimidating prospect for many but I'm not looking for academic treatise or mind-shattering / groundbreaking thoughts and ideas. Simple thoughts, notions, and ideas about photography from a personal perspective is what I'd like. As a matter of fact, simple writing that is free of camera-club speak and as anti- academic lunatic fringe as possible.
FYI, the magazine will probably be a quarterly publication, or, depending upon the number of submissions, whenever there is enough to say. The emphasis will be on pictures, not words - think LensWork (download a pdf sample) but with even fewer words.
If this is to work, I need your help even if it is in just a "small" way.
Reader Comments (5)
Sounds very exciting! I just might send you a portfolio...
Sounds like a very good idea to me.
I'll send you a portfolio after some time. First there are some holidays to fulfill...
Jaap.
Please tell me if you're interested:
http://bloom.jalbum.net/
To get a quick sense of who I am: I'll be a freshman at the University of Chicago in the fall, and I've been making photographs for maybe four years now, in classes and for my own pleasure. I've recently come into enjoying photographing with a piece-of-junk Holga camera. And... the rest of what you need to know will be in my images. :-)
---Sam Bloom (cincodemayo5590@gmail.com)
(P.S. Your blog and images are fantastic. I've looked around a good number of photo blogs, and yours is one of the two or three that I visit regularly. Thank you.)
Some images to consider for your project:
Katrina Images
Yeah, what the hell. Printed would be nice. It's not terribly original, as a few minutes on Amazon will show, but I'd still like to get a wider audience for my manmadewilderness series. Let me know how I can help out.