ku # 895 ~ square goodness
Wednesday, March 30, 2011 at 07:45AM 
Spring scrub ~ near Au Sable Foorks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenAt some point in the long ago past - 1970s-1980s? - I use to collect a magazine called hasselblad. As you might suspect from the name, the magazine was published by Hasselbald as a showcase for Hasselblad made pictures. As you also might expect, most of the pictures in the magazine were square format pictures.
Despite Hasselblad's well deserved reputation for utterly superb (and outrageously pricey) optics, I never owned a Hasselblad - or, as they were commonly called, a Hassey. The reason for that was 2 fold:
1) the cameras were notorious for shutter jams and, when the shutter (it was in the lens) jammed, both the camera and the lens (which could not be removed once the shutter jammed) had to be shipped off for repair. That meant that, in the commercial picture making world, not only did you have to have a backup body or two but also backup duplicate lenses (did I mention that the lenses were extremely expensive?). Unless, of course, you didn't mind stopping in mid-shoot and totally pissing off a client - I didn't need that hassle(blad).
2) in my commercial picture making world, most of the pictures I made were of the rectangular vertical format type since the overwhelming majority of them were destined to be printed in a magazine, corporate publication, and the like. Keeping that in mind, I gravitated toward 120 cameras with a native rectangular format (6×4.5).
That said, even back then, I really did like the square format. However, I was way too busy making pictures for commerce to pursue the making of square pictures for myself, that is if you disregard the zillions of square SX70 pictures I made for fun (not for profit). Of course, as is in ample display on The Landscapist, now that I am primarily making pictures with me as the "client", that situation has changed.
So, it was with great delight that I discovered Square Magazine (via Lenscratch), an online magazine devoted to square pictures.
The magazine has "published" 4 issues to date. So far, Square Magazine has offered up square pictures with a very high standard of picture making goodness. My only issue with Square Magazine, with the exception of issue # 4 which is a one-off "best of", is that it is an online magazine which offers none of the pleasure and viewing experience of looking at pictures on the printed page.
Nevertheless, I would suggest that you check it out with the following caveats: 1) viewing it on an iPad totally sucks, and, 2) I am currently unable to buy issue no.4 because their "Buy Now" link takes me to PayPal's home page where there is absolutely no link to a Square Magazine product page.
gravitas et nugalis
Featured Comment: Christophe Dillinger wrote:
Sorry about your experience about the iPad. I don't have one, so I couldn't test the result.
I just wanted to say that Square Magazine is not printed. We can't. We have no funding whatsoever, we are all volunteers. I'd love to be able to provide a paper copy, as like you I like handling a nice chunk of paper to view photographs. Maybe it'll come, when we're big enough to find a sponsor (or when my bank manager agrees to lend me a few thousand pound).
The Paypal link is in fact a link to a book we've just published. It is a retrospective of the year we've had, not the magazine proper (the magazine is online only, viewable for free). It is not a link to a paper version, as there is no such thing.
It looks like our website is not very clear... I'll see what I can do about this, but I still hope you liked what you saw online.
my response: Christophe - thanks for the reply. You can rest assured that, re: Square Magazine, I like what I see online.
However, I still can't buy - via your Buy Now link - your retrospective book. When using that link, it takes me to the PayPal home page where there is no link or reference to your book. Any info you could provide about how to purchase the book would be greatly appreciated.
Reader Comments (1)
Hello
Sorry about your experience about the iPad. I don't have one, so I couldn't test the result.
I just wanted to say that Square Magazine is not printed. We can't. We have no funding whatsoever, we are all volunteers. I'd love to be able to provide a paper copy, as like you I like handling a nice chunk of paper to view photographs. Maybe it'll come, when we're big enough to find a sponsor (or when my bank manager agrees to lend me a few thousand pound).
The Paypal link is in fact a link to a book we've just published. It is a retrospective of the year we've had, not the magazine proper (the magazine is online only, viewable for free). It is not a link to a paper version, as there is no such thing.
It looks like our website is not very clear... I'll see what I can do about this, but I still hope you liked what you saw online.
Christophe Dillinger, Editor, Square Magazine.