I do read photography magazines

Late last fall, I was wondering if photography magazines still make sense. It was in the context of a launch of a new magazine by Craft&Vision company: “Photograph” quarterly. Since then, I realized that I do read quite a few of photography magazines, and really enjoy them. Even my RSS feed does not offer such a variety of subjects, as any of the magazines I will mention below. And although I sometimes assume that the subject is of no interest to me, I often read the article anyway and discover that I actually enjoyed it. So, maybe the photography magazines are still needed, although I am surely happy you can get all of them in electronic versions right now.

Here is the list of the photography magazines I read systematically.

Lenswork

My husband purchased the first subscription of “Lenswork” for me when I was just starting out. This beautiful, black and white magazine is released bimonthly. It is devoted solely to presenting carefully chosen fine art portfolios, each constituting a single theme project. Subject matter vary, from street photography, to landscape and abstract work. While printed editions is solely in black and white, electronic versions (previously CD, now iPad and other tablets) often contain portfolios in colors and always have additional images to the print version.

Pros – beautiful print quality, no advertisements of any kind and also gear talk is absent from the magazine.

Cons – the Pros come with a price.

There are several models of subscriptions, including hard copy and/or electronic version (not only iPad!) of the magazine and site membership. All available by clicking here.

Photograph (Quarterly)

“Photograph” quarterly is a very young magazine, just second issue was released by Craft & Vision this passing week. It is quickly becoming one of my favorites. Really bulky, the magazine is filled with a lot of content, this being a good mixture of technical and creative tips, proceeded with beautiful, ful spread portfolios of well know or unknown yet artists for inspiration. The regular columns, aside form David DuChemin, have in “The photography” Chris Orwig, John Paul Caponigro and Martin Bailey.

Pros – great variety of photography related issues and beautiful portfolios, written by some great names, and no advertisements.

Cons – electronic version only, although it is distributed as pdf so it can be viewed on any device.

To purchase a single issue or a yearly subscription, click here.

Extraordinary vision

Another young magazine, only two issue so far. It feels like the magazine is build around Google+ photographing community, which is not necessarily a drawback. The contributors list includes Varina and Jay Patel, Jim Goldstein, Nicole S. Young and many others. It is available for free, but the advertisments are no that abundant, and mostly promote content created by article’s author. It seems to me the magazine is supported by affiliate sales. Each issue covers a variety of subjects. One common theme are well prepared (often in form of video) tips and tricks on using iPad in photography workflow.

Pros – interesting, varied content, including multimedia, for free.

Cons – available only through iTunes and only in an iPad version.

To subscribe, click here (iTunes store).

Rangefinder

While geared towards professional wedding and portrait photographers, this official professional association magazine (WPPI) features very creative portfolios on various subjects, not only portraits and weddings. There is an assortment of articles in each issues, and some of regular columns contain legal tips for pros, reviews of gear, software and books, and much more. Each issues is build around a single theme, and it can be black and white photography, or lighting or portraiture, whatever else editors come up with for another month.

Pros – professional quality value for free. It is hard to beat that.

Cons – really difficult to find a two-page spread with no ads on it- it gets irritating at times.

To subscribe to hard copy (free only in US), click here. Check out also their digital version for iPad by clicking here.

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Now, to you.

Do you read photography magazines? Which ones? If there is one you think I should add to my list, I would love to hear about it.
Or maybe this article helped yo find your new favorite? Let me know in the comments.