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LensWork is indeed quite an impressive magazine. A digest-sized booklet that publishes bimonthly, the quality of the publication shames the pulp-like mass market rags that occupy the prime real estate on the magazine racks. The inside pages have a sheen to their look and feel and this quality paper helps to reproduce the images in exquisite quality. This is certainly no tissue paper thin Popular Photography and the writing in the articles do not insult the intelligence of the serious photographer. In fact, if you want equipment reviews and a survey of dozens of different types of crappy consumer film, such as Kodak Max, LensWork is not for you. If you want to see a regularly published list of the all the different types of zoom lenses that you would just as soon give away than own, LensWork is not for you. If you want to see photography as fine art, with as close to museum quality production for those images, LensWork is for you. If you want to read about photography as a passionate pursuit and craft, LensWork is for you. If you consider photography as an art form, LensWork is for you. I think LensWork does better than View Camera and its sister publication, Camera Arts magazine, which is quite something given how high quality these two magazines are. But where View Camera and Camera Arts do publish equipment reviews and notices (hey even artists like to know about and play with the gear too), LensWork is completely devoid of all that. I don’t think LensWork is too esoteric or snooty for avoiding equipment discussions because it goes beyond the equipment to reflect upon the images and art created by the photographers profiled in each issue. This is truly where photographic vision is celebrated and not the technique or equipment used, as so often indicated in other publications, as if to do so provides the poor reader with the false sense that he too could capture the same quality images if only he used the same Nikon or Linhof, et al, camera and lenses. I have only read one issue but LensWork is now a publication that I will be checking out regularly despite its rather hefty price of over $15 CAN per issue after taxes. And likely, I will subscribe to save a good chunk of change from buying at Chapters. Interestingly enough, LensWork is published right next door to my province of British Columbia, in Washington State and the issues are printed in Canada, most likely in Vancouver, cool, eh! When I started to really get into the digest booklet, I sat in a chair that I do not use for such leisurely activities, my computer desk chair. It means that it got enough of my attention that I had to really involve myself in its contents, something that does not happen too often. Usually, the other magazines I buy or receive via subscription are read in the...ahem...“throne room”. Just the place to digest the light fare found in the consumer rags and appropriate too since much of the quality belongs in the toilet. Not being too cheeky, am I :-) Update May 2003 - I now have a subscription and the high quality feel of the magazine even translates to how the magazines are shipped to subscribers. A consumer rag such as Popular Photography comes without any protection, often arriving dogeared or abused in some other way, being at the mercy of the mail service. Other mags come in envelopes or plastic wrap, such as Shutterbug and Photolife; however, LensWork arrives in a heavy duty cardboard envelope that will survive the worse that US Mail and Canada Post can inflict upon it. Everything about this magazine exudes a committment to excellence and is an obvious labour of love for the people producing it. As it turns out, the magazine is printed very close to home, by a printer right in my burb of Burnaby, British Columbia and the editors come up from Washington State to personally ensure that the print run is of the high quality expected. |
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Edwin's
Vignettes -
LensWork Magazine
A
reader of the site wondered why I had not mentioned the magazine,