Web Analytics RiceHigh's Pentax Blog: Vanishing of Traditional Printed Photo Media?

Monday, June 28, 2010

Vanishing of Traditional Printed Photo Media?

Recently, I picked up several "prestigious" and "renowned" traditional printed Photo magazines when I travelled overseas at different bookstores for several times but I yet didn't find any of them worth buying after scanning through them for just one minute or two.

I actually found that the contents of those are outdated and almost and mostly useless. And Ads could constitute almost half of the pages actually. In fact, for gear related stuff, many of the published information are trivial and well known. In particular, for a particular "Popular" magazine, the camera tests done and published are now rather crude which those "tests" are actually by no means could even match the quality and higher standard for the tests they published decades ago, which is undoubtedly a big disappointment. For photography related topics, some magazines do have more on these and some others have almost none, on the other hand. But I still found that there are little things that are really special anyway. So, why spend/waste a few bucks in buying those afterall?

In fact, nowadays almost everything can be found on the Internet, which are quick to locate and could be far more useful, provided that you locate the right and useful things. The contents are rich and most of them are free basically (even though you have paid indirectly). Even I do find now the newly emerged online photo magazines are edited and produced in higher standards, with more useful and interesting stuff. For example, I do like the PhotographyBB Online Photo Magazine, which I consider to be quite well made so far, and it is highly recommended.

Without true revolution, I just wonder how long will take for those traditional printed media to vanish? My bet is that they cannot survive for more than one decade to come, if the trend continues, frankly.

On the other hand, I do still buy some printed local magazines from time to time, but those are actually new-style ones and I could see the editors do have put a lot of efforts and done some hard works from time to time in finding materials, doing tests, writing photo/software tips and articles and in editing, which are quite different from those old "prestigious" magazines, which seem to be just sitting there and wait to die! :-o :=x

Comments (6)

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I have stopped reading paper magazines in 2005 when I realized that the magazines were slow in bringing news and the reviews were getting gradually less in-depth. At that time I canceled my description on several photo magazines. However, I certainly miss reading from paper. Digital solutions will never feel the same IMHO. I wish one could get a subscription on a printed Internet (as long as I don't have to print the pages myself) :P
1 reply · active 770 weeks ago
Get an iPad and read it electronically as an e-Book! :-)
Not only are magazines slow but 75 percent of most photo magazines are nothing but advertisements. It seems there less real material and more commercials and who wants to pay for commercials. Also a lot of the magazines are nothing but big fluff stories about the same cameras over and over month after month. I can get better information on YOUTUBE.
1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago
And also at good blogs.. ;-)
I think the internet is much better suited to gear reviews, and the only ones in printed magazines that I find to be of sufficient technical depth are some of those in Amateur Photographer. However, there are a small number of other magazines that do something hard to replace electronically - focussing on what we use the cameras for - technique and "art" for want of a better term. By far the most convincing magazine for this kind of material is the recently redesigned British Journal of Photography: they have re-thought that magazine from the ground up and worked out what the USP of a printed journal is. Just as it is nice to print your best photographs, it is also nice to view exceptional photography in a well-designed journal on decent quality paper. BJP is like a monthly photography exhibition with some interseting added articles. But not for people who are mainly interested in tests of the latest gear.
In france we have several good magazin , especially " chasseur image" and " reponse photo" who publish great article .

their complete technical description of each camera , whith many numerical data and diagram are fabulous , an d i dont think it s just measurbation^^

also a test of videoprojector , but in a photographer point of view.
and many good picture , and the worok of some great photograph.

i like also a special page who present some "very old camera"

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