One year ago we took the difficult decision to end the publication of Photoworld, though Photoclubalpha continues as an active and well supported site. dPhotoexpert, though a quiet site by comparison, was originally intended to be the companion website for a magazine called dPhotoexpert for which we did designs and content plans. But then along came literally dozens of how-to-Photoshop titles sitting on the supermarket magazine shelves, and we realised it just wouldn’t be much fun.

I’ve been missing making magazines with true editorial freedom for some time. So, a new quarterly – like Photoworld in quality, starting out with 44 pages and no advertising – is about to appear. The name is Cameracraft, harking back to the West Coast American title  (written as two words) which was published in the first half of the 20th century. That was Ansel Adams’s favourite mag. Maybe we will find the next Ansel Adams!

Cameracraft is an international magazine. Gary Friedman in Los Angeles is our US Associate Editor with a regular feature article. We’re looking for work of international interest, we have a small open picture gallery in each issue, and we are printing portfolios in classic style as an 8-page central section on heavier silk paper.

The first issue is scheduled for mailing before September 14th and has now gone to press. We will have a subscriber card, we plan a passworded private forum, and we offer optional magazine binders (fitting three years each). We plan to develop exclusive benefits for our readers in future. The subscriber card will be issued late 2012 and sent out with Issue 2 in December, once we’ve worked out a good way to ensure the right cards go to the right people…

Please take a look at the subscription page here:

http://www.iconpublications.com/cameracraft

On this page you will find a link to a downloadable PDF application form if you are interesting in subscribing and prefer not to use the Paypal payment method. At present the 3-year, 12-issue Cordex bookshelf binder is only offered on the webpage, but the address carrier sheet for the first issue has a form on the reverse for ordering. We expect to ship the binders mid to late October.

I hope you can join me on this new journey.

We’ve had comments along the lines that a 44-page magazine is too slim for a quarterly. Photoworld/Image was 36 pages, and in the last year or two, only 28. I have counted the editorial pages in magazines with 76 or 84 overall and find that most only have 44 (or so) with all the rest being advertising. We think it’s good value and if the readership grows we will take it as far as the printing and postage costs allow.

Best wishes – 

David Kilpatrick
Publisher and Editor, Icon Publications Ltd and Photoclubalpha