In March this year I wrote an email to a small group of writers, photographers and designers expressing my belief that the world was ready for its first real street photography magazine, we were in the second worst financial crisis of the century and it seemed kind of dumb to be starting any new venture....but then if I wanted things easy, I wouldn't be a street photographer at all.
I felt that I wasn't the only one who would enjoy holding photographs again as objects rather than always seeing them on a two dimensional back lit monitor and so formed the idea for the format for a new magazine. I contacted two young designers Pali Palavathanan and Eng Su who I admired and asked them to design me a magazine and a brand for our, so far, un-named magazine...
I told them the publication should be: small
This was my first experience of self publishing and I was extremely naive about what was involved, I and my long suffering project manager Sarah Ewing went on a journey of discovery through the process of design and the alchemy of printing. Sarah took on an enormous workload in producing the magazine while I was traveling europe on a commission and not always available to make decisions. While she was doing a lot of the logistical organising, I had the pleasure of researching contemporary street photography to find our first edit of twenty-two images that would reflect the wide range of possible approaches to shooting in public places. I was delighted when Michael David Murphy, David Gibson and Hin Chua agreed to write about inspiration from their perspectives and I enjoyed writing about the image by Joel Meyerowitz that had first inspired me to make pictures of life on the streets.
We still had no name and were always referring to the magazine as 'the publication' because it wasn't a traditional magazine bound format...eventually, of course, the name stuck.....PUBLICATION seemed the perfect name for a magazine of images from public places.
So it was a big day for our small team when PUBLICATION went on sale on Monday this week and we are all delighted that most people seem as pleased with it as we are.
PUBLICATION #1 Inspiration
I think it is a small landmark for the recognition, development and celebration of street photography which comes just ahead of the 10th anniversary of in-public and a great twelve months for street photography especially in the UK with the FORMAT photography festival next year focusing on street photography and the very exciting publication of Thames and Hudson's Street Photography Now book.
It is our intention to regularly produce an edition of PUBLICATION featuring images submitted through the web site, this is likely to be every third edition so get over there and upload your most striking street image, you might even win a copy of a Winogrands 1964.
Finally, thank you to the hundreds of people who have already secured one of the 2000 numbered editions of the magazine and submitted their images, your support is invaluable to the continuation of the PUBLICATION project.
cool
simple
contemporary
accessible
understated
underground
influential
precious
collectable
a benchmark
PUBLICATION hits the streets
November 28th, 2009
3 Responses to “PUBLICATION hits the streets”
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Copyright © sevensevennine.com | nick turpin on street photography. All rights reserved.
November 28th, 2009 - 11:32 pm
Thank you so much for taking this effort. Photography in public is dramatically and pitiful unrecognised in the media and art world nowadays. Like you say this is a benchmark. I look forward to many issues to come.
December 3rd, 2009 - 8:54 pm
When number 174 of the print run arrived, I Tweeted “Wow! A delight. A gallery exhibition delivered. Superb”
To Nick and Sarah, and everyone else involved, a job well done. Looking forward to the next exhibition, err…edition, already.
December 4th, 2009 - 8:27 pm
Number 300 arrived in commendably short order yesterday. Heartiest congratulations to yourself and your team on the superb execution of a brave and wonderful idea. I’m not a street photog myself, but there’s a lot of great work to admire here and plenty of ideas to mull over too. Put me down for the next edition (how about a mailing list so we can be notified of new issues)?
(PS. The name’s going to be a sod to google for though.