3 January 2012

Happy New Year!

Well hello to you all, and here's hoping it's been a good start to 2012 for 'PLATE' readers! Ive been tweaking the front page of this blog a little in readiness for the ONSLAUGHT of posting that I'm planning for the new year (somebody's been making new year's resolutions..) and one of my changes has been the addition of a couple of new sites to my blog roll. I'm continually updating this list, mainly because I find it useful to have a round-up of good art and photo resources in one place, but also to share new finds (artists, bloggers and publications) with anyone who reads here. I hope some of the new listings are of interest to your good selves and provide good browsin' in the difficult first days back at work after hols.


I can't lie, the additions here are mostly cribbed from an article on the topic of photo blogs by Joerg Colberg, which appears in the first digital issue of the British Journal of Photography. I have been ushered into the world of apps and digital publishing by the generous Christmas gift of an iPad and have been hungrily downloading books and magazines that I enjoy in print form to see how they stand up in the digital format. The British Journal was recommended to me by a friend and it's a really impressive example of how the print magazine can be expanded and adapted to a digital platform - the first (free) issue contains audio, video and links to outside resources alongside full-length, easily navigated articles and beautifully presented sideshows of new and archival photography. Ive never been a reader of the print magazine previously, having found it a bit fusty and 'gadget'-heavy on first browse and assumed it is intended as a community forum and tech-guide for professional, usually editorial photographers. While this may have been true in the past, a re-design of both print edition and website seems to have been directed at a more 'arty' readership, and the content of aforementioned digital edition has also been cleverly skewed so that it addresses those with an interest, not just in photography as a discrete art form, but as a medium of communication disseminated through books, magazines and websites. See the 'Profile' of Michael Mack's ambitions for digital publishing, or the feature on documentary photo projects, as cases in point. Essentially then, this is still an 'industry' magazine, but given a tweak to appeal to an increasingly design- and tech- savvy audience..

I advise readers to beg, borrow or steal (maybe not steal) an iPad and take a look at the magazine if you haven't already. I'm sure it's going to get lots of competition in the coming months - the beautiful Aperture magazine have just launched a digital editon, for example - but it's a lot of fun and gives us a taste of what might be possible for photo-publishing and photo-writing in new formats!