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Camera (magazine)
Encyclopedia
Lucerne
Lucerne is a city in north-central Switzerland, in the German-speaking portion of that country. Lucerne is the capital of the Canton of Lucerne and the capital of the district of the same name. With a population of about 76,200 people, Lucerne is the most populous city in Central Switzerland, and...
, Switzerland, later distributed in many countries and languages. The magazine grew to its greatest international influence towards in latter half of its life of sixty years; on the leading edge of almost every important period in photography, Camera was often among the first publications to show the first works of now well-known photographers such as Edward Steichen
Edward Steichen
Edward J. Steichen was an American photographer, painter, and art gallery and museum curator. He was the most frequently featured photographer in Alfred Stieglitz' groundbreaking magazine Camera Work during its run from 1903 to 1917. Steichen also contributed the logo design and a custom typeface...
, Robert Frank
Robert Frank
Robert Frank , born in Zürich, Switzerland, is an important figure in American photography and film. His most notable work, the 1958 photobook titled The Americans, was influential, and earned Frank comparisons to a modern-day de Tocqueville for his fresh and skeptical outsider's view of American...
and Jeanloup Sieff
Jeanloup Sieff
Jeanloup Sieff was a fashion photographer.Sieff was born in Paris to parents of Polish origin. His interest in photography was first piqued when he received a Photax plastic camera as a birthday gift for his fourteenth birthday...
.
The early years
The first issue of Camera was published by the engineer Adolf HerzAdolf Herz
Adolf Herz , an Austrian Mechanical Engineer was born in 1862 in Nový Jičín , Moravia, now part of the Czech Republic, as son of a well-to-do brewery owner. After completing the Realschule in Brno, Moravia, he studied mechanical engineering at the k&k Technische Hocshschule in Vienna, where he...
and book-publisher C. J. Bucher in June 1922. Making clear its aim to aid the development of the still-fledgling art of photography, this issue began with the following statement of intent:
With this issue we introduce ourselves to the public for the first time. We would like to say a few words about our aims. Our magazine will support artistic photography. We thought it expedient to show our readers an artist's work through ample selections of good-quality reproductions. Artists from all countries will be sharing their pictures. Hereon in every issue we will present eight pages of good reproductions. Participating artists will present their art styles in original essays. Articles on technical photographic subjects, written by authors the best in this field, will appear in the technical section. In brief reports we will comment on all new developments so that our readers can obtain an up-to-date view of photography. We invite all photographers and researchers of all countries who would like to bring technical information to our readers, to submit their articles. We will periodically conduct contests to encourage developing artists, and the best entries will receive a monetary award.
We hope our efforts will be conducive to the high aims of artistic photography and that our readers will support us.
Adolf Herz
Adolf Herz
Adolf Herz , an Austrian Mechanical Engineer was born in 1862 in Nový Jičín , Moravia, now part of the Czech Republic, as son of a well-to-do brewery owner. After completing the Realschule in Brno, Moravia, he studied mechanical engineering at the k&k Technische Hocshschule in Vienna, where he...
first made the magazine's 'high-quality prints' with a dull-finish semi-matte paper that gave a result only mimicking the still-new sheet-fed gravure system, but eventually moved to the latter technique when the Bücher publishing company adopted the technology from 1925.
Herz's period as editor of Camera, ending in 1947, was marked for its focus on Pictorialism
Pictorialism
Pictorialism is the name given to a photographic movement in vogue from around 1885 following the widespread introduction of the dry-plate process. It reached its height in the early years of the 20th century, and declined rapidly after 1914 after the widespread emergence of Modernism...
. Contributing photographers from this period and style were Heinrich Kühn
Heinrich Kühn
Carl Christian Heinrich Kühn was an Austrian Photographer and Pioneer.He is regarded one of the forefathers of fine art photography, the movement that helped photography to establish itself as an art on its own. His photographs closely resemble Impressionist paintings, with their frequent use of...
, Leonard Missone, Hoffmeister, Craig Annan, Eduard Steichen, Kieghley and Demachy.
The post war-period
Walter Läubli became chief editor, or 'art directorArt director
The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....
' as the position was called then, from January 1948. The publishing half of the partnership had changed as well: after C. J. Bucher's stroke in 1941, his wife, Alice, had taken over the running of the publishing company; she would become the official director upon her husband's death in 1950.
To better expand the Camera readership, Läubli introduced articles translated into English and French from their native German. The post-war period was an important one for Camera, with the publication of the earliest works of photographers Jacob Tuggener, Gothard Shuh, Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer considered to be the father of modern photojournalism. He was an early adopter of 35 mm format, and the master of candid photography...
, Robert Capa
Robert Capa
Robert Capa was a Hungarian combat photographer and photojournalist who covered five different wars: the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II across Europe, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and the First Indochina War...
(and Magnum
Magnum Photos
Magnum Photos is an international photographic cooperative owned by its photographer-members, with offices located in New York, Paris, London and Tokyo...
), Bill Brandt
Bill Brandt
Bill Brandt was an influential British photographer and photojournalist known for his high-contrast images of British society and his distorted nudes and landscapes.-Career and life:...
and Robert Frank
Robert Frank
Robert Frank , born in Zürich, Switzerland, is an important figure in American photography and film. His most notable work, the 1958 photobook titled The Americans, was influential, and earned Frank comparisons to a modern-day de Tocqueville for his fresh and skeptical outsider's view of American...
. The special issue in 1949 featuring Robert Frank's first published photography was Cameras first important mark on international photo-journalism.
Hans Neuberg succeeded Walter Läubli for a two-year editorship from December 1954. His successor, Imre Reiner, although not officially the magazine editor, redesigned the magazine during his stay and transformed the Camera logo into a form that would remain practically unchanged until the magazine's 1981 demise.
Romeo Martinez appeared as the next editor in chief from July 1956. From March 1957 he launched Cameras next stage by making it available in separate English, French and German editions (from its former unique trilingual version). As Martinez was not a photographer but a journalist with an acute knowledge of art and the history of photography, the magazine under his direction was able to reach an unforeseen larger readership.
Camera from 1960 entered an association with Europhot, an organisation of European Professional Photographers, from when four issues a year, labelled "Camera EUROPHOT", under the direction of a special Europhot panel, would treat subjects of concern to the professional photographers of their usual audience.
Romeo Martinez left the magazine without a replacing editor after the May 1964 edition, but the magazine continued under Mrs. Bucher and the remaining Camera staff.
The Porter years
Allan Porter appeared only as guest editor from December 1965, but became the editor in chief from January the following year. Mrs. Bucher's choice of Mr. Porter, an American citizen with few connections to Europe, was a hard sell, but it was thought that his talent for design and 'foreign touch' could be a great aid to a magazine then in difficulty.Cameras 1965 circulation was at 9,300 copies, all languages combined. Porter had promised a 8% circulation increase over a period of nine months, but through an active effort to increase subscriptions (namely through long-term contracts with libraries and other institutions), an increased American circulation through an agreement with New York city
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
-based Acme publications, and a new approach to the magazine's advertising department and ad sales, circulation had risen by 20% by the end of the year. Allan celebrated his 100th issue with the April 1974, Vol 53, No. 4 edition showing his favorite genre, landscapes. It featured the works of Don Eddy on the cover and inside. Other photographers in the issue were Vincent Vallarino; Charles H. Caffin; Klaus Ott; T.C. Tilney; David Bayles; Carl George Heise; Leonard Misonne; George A. Tice; Sadakichi Hartmann.
C. J. Bucher AG was taken over by the Ringier printing company in 1973. The new owners saw no interest in Camera, yet instead of ending the publication altogether, Ringier thought that by withdrawing all but a minimum promotional support, readership interest would dwindle and the magazine would find a natural end on its own. One of the first limitations Ringier would impose was a switch to the faster and cheaper lithographic offset
Offset
The term offset may refer to:* Carbon offset, a financial instrument aimed at a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions* Offset agreement, trade practice in Aerospace and Defense Industry...
printing system rather than the slower and more expensive sheet-fed gravure technology used until then. Porter, having reservations about how Cameras readership would react to the drop in printing quality, with the help of technicians from the still-functioning gravure department, managed to develop a two-colour duplex offset
Offset printing
Offset printing is a commonly used printing technique in which the inked image is transferred from a plate to a rubber blanket, then to the printing surface...
system that would at the same time cut costs and maintain quality.
Under the direction of Allan Porter, Camera was marked not only by its search for talent in the leading frontiers of modern photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
, but for its examination, from a modern viewpoint, of the works of past masters.
After eight more years of production Ringier decided that Camera was not in the company interests, and marked December 1981, a date a few months short of the magazine's 60th anniversary, as the month of its final issue.