LensWork Magazine

If you love fine photography, especially black and white, you should know about LensWork Magazine. It is, without much competition, one of the finest photography magazines out there, for several reasons.

First, the award-winning duotone reproductions are magnificent. Each issue, which comes in its own cardboard envelope, is like a fine art book unto itself.

Second, it's all about photography as a fine art. There's nothing commercial about it or its articles or portfolios. The only ads are for LensWork's own products, which are excellent. The essays and interviews are thoughtful reflections on the creative process, as pertains to photography.

Third, they only feature the work of 3 photographers per issue, including an introduction to the photographer, a brief essay about the work, and a portfolio of usually 15-20 images.

Fourth, Brooks Jensen has a lot of innovative ideas, and runs with them. They produce an extended CD of each issue, including more images from each photographer's portfolio, audio interviews with the photographers, printable images, extra essays, and other goodies. They publish a few books on photography (I've read "On Being a Photographer" by David Hurn and Bill Jay, twice). At one time, they had a Special Editions fine art print series, whereby they would faithfully reproduce, on silver gelatin paper, master prints from master photographers. I own one, an image by Wynn Bullock, and it's magnificent.

Fifth, and most important, they published one of my portfolios ("Welcome to Wonderland") in the Jan/Feb 2006 issue (20 pages, including the cover, above). It's beautiful.

I'd encourage you to browse their site, and even subscribe.

See Welcome to Wonderland on my fine art photography site at www.fritzliedtke.com.