Practical Photography magazine closing - final issue in July

Tony101

Tony101

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Magazine publisher Bauer, is closing a number of its titles, among them is Practical Photography.

The magazine, established in 1959, will publish its final issue in July.

If you have an annual subscription it might be worth doing a bit of research wrt a partial refund.

Personally I haven't read a photography magazine for 40 years (altho' I did very infrequently flip through a copy of BJP at college in the mid 80s); however it was Victor Blackman's column in Amateur Photographer during the late 1970s that inspired my pursuit of a career in press photography.
 
Typically my interests were cars and computers....haven't bought a magazine for a few years now....used to buy 3 or 4 a month for very many years.
The internet has a lot to answer for...trouble is it has all the answers!!;)
 
I used to be constantly buying photography magazines cant believe how much money I must have spent. haven't bought one for years
 
Planet Rock mag also going :(
 
I get PP free as a benefit of my Lloyds bank account, always glance through it but rarely read an article as such. I used to subscribe to AP but find there's rarely more than 10 minutes of reading entertainment in it these days. I like getting magazines, but on price vs value the photo mags just don't cut it any more, sadly.
 
Saves me from hunting down the telephone number to cancel my subscription. Sad that Practical Pornography (as it used to be called in the 80s) is going but the content has been very poor for the past few years and like Lindsay it takes 10-20 minutes from cover to cover.

Didn't it used to be the best-selling title once upon a time - that mantle apparently belongs to Digital Camera now, which has ex-PP staff..
 
I used to buy a regular magazine nearly 20 years ago but I found they just repeated after a year or so and stopped and have not missed them.

Dave
 
I really liked it, and learned a lot from it. I still recall a number of really informative in depth articles that helped me a lot. This, however, was in the 1960s... More recently, like virtually all the photo magazines I see in the shops I go to, it appeared to be designed for people who lack the attention span to read this post to the end :(

And many magazines are now sold in bags that don't let you check the contents, so I never buy them. PP is one of those.
 
I subscribe to AP via kindle, I rarely read it because magazines on Kindle on a phone is a bit crap, I did it as a thank you. You can read anything of theirs on their website for free which I often do, I have learnt a few things from that site...
 
As people are mentioning different ways of accessing photography magazines...

Have a look to see what your local library offers electronically. My library offers access to 12 photography magazines (in English) via PressReader, if you want to explore other language options there's another 27 to view.

The choice of publications via PressReader with my library access appears quite extensive - 2641 magazines and newspapers in English (563 from the UK) - and the best bit...it's FREE!

Maybe worth looking to see what your library offers.
 
Craig1912 said:
I use Readly

https://get.readly.com/VRF43NJPiQ9dAHVa

£7.99 a month - it has Practical Photograph, Amateur Photographer and a whole host of other magazines. On the iPad it’s very usable
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Just looked at that and it looks too good to be true

Is it really just £7.99 to have access to all those magazines a month ?

I’m 61 now but I was an avid comic fan when younger then over the years a huge magazine buyer depending on what I was in to at the time (guitars, classic cars, golf etc)

It got a bit silly until about 10 years ago (I was earning good money so it never bothered me) but I must have spent a small fortune every month and I found I was just flicking through them and the only time I really read them was on holiday when I had spare time.

This looks to be perfect for me as I love dipping in to different subjects.
 
tonybassplayer said:
Just looked at that and it looks too good to be true

Is it really just £7.99 to have access to all those magazines a month ?

I’m 61 now but I was an avid comic fan when younger then over the years a huge magazine buyer depending on what I was in to at the time (guitars, classic cars, golf etc)

It got a bit silly until about 10 years ago (I was earning good money so it never bothered me) but I must have spent a small fortune every month and I found I was just flicking through them and the only time I really read them was on holiday when I had spare time.

This looks to be perfect for me as I love dipping in to different subjects.
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Yep- I’ve subscribed for last three years and £7.99 is excellent value
 
For the last few years only purchased Photomags to take away on foreign holidays to read beside the pool. No foreign Holidays this year either.

Pete
 
Used to buy photography magazines just to enter competitions around 10 years ago. I don't think that many people bothered as looking back what were fairly average photos won me...

1) £500 European trip of my choice. Went to Venice for one night in a £400 hotel!

2) An Olympus DSLR and lens

3) A portable Epson photo storage device with a screen (very cool)

DSLR User and Practical Photography were my magazines of choice. Practical Photography was fab, although I did find articles basically recycled every year.
 
ukaskew said:
although I did find articles basically recycled every year.
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I used to buy a lot of guitar magazines and they were on that cycle too.

I picked one up in smiths a few months ago and Stairway to Heaven was in it AGAIN
 
Lindsay56 said:
I get PP free as a benefit of my Lloyds bank account, always glance through it but rarely read an article as such. I used to subscribe to AP but find there's rarely more than 10 minutes of reading entertainment in it these days. I like getting magazines, but on price vs value the photo mags just don't cut it any more, sadly.
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Snap. On both the Lloyds account freebie and the 30 second flick through.
 
Sea Angler was one of the big titles to be given the chop by Bauer - despite the fact it was actually quite profitable.It has been bought by a niche publisher.

I like the irony of the fact that years ago, when these big titles were produced by small, family type companies, they provided good content because the publishers realised that the it was the READER who was key to success. The big publishers saw this little companies making a living, the content producers made a living (a good living), the employees made a good living, the publishing owners made a good living, so the big companies bought them. The problem with big companies is they have shareholders to appease with dividends.... the accountants saw content as a cost and advertising as an income..... now, while accountants might be ever os clever with numbers, they didn't quite grasp the concept of producing a magazine that people might actually want to read. Being ever so clever with figures and accounting and soforth, they cut the editorial budget, thereby immediately improving the margin. Advertising, however, which took up valuable editorial space, and replaced the cost with income was the new Golden Egg...... things are turning full circle.

Young readers are actually buying magazines, online publications are starting to produce printed copies due to demand from their readership. Small, niche publishers, are once again coming to the fore. The problem is, the budgets aren't the same as they were in the Golden Era from the 1950s through to about 2005 ish, maybe a couple of years after that. It will be interesting to see how things develop over the next year or two, magazines aren't dead yet, they may be evolving but the internet is not the panacea people think it is - there is no such thing as a free lunch. Content costs to produce, regardless of the end vehicle for delivery.
 
I believe PP has it's own forum. I wonder where it leaves that?
 
When I first started becoming interested in digital photography, I subscribed to PP simply becuase you got a free Lowepro bag as a gift. 12 months later did the same thing again.

I must admit that I preferred Photography Monthly at that time which seemed a more informed magazine, but that got 'jazzed' up and was glossy and shiny but lost its integrity. Dennis magazines gave me a free subscription for two years to Digital SLR Photography and after they stopped, I've not really bought any photography magazines.
 
Cockney said:
I believe PP has it's own forum. I wonder where it leaves that?
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It did. I was a moderator on it.

They closed it a few years ago as they preferred Facebook...
 
benc98 said:
when I first started not many years ago I subscribed, I enjoyed the read but they soon start repeating content..
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That's a problem with a lot of specialist magazines, doing enough new stuff to keep the regulars going, but going back to basics to get the "new" guys interested.
 
I used to subscribe to Amateur Photographer when it concentrated more on photographers and kit but when it started going down the PP tutorials route, I stopped. I used to enjoy looking at the 2nd hand dealers' ads to see what they had too. Saves me a fortune now that that food for GAS has been removed! Since lockdown, I don't think I've bought a magazine other than the 2 motorcycling ones I subscribe to, although if I was to visit a supermarket, I might be tempted to have a look at another bike one (Classic Bike).
 
munch said:
That's a problem with a lot of specialist magazines, doing enough new stuff to keep the regulars going, but going back to basics to get the "new" guys interested.
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I heard from one former photomag editor/columnist that because of the circulation they had actually cut down on articles/features written photographers who could write and instead hired people to scour the internet for pieces from the likes of 500px etc.
 
Bauer have also ceased production of a large number of magazines in Australia and New Zealand. A lot of the mags were considered iconic and had been running for many years. The revenue for advertising in the print media has fallen off the cliff in this part of the world. Google and Facebook have eaten their lunch.

I'm all in favour of on-line subscriptions providing ALL of the back issues are available, (in lieu of paper copies which I used to buy), and that the subscription fees are reasonable. Without the capital expenditure of printing works and the expense of raw materials and final distribution, the cost of on-line subscriptions should be a fraction of the paper copy of the publications.

Between the late 70's and about 1990 I would buy at least half a dozen photo magazines per month. No internet those days and mags such as Popular Photography, SLR Camera, Photo Technique and Amateur Photographer were a great source of all information photographic. A couple of American magazines were also in the mix. All got a bit expensive and, of course, duplication of material caused me to slow down and then cease buying mags.
 
MDJ said:
Photo Technique
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That was a great magazine, founded by Keith Wilson. He left, and as I recall, it didn't last too long after that. Outdoor Photographer, thankfully, lasted a lot longer but has been disappearing down the path of repetition for a while - ie running out of new locations/viewpoints.
 
I've bought a fair few photography magazines over recent years, but they always seemed to be mainly full of adverts with a few recycled "twelve hacks to get sharper photos" tutorials thrown in.
 
welshwizard645 said:
I heard from one former photomag editor/columnist that because of the circulation they had actually cut down on articles/features written photographers who could write and instead hired people to scour the internet for pieces from the likes of 500px etc.
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My qualifications only extend to a B in English (and it's gone downhill since then, that was 22 years ago!) but I once had a two page article printed in a photography magazine, so I can confirm. To my astonishment very little was changed apart from a few grammatical errors.

I also wrote one for Petapixel, to this day it's still driving a massive amount of traffic to my website (3 years later).
 
Sad news to hear.

Back in the 1980's, Practical Photography mag very much put me on the path to becoming a professional photographer. I won a major competition that they ran annually (Photogirl), and the prize was a Bronica ETRS medium format camera system worth £1k (£3k in today's money) - a prize not to be sniffed at. I used that gear to start up my photography business in 1987. Plus I got their cover shot twice, along with a number of other features they ran over the years. The editors including Steve Bavister, Will Cheung and Dominic Boland were all very kind to me.

Happy days.
 
welshwizard645 said:
founded by Keith Wilson
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Keith Wilson writes the monthly Geophoto feature in the RGS Geographical magazine which is still, touch wood, going in its print format:)

GC
 
Final issue dropped through my letterbox this morning. I may keep it a while for posterity.
 
Used to buy magazines for specific articles or reviews, but most of that can be found online these days, for free. Only problem is that you're never sure of the "source" information, whereas you tended to "trust" a decent mag...
 
Jelster said:
Used to buy magazines for specific articles or reviews, but most of that can be found online these days, for free. Only problem is that you're never sure of the "source" information, whereas you tended to "trust" a decent mag...
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I agree.
It's very easy for anyone to set themselves up as an "expert" and start posting "tutorials" on YouTube, and there is some shocking stuff on there.
On the other hand, there is also some really good stuff there too, and I think, recently, I've learned far more from YouTube and manufacturer videos, than I've ever learned from a magazine.
Most mags in recent years seemed to come with their own video cover disk anyway.

How can you tell if a mag, or the person writing for it, is "decent" and trustworthy?
 
Brian G said:
How can you tell if a mag, or the person writing for it, is "decent" and trustworthy?
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Generally the mags are run by people that know what they're doing, and they'll check stuff before it goes to print. Well, that's how it used to be...
 
Jelster said:
Generally the mags are run by people that know what they're doing, and they'll check stuff before it goes to print. Well, that's how it used to be...
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With some mags that's true. With others, usually part of a specialist niche group (where the same publishers produce mags on photography, canoeing, birdwatching and fly fishing for example) one small group of staff creates the content for all. Apart from the obvious cost savings, this allows content to be shared among titles, but the downside is poor content.
 
Back in the 60s, my recollection is that magazines usually had contributions from readers, and I can recall a few "regular contributors" even now. I assume that accuracy was normally checked, but there was one instance I well recall when an American magazine (which is still going as I just checked) published an article but soon after warned against what was suggested in it. I can't recall the exact details, but it left me not trusting the magazine afterwards.
 
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