''Camera'' is a photography review that began its life in
Lucerne
Lucerne ( , ; High Alemannic German, High Alemannic: ''Lozärn'') or Luzern ()Other languages: gsw, Lozärn, label=Lucerne German; it, Lucerna ; rm, Lucerna . is a city in central Switzerland, in the Languages of Switzerland, German-speaking po ...
, 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 Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography.
Steichen was credited with tr ...
,
Robert Frank
Robert Frank (November 9, 1924 – September 9, 2019) was a Swiss photographer and documentary filmmaker, who became an American binational. His most notable work, the 1958 book titled ''The Americans'', earned Frank comparisons to a modern-da ...
and
Jeanloup Sieff
Jeanloup Sieff (November 30, 1933 – September 20, 2000) was a French photographer. He was born in Paris to Polish parents. He was a photography student of Gertrude Fehr. He is famous for his portraits of politicians, famous artists, landscapes, ...
.
Adopting the name, design and spirit of the magazine's most successful years, in a venture independent of its former publishers, editor Bruno Bonnabry-Duval and journalist Brigitte Ollier re-launched ''Camera'' as a quarterly review: the first edition appeared in kiosks on 17 January 2013.
The early years: 1922-1947
The first German-language issue of ''Camera'' was published by the engineer
Adolf Herz and book-publisher C. J. Bucher in June 1922. Making clear its aim to aid the development of the still-fledgling art photography movement, 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 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
Rotogravure (or gravure for short) is a type of intaglio printing process, which involves engraving the image onto an image carrier. In gravure printing, the image is engraved onto a cylinder because, like offset printing and flexography, it ...
system, but eventually moved to the latter technique when the Bücher publishing company adopted the technology from 1925.
The publishing half of the partnership had changed after C. J. Bucher's stroke in 1941: from then his wife, Alice, unofficially took over the direction of the publishing company, and she would become the official director upon her husband's death in 1950.
Herz's period as editor of ''Camera'', ending in 1947, was marked for its focus on
Pictorialism
Pictorialism is an international style and aesthetic movement that dominated photography during the later 19th and early 20th centuries. There is no standard definition of the term, but in general it refers to a style in which the photographer ha ...
. Contributing photographers from this period and style were
Heinrich Kühn
Carl Christian ''Heinrich'' Kühn (25 February 1866 in Dresden – 14 September 1944 in Birgitz) was an Austrian–Germany, German photographer and photography pioneer.
Overview
Heinrich Kühn is regarded one of the forefathers of fine art photo ...
, Léonard Missone,
Hoffmeister, Craig Annan,
Edward Steichen
Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography.
Steichen was credited with tr ...
, Kieghley and
Demachy.
1947-1965
![Camera_0753](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Camera_0753.jpg)
The post-war period was an important one for ''Camera'', with the publication of the earliest works of photographers
Jakob Tuggener Jakob Tuggener (7 February 1904, Zurich – 29 April 1988) was a Swiss photographer, filmmaker and painter.
Early life, education and training
Son of Jacob Arnold, lithographer, and Anna Barbara Sennhauser, Jakob Tuggener took his first photographs ...
, Gotthard Schuh,
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson (; 22 August 1908 – 3 August 2004) was a French humanist photographer considered a master of candid photography, and an early user of 35mm film. He pioneered the genre of street photography, and viewed photography as cap ...
,
Robert Capa
Robert Capa (born Endre Ernő Friedmann; October 22, 1913 – May 25, 1954) was a Hungarian-American war photographer and photojournalist as well as the companion and professional partner of photographer Gerda Taro. He is considered by some to ...
(and
Magnum),
Bill Brandt
Bill Brandt (born Hermann Wilhelm Brandt; 2 May 1904 – 20 December 1983)Paul DelanyBill Brandt: A Life was a British photographer and photojournalist. Born in Germany, Brandt moved to England, where he became known for his images of British ...
and
Robert Frank
Robert Frank (November 9, 1924 – September 9, 2019) was a Swiss photographer and documentary filmmaker, who became an American binational. His most notable work, the 1958 book titled ''The Americans'', earned Frank comparisons to a modern-da ...
.
Walter Läubli became
chief editor
An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies.
The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...
, or '
art director
Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film industry, film and television, the Internet, and video games.
It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and ...
' as the position was called then, from January 1948. The 1949 special issue featured Robert Frank's first published photography, and was ''Cameras first important mark on international photo-journalism. To better expand the ''Camera'' readership, Läubli introduced articles translated into English and French from their native German, making the magazine a trilingual one. He also re-looked the magazine and graced it with a new logo that would remain practically unchanged until the magazine's 1981 demise.
The graphic designer
Hans Neuburg succeeded Läubli from 1952, and led the editorial board until 1954. He was unofficially succeeded for two years by Imre Reiner, then Romeo Martinez appeared as the next editor in chief from July 1956.
From the March 1957 issue onward, ''Camera'' Martinez transformed Camera from a trilingual magazine into three separate English, French and German editions, and returned the magazine to a purely photographic one. 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 Bucher and the remaining ''Camera'' staff.
The Porter years
Allan Porter
Allan Porter (April 29, 1934 – October 2, 2022) was an American-Swiss photographer, journalist, editor, designer, and art director best known for his role as editor of Camera (magazine), Camera magazine. His eye for talent helped launch the ...
first appeared from December 1965 as a guest editor, 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. Under the direction of Allan Porter, ''Camera'' was marked not only by its search for talent in the leading frontiers of modern
photography
Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...
, but for its examination, from a modern viewpoint, of the works of past masters.
''Camera''
's 1965 circulation was at 9,300 copies, all languages combined. Porter had promised an 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, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
-based
Acme Publications
Acme is Ancient Greek (ακμή; English transliteration: ''akmē'') for "the peak", "zenith" or "prime". It may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Acme'' (album), an album by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
* Acme and Septimius, a fictional ...
, 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 Georg Heise
Carl Georg Heise (28 June 1890 – 11 August 1979) was a German art historian. From 1945 to 1955 he was director of the Kunsthalle Hamburg.
Life
Heise was born into a Hamburg mercantile family with artistic interests. In about 1906 Aby Warburg b ...
;
Léonard Misonne;
George A. Tice;
Sadakichi Hartmann
Carl Sadakichi Hartmann (November 8, 1867 – November 22, 1944) was an American art and photography critic, notable anarchist and poet of German and Japanese descent.
Biography
Hartmann, born on the artificial island of Dejima, Nagasaki, to ...
.
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
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
offset
Offset or Off-Set may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* "Off-Set", a song by T.I. and Young Thug from the '' Furious 7: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack''
* ''Offset'' (EP), a 2018 EP by singer Kim Chung-ha
* ''Offset'' (film), a 200 ...
printing system rather than the slower and more expensive sheet-fed
gravure
Rotogravure (or gravure for short) is a type of intaglio printing process, which involves engraving the image onto an image carrier. In gravure printing, the image is engraved onto a cylinder because, like offset printing and flexography, it ...
technology used until then. Porter, having reservations about how ''Camera''
's 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 or Off-Set may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* "Off-Set", a song by T.I. and Young Thug from the '' Furious 7: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack''
* ''Offset'' (EP), a 2018 EP by singer Kim Chung-ha
* ''Offset'' (film), a 200 ...
system that would at the same time cut costs and maintain quality.
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.
Camera as a reference
''Camera'' was a longtime reference for all things photographic, and was among the first to publish many works from today's great masters. Some of the world's biggest libraries, such as the
National Library of France
National may refer to:
Common uses
* Nation or country
** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen
Places in the United States
* National, Maryland, ce ...
in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
carry hard-bound editions of ''Camera'' as reference works.
See also
*
List of magazines in Switzerland
The following is an incomplete list of current and defunct magazines published in Switzerland. They are published in German, French, Italian or other languages.
A
* '' Aero Revue''
* '' Annabelle''
* '' Animan''
* ''Art International''
B
* ...
Bibliography
Book
*
Web
*
Designonsense - Allan Porter
Retrieved 13 August 2006.
Notes
External links
Allan Porter and Camera- documentary on the magazine's Editor in Chief between 1965 and the magazine's 1981 demise.
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Camera
1922 establishments in Switzerland
1981 disestablishments in Switzerland
Defunct magazines published in Switzerland
German-language magazines
Magazines established in 1922
Magazines disestablished in 1981
Mass media in Lucerne
Photography magazines
Photography in Switzerland