[Leica] NEW Photo Newsletter: The 37th Frame Returns

[Stephen Gandy <leicanikon@earthlink.net>]

To me Mike Johnston is one of today's best photographic writers:  knowledgeable,
informative, and entertaining as well.    I
hate boring writing, and Mike's writing isn't.  After leaving the Editor post of
Photo Techniques,  Mike is starting  his own publishing endeavor, a new
Photography Newsletter called  THE 37th FRAME.   Unfortunately Mike has decided
to write it "a cut above the usual semiliterate corporatespeak"  that I have
grown to love so much,  but I will try to understand it anyway.

Stephen Gandy

> THE 37th FRAME
> A Photography Newsletter      www.luminous-landscape.com/m-johnston.htm
>
>
> Written by Mike Johnston, "The 37th Frame" is an ink-on-paper newsletter
> intended to entertain, inform, and amuse. Published quarterly with the
> seasons for the time being, its contents are all new, entirely about
> photography, written exclusively for the newsletter, and not available from
> any other source. "The 37th Frame" is available by subscription only. No
> advertising is accepted. Each issue features:
>
> THE RANT--Mike sounds off. Fools deserve, and folly receives, no quarter.
> Blunt, funny, sometimes even wrong. But definitely entertaining. There is a
> lot of foolishness in our field, even a bit of injustice, and it sometimes
> provokes me to wax witty and acerbic. If you've had a bad day, this might
> help you feel better.
>
> THE SCOOP--This is where we dish the dirt. Good is the reward of the good,
> but scoundrels get their just desserts. Anecdotes, apocrypha, tales and
> legends of the old days, industry shenanigans, inside stories, and straight
> talk like you won't hear in the commercial magazines.
>
> THE LENS TEST--A  subjective aesthetic appraisal of a different lens in each
> issue, in the tradition of the great Japanese optical savants. For the
> connoisseur. Folk who like their world strictly by the numbers may want to
> steer clear. Those with a poetic streak or an aesthetic sensibility will
> understand.
>
> THE VIEW--Photographs, photographers, books, techniques, viewpoints,
> reviews, verities. Personal prejudices and product loyalties, good stuff,
> plugs for things that work and work that satisfies.
>
> THE NEWS--The rest of what you'll want to know from me till next we meet.
>
> All written in a style that is a cut or two above the usual semiliterate
> corporatespeak.
>
> First issue Summer 2001, coming in July
> Sample issue one dollar
> Subscriptions:
> 1 year/4 issues, $18.
> 2 years/8 issues, $32.
> 3 years/12 issues, $42.
> Foreign subscriptions add $2 per year (will be available in PDF form for no
> extra charge by issue 5)
> Make check or money order payable to Michael C. Johnston
> and send to:
> 37th Frame, 316 Windsor Drive, Waukesha, Wisconsin 53186
> Inquiries: michaeljohnston@ameritech.net
>
> "Your piece is among the 3 best that have ever been written about my
> work...I think you are a very good writer." --Helen Levitt, responding to a
> review of her one-woman show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
>
> "You are a punk." --A manufacturer, following an overly honest product
> review
>
> "A writer's first duty is to be stimulating...You are not _bland_!" --Dave
> Jenkins
>
> "If you leave the [mailing list], how am I going to get my 'Johnston fix'?"
> --Name withheld
>
> "You may not agree with everything Mike Johnston has to say, but you'll be
> entertained by how he says it...one of the most interesting writers about
> photography in America today." --Phil Davis, author of _Beyond the Zone
> System_, the textbook _Photography_, and Professor Emeritus of Photography
> at the University of Michigan
>
> "Your writing is so _tasty_." --Sally Mann, renowned art photographer
>
> <<<<<<
>
> I'm asking friends to please help spread the word around--send the
> announcement to other photographers, post it on mailing lists, etc. The
> first issue is due to be printed midway through July, and I need
> approximately 200 subscribers by then. If you can help, I'd be grateful.
> Even if you just pass the announcement or the URL of the web page to a few
> of your photographer friends, anybody who can take an active role in signing
> up a few more photographers would definitely be a big help.
>
> The URL is: www.luminous-landscape.com/m-johnston.htm
>
> Thanks!
>
> --Mike