"Gesture"

Chris Gampat is at it again, trying to figure out how to turn an almost total lack of ability and a bunch of enthusiasm into a business. He really really really wants to do some kind of magazine based around black&white photography, which is a worthy goal. It just happens to be beyond his skills, and is in fact a very very high wall to climb.

Don Quixote here got me to thinking, though. How would I do it?

The concept I arrived at very suddenly but after quite a lot of noodling on it, is a 'zine called "Gesture", stealing from Jay Maisel. His recent book Light, Gesture, & Color defines his rather personal and idiosyncratic notion of "Gesture" as, roughly, the essence of the thing itself. Maisel tries to do it one frame at a time, with varying success.

This is something I am interested in, the uncharitable might say that I harp on it endlessly. My opinion, oft-repeated, is that the essence of the thing is best got at photographically with multiple pictures, a photo essay, a portfolio.

So this mythical "Gesture" magazine would feature one photo-essay per issue, which gets at the essence of the thing in some way. The artist gets a few column inches of text. I get a few column inches of text. And then there are pictures. Black and white, it's called "Gesture", not "Gesture & Color". Artists selected by me, edited by me, judged by me.

Online and print, funded by a Patreon and whatever sales of the print edition happen. Shoot for once a month. Published on the 1st of the month, every month, every other month, every sixth month, as time and available content permit. Pay the artists.. something. Maybe not much, but always something. "Corporate structure" to be determined. Print edition delivery model to be determined.

It's just a concept. I'm not going to do it this year. I have no time and too many projects already. I'm probably never going to do it. Feel free to steal it and go for it. Let me know if you do, I might buy a copy. Indeed, we could all of us do this 'zine, and every one would be different, every one would probably be worth something.

See MagCloud and its competitors as a starting point.