Welp, I'm not ready to call it a dead horse yet, but the signs are not looking good.
So far Josh Reichmann has shown himself a prolific writer on the subject of his buddies. The latest, Adam Krawesky, is a photographer and a dancer! But wait, according to linkin, he's also a web developer. Yep, a web developer who shoots street in his spare time. We've never seen one of those before. The pictures are exactly the sort of thing that appeals to a guy who has spent very little time critically looking at photographs. Reichmann compares the pictures (well, his partner, Irene, does, and Josh agrees) to Kurosawa which is frankly absurd, besides being beside the point even if it weren't ludicrous.
The photos shown in the article, Adam Krawesky, date from 2011 or earlier, and I can turn up no evidence that Adam has taken a photograph of any kind in the last 3 years and change. Note that the article links to the the artist's web site, which appears to date from approximately 1995, and contains a thankfully fairly small collection of, well, something. Look for yourself, I guess. inconduit.
Now it turns out that Adam was a very minor celebrity about 10 years ago. You might not remember it, but there was an episode in 2006 where some guy in a car and some young woman on a bicycle got into an altercation on the street. See, for instance, here. Adam photographed part of the episode, which looked bad and going sideways very fast. Anyways, the pictures kind of went viral.
I suspect strongly that this was the basis of his brief flirtation with being a Serious Artist. Anyways, that's been over for years, and Adam is just some regular guy now.
Josh is two articles in to actual web site content, and he's down to this guy. No offense to Adam, but he is not a top-tier photographer. Or even a mid-tier photographer. It's not clear he's a photographer at all, and he was certainly never more than a hipster "street tog" tech guy who managed, briefly, to get some bush-league gallery to rep his work.
Krawesky was repped by Patrick Mikhail Gallery out of Ottawa for a while, but no longer appears in their list of artists.
I predict that LuLa is going to go the way of The Phoblographer. Ads all over the place. Eventually also a high density of ads disguised as "content." And lots of profiles and interviews of whatever no-name derivative junk photographers agree to let Josh use their pictures and name. It's a thing, sure, and I guess it generates a little cash flow.
I agree with you. Reichmann jr is a rather poor writer fond of a bit of psychobabble, and the photographer subjects of his articles have not been very interesting so far, especially Le Blanc..
ReplyDeleteAll the LeBlanc "photographs" look to me like a guy who shoots everything to look like the movie Fargo. But since they were movie stills, I just sort of shrugged it off.
DeleteJosh seems to be trying to write with depth, and as a guy myself who tries to write with some depth, I have to give him some respect.
I can't help but feel that's he's not really succeeding, though. Maybe he'll find his voice?
But he's got to get some better photographers. I never cared much for the photos on LuLa's front page, but these is definitely a substantial step downwards.
I have to admit to surprise that the articles have received some praise in the LL forum. Perhaps to encourage the new boss, who has been exposed to some hostility from members. Howevet, a lot of the current discussion in the forum about ‘grammar’, idiom and copy-editing is just piffle.
DeleteI enjoyed a few of them, but many could be edited out. I was thinking maybe he was going to present a set of people with unfortunate posture. That would be interesting.
ReplyDeleteWell, it might have been piffle, but otoh it was only in one thread in one section of the forum called "About the Site", so it shouldn't surprise anyone that it had not much to do with photography.
ReplyDeleteYes, but the extensive discussion in the forum came about because of the new owner’s perceived writing deficiencies, exposed in two articles about ... wait for it ... photographers/film-makers and their work.
DeleteIn Josh Reichmann’s first or second article one was advised that if you feel you have a “genuine voice” you should start reading New Age self help books among other questionable useful training exercises. We were also presented with a number of film stills that weirdly enough contained camera and lens combinations.
ReplyDeleteHere’s my quick guess at what’s happening at LuLa.
Michael Reichmann’s website was a labor of love that might have made a modest profit at some time but probably barely broke even and without Michaels “free” labor to guide the site, somebody had to be designated (and paid) to replace Michael. I sense that Kevin Raber’s condition for employment at LuLa was to turn a profit, hence the very modest subscription price of $12/year. But that seems to be not enough. Honoring Michael Reichmann’s scholarship is one thing but funding a money losing website for posterity’s sake is probably outside the scope of what the heirs of Michael’s estate deem reasonable or feasible.
Not very many bills gonna get paid as a professional meditation coach…
so it would appear that Josh Reichmann is taking a shot at filling his father’s shoes, to cut expenses and focusing on what he knows best. Fair enough. But thats also the same grade I give the effort so far—fair….
My uncharitable take is "having spent the cash portion of his inheritance, the younger Mr. Reichmann cast about for other, less liquid, objects in his legacy which could potentially produce money"
DeleteIt's surprising it has lasted as long as it has. I'm sure my favorite photography site, The Online Photographer, will only last as long as Mike has energy. I think someone described these type websites as hamster wheel businesses. Get off the wheel, and the money stops.
ReplyDeleteIt really does seem strange. I'm sure it all only made commercial sense to Kevin as a feeder to his travel workshops, but then again my impression is that Kevin wasn't in it for the money. Same with Chris, who I actually have met. Surely Josh can't believe he's going to make any money out of this ? And based on his own photography which he's posted so far, it's not exactly inspirational - which is fine, up until the point where it needs to be, which is now. I can only assume that behind the scenes the Reichmann family has been underwriting LuLa, and they want to take over. But the LuLa audience is still essentially landscape photogs with big cameras, and other audiences, for the other niches that Josh is hinting at, are already well catered for elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteHe's not really showing any comprehension of what made the site tick - which was essentially his father's charisma, of course. And I'm afraid Josh appears to be something of a dilettante, although on the other hand his willingness so far to engage with his critics on the forum is commendable and shows some strength of character.
Well, I hope it works out for him. There is still considerable goodwill to build on, but he's going to have to be steer a very careful course.