So, in a business where Britain's leading magazine publisher spends £7m ($11m) on the press machine time alone to print magazines which are destined to be pulped in the criminally wasteful system of sale or return news-trade distribution, it's time to move forward. That £7m exludes paper (they own the mills and the forests) and transport (they own the distribution companies, and probably substantial shares in the road maintenance contractors) as well as recycling costs (you guessed!). But then, they also own a big slice of the major newsagent chains.
Mainstream periodical publishing, financed by advertisements, must come to the Superhighway. WWW and its exponential userbase growth afford the best route to sustainable publishing. I love ink on paper; I produce anything up to four magazines a month, with one assistant editor, a 16-hours-a-week secretary, and part-time family help from Shirley (wife, doing MSc to become a Color Scientist) and Richard (son, two year Media diploma student). We do the lot - writing, artwork, design, scanning, advertisement artwork, imagesetting, subscriptions. But... I hate the irresponsible waste of it all, the huge overheads, and being part of an industry which is dominated by unadulterated trash.
Until the day comes that Internet publishing pays its way, PHOTON must remain an expression of confidence in a different future. I hope you enjoy it; I've tried to make it rich and deep without letting it go mushy. I hate browsing services which throw slabs of text at you and lead you nowhere. Look around PHOTON; tell me what you think. Tell me, especially, if your monitor displays our 'straight-lined' color photo files too dark. I'll hate having to zap their gamma to make them viewable on crud monitor set-ups but soft and flat on calibrated systems, but if the entire world is uncalibrated, I will bow to demand.
Comment: checking out 'best of Web' sites, I find that the files on the Australian University art archive are set up correctly. It would be criminal to adjust a deep rich tone in a painting to be a mid-gray just to suit 'TV contrast' VGA monitors. So I'll stick with correct, accurate versions of photographs.
I also notice that individuals tend to print their CVs, qualifications, hourly rates and life story. If you want my CV, you can have it.
e-mail comments, ideas, concepts and criticisms and I promise to read them at least once every six months like every good sysop I know. Replies will be biennial excluding Leap Years and commence in 1995.