Outdoor Photographer has been grossly mismanaged for some time, and I know several of my colleagues have not been paid for articles they contributed to the magazine last year. Many are contributors to NPN as well. Recently the magazine was purchased by the BeBop Channel, who purchased the Madavor network in order to acquire a jazz magazine, all the other magazines Madavor managed are essentially being dissolved, including Outdoor Photographer.
In the article below the new owner has placed blame on the photographers that contributed. It’s a disgusting situation and a sad day for a publication that has been a staple in the industry for so long.
Well that’s a bummer for anyone involved. I have to say Mr. Royal’s response saying “well if you all care so much, pony up to prove it”, is pretty sad and weak. Between this and DPReview disappearing, some folks are losing a valuable resource.
Which makes me wonder about the NPN magazine launch and how you might approach it differently in the wake of this news.
This is very sad. OP has been a favorite of mine and I’ve been a subscriber for many years. Unfortunately it’s not the first photo oriented mag that stopped paying contributors. Very unfortunate situation. It seems paper based magazines are going extinct. Being an old duffer, I much prefer a paper based publication - much easier on my eyes.
Sad to see the unraveling. I’d dropped OP years ago and was not even sure it was even still out there. During my many years of competitive drag racing Super Stock magazine was the top of the publications in that arena. OP was at the top of the list in the nature photography world for many years. Many of us remained loyal customers for a long time. As things changed at OP so did the customer base IMO.
I can’t say I’m surprised.
I’ve never been impressed with much of the content in the magazine except some notable exceptions like Sarah Marino or William Neill. I found the publication was far too catered to new photographers without much content that was relevant to me. Their competitions really turned me off though based on how poorly they have been run.
I used to love it, and several other photography magazines but it (they) got increasingly boring and I dropped my subscription(s) years ago. OP’s online content became less and less interesting, too. Sad to see. There is certainly a place for a good magazine and online is the situation these days – nothing wrong with that. I wish all the best for David’s endeavor!
So sad to read about the decline of OP. Of course print magazines, much like printed books, are not exactly a growth industry these days. The new owner is really a piece of work, blaming the victim. I guess I will not hold my breath on receipt of the cash prize for my recent contest win there!
Sad times as OP was my staple publication growing up as a nature photographer. I don’t recall when I stopped my subscription, but I do know I probably still have stacks of the mags up in the rafters somewhere. You can certainly look at mis-management, but we all know what the web and having access to anything and everything online has done to the printed word, and of course brick & mortar all together. It is what it is I guess.
On the lighter side, I had my favorite columnists at OP including our own William Neill and my favorite was Dewitt Jones and his monthly, “Basic Jones.” He often solicited readers to submit their own stories and images in response to his writings. Sometime in the early 90’s I did just that. I was pretty active at the time submitting images to various publications, calendars, stock agencies, etc. etc. So when I never heard back from OP after that submission… I just wrote it off. I think I had sent dupes of the slides anyway… Years went by, never heard back from either Dewitt or OP.
I don’t remember how long exactly, but it must have been at least 15-20 years. Then one day I received an envelope in the mail. It was my original submission and a hand written note from Dewitt. I thought that was pretty cool.
