Visual Arts Journal

Kassan has Ventured into Digital
As you may have guessed David Jon Kassan on the short list of favorite artists here at VAJ Blog. So I welcome any opportunity to share what he has been creating. He is widely known for his pencil, charcoal, chalk and oil works but is less known for his new digital works. (continue reading…)

An Industry Standard
A quality magazine that is considered a “must have” for many photographers. The content highlights two or three really cool Photoshop tutorials and an article or two. Filling out the rest of the pages are a dozen or so regular columns, a handful of photo equipment reviews, Lightroom content and a nice spread on the current featured photographer. Also present, a lot of glossy looking advertising, which as a photographer, I do selectively glance at. (continue reading…)

SilverShotz is pricy and hard to find, but it’s drop dead gorgeous. The magazine mainly profiles the artists, or rather their portfolios, by displaying numerous very large images of their work. Text is very light but who needs it. If this doesn’t provide inspiration, I don’t know what will.  They have a one page directory in the back and no other advertising. They also have a one page book review but no other columns or content, just the big name profiles and portfolios. (continue reading…)

A Postmortem Review: Camera Arts Magazine

A small but highly inspirational magazine covering all genres and specialties of photography, fine art, photo mixed-media, portraiture, photo journalistic, etc. All the articles are keepers; I found no fillers (advertising yes but no meaningless articles). The articles tend to be more visual than text oriented and the writing is concise.

Update: A Review of the Camera Arts Magazine Web Site
Once entirely gone, this magazine has been resold back to a previous owner (continue reading…)

I found this magazine on the newsstand about a month ago and really liked it. My review is based on both the first (January 2009) and second issues of this quarterly magazine. I initially thought it was the other popular magazine, but was surprised to see that APC has some sort of association with this magazine rather than the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP). (continue reading…)

Authored by Jane R. Hofstetter   ISBN: 1-58180-479-2  List Price: US 28.99

This is one of the best books I’ve ever seen on composition and planning. It is very easy to read and her text and examples make the principles very easy to understand. It covers Pattern, Passage, Focal Areas, Color, Design, The Golden Mean and Emotional Depth. (continue reading…)