[Mike Update 1]

Look what Intern Extraordinare pro tem Lillian Schley did! You might not think this is a beautiful picture, but to me it is. What you're looking at is all (or almost all) of the photo magazine articles I ever wrote. For each article, Lillian clipped the cover and the text pages, put them in sheet protectors, then filed them in binders in order. In so doing she reduced box after heavy box of old magazines I've been carting around and have never had space to store into these nice stacks of handy binders.

Not only does each binder have an index, she also listed the missing issues. Some day I'll prowl eBay and see if I can fill in the missing ones.

The only whole magazines I kept of my own work were the 36 issues of Darkroom Techniques/Photo Techniques (six per year), plus several special issues, that I edited.

It's been a lot of fun to be able to page through all this old stuff and see it easily and at a glance—there are a number of articles I haven't looked at since they were published. I'd forgotten a lot of it.

One thing that I'd forgotten that made me laugh when I saw it again—the column I wrote for Black & White Photography about print quality that just happened to have the worst reproduction quality of any article I ever wrote. [They normally did a good job.] So there I am blathering on about tonal delicacy and "the glow," and the illustrations look like, well, poop.

(As I always say, I hate irony.)

It's odd that some of the articles are now completely dated (a review of a long-gone printing paper from a company that's out of business, for example) and others hold up very well.

The dim light at the end of the tunnel has appeared
We load the trucks tomorrow. I might be ready. And I'm about to go off the Internet for several days, but for my favorite-thing-I-ever-bought iPhone 6+. I have to say I don't begin to understand things like D-Day and the moon landing...selling one house, buying another in a different state, and moving between the two, getting everything done and in proper order, is a task that is right at the frontier of my comprehension of logistics.

Back over to Ctein.

Mike
(Thanks to Lillian)

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Comments

[Dave]

Good luck as you embark on the journey, Mike - your upstate-NY readership (myself included) is looking forward to having you join us!

[Eolake]

Very well done, Lillian!
It looks like they are even higher quality and good looking binders. That sort of thing is important.

[psu]

You should photograph all the pages with your iPhone and make a giant pdf document :)

[Roger Bradbury]

My rule for magazines is, if there are three or more articles I want to keep, I'll keep the whole magazine. It's probably similar to what you've had done here, though It is probably time I did it again.

I recently bought a copy of Amateur Photographer from around the time when I first starting buying it in 1972 or 73, and it's interesting to look at the advertisments, as I know rather more now than I did then.

[Benjamin Marks]

Awesome sight! For those of us who live with a certain mount of perma-clutter, this is a thing of beauty.

As to loading trucks: be careful of your back. Unless the "we" is the royal we and is actually "they" as in, "The Movers." Ugh. I hate moving. Sympathy, empathy..really about a dozen "pathy-s". Good luck!

[latent_image]

Mike, I have a significant number of Camera & Darkroom issues. Let me know if I can fill in some of the gaps. My copies are well thumbed but intact.

[Tom Kwas]

I actually did this through-out the 1990's with photo and business articles I wanted to keep, I realized there had to be a better way than saving the whole mag...but then, after 10 years of this, I was up to 20 binders. When I moved to DC in 1999, I took a cursory glance at the whole thing, I realized I couldn't figure out why I was saving them, and that they'd eventually all be on line.

It's different for your own creativity, tho, it's a perfect way to save your original stuff. I try to tell my staff of young photographers to not only save their published work, but to scan in the pages and store as .pdf's; you never know when you might be called on to show how your work was used.

I also used Schley's methodology when I was working on organizing my buddy's self produced 'zines' from the 1980's-90's; they make those 8.5 X 11 pages large enough to put a magazine in!

[Dave in NM]

"Trucks," as in plural? Did you press Xander into driving one?

We made our move from NY to NM in two trips. I drove a rental truck and my wife drove my pickup on the first trip. Since we hadn't decided if we we were going to buy or build, we parked them at the motel until we found a place to rent. Then we unpacked at the rental house and drove a rental car back to NY. A couple weeks later, I left with another truck, towing my wife's car on a flat bed trailer; and she flew out with the pets. I was so eager to get here, that I drove the last 1100 miles straight through. I'll never forget pulling into Colorado as the sun rose, lighting up the front range.

Enjoy the experience, Mike.

[Darlene Almeda]

I recently went on a job interview for a commercial photographer teacher. When the secretary called to make the appointment I asked her if an online or thumb drive portfolio would be adequate, but a physical portfolio was requested. Well I had not put one together in years, so I went through a few boxes looking for various tear sheets and examples, and made fifteen prints of recent work. I was able to locate enough for a decent portfolio and the interview went well. One thing I discovered from this recent collection of archived material is just how long I have been involved with photography (and commercial art). Good thing Lillian has done a lot of the collecting for you, because you just never know the value of it. One item I included in my portfolio for this job interview was my teacher certification which I was told was nice, but was not necessary.

[ctein]

Dear Mike,

What latent_image said. I've got a complete run of C&D and dupes of most of the issues. If you're missing something, send us a list.

pax / Ctein

[Jim Kofron]

Lillian did a fantastic job. Good luck with the move, Mike!!!!

[Dave Jenkins]

Mike. sometime when you have time, post a list of missing articles. I'll bet your TOP readers can come up with most of them.

[mike plews]

Outstanding!
Clearly Mike has learned how to circumvent The First Law of Gaseous Bric-A-Brac.
"Stuff expands to fill the space allotted".

[Kris]

Good grief, I remember that article in B&W Photography.

Had a picture of a girl in it wearing a white shirt with her hand on her hip?

With regards to the magazine, I have to say the 'lack' of print quality on the article went over my head. The later change to very thin paper stock they started to use several years ago, which rippled by the time I received my sub copy, meant I cancelled.

It's still going though, last I heard.

[Ole Lundin]

I started subscribing in the late 1980's to Darkroom Techniques/Photo Techniques (incl predecessors/successors). After carting around 2 decades of magazines (all the issues), and facing another move, I recycled almost all of them last week. It was hard to do.

I have been lurking here to get some of what those magazines provided (you & Ctein included).