What is success?
We could argue that success comes in many forms, but most of what we perceive as success is somehow a feeling that comes to us in fleeting moments, almost as epiphanies that last a few moments. It's that instant when, for some reason, you are looking through a window and there is a special kind of light that seems better than usual, or an unexpected "I love you."
Success is relative. I would say that it's not only a matter of money. It’s something else.
When we received a thousand copies of the second issue of the Raw Society Magazine, I felt an enormous sense of urgency. There was a lot of work to do with it. After all, we pre-sold almost half of them even before they were printed. We could call that success or the beginning of it, but to be honest, it was not until I opened the first box and examined one of the copies that I felt it.
There is a certain smell, very particular to a recently printed book, the paper, the ink… It was then and there where I realized that, that smell was evidence of effort, talent, collaboration, hard work… It was the smell of success.
If someone had told me 10 years ago that I’d be editing a magazine for a global audience containing stories from all over the world, I would have thought them delusional. A nice thought, but delusional.
So what changed? A great many things of course, but one of the major things was mindset, slowly but unrelentingly etched into me by my husband and co-founder Jorge Delgado-Ureña, to shoot for the stars and aim for the moon.
The other is that both he and I are nostalgic for the days when photography and photographers and authors were respected in the way that they were when Life magazine was still around. Maybe we’re the delusional ones, but I would say that we, human beings are storytelling animals, that’s how we find inspiration and information, how we build culture and we truly believe in this form of storytelling and if you are reading these lines probably so you are, so let’s be delusional together, let’s dream a little bit.
As I write this I feel like a character from Downton Abbey defending a time that no longer exists. But here’s the thing, I believe that the world works in cycles, and that in each cycle things from the past are recovered, slightly transformed and improved, back into the present. And so, when it comes to the realm of photography and its role in disseminating stories, I can only hope and play my infinitely small part in restoring its value.
“To see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events; to watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud; to see strange things — machines, armies, multitudes, shadows in the jungle and on the moon; to see man’s work — his paintings, towers and discoveries; to see things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, things dangerous to come to; the women that men love and many children; to see and to take pleasure in seeing; to see and be amazed…” -LIFE Magazine’s Prospectus
Life Magazine was created in an era in which the norm was for photographers to follow journalists, in which magazines were specialised, either showing travel, or news, or art or cinema, and in which photography was still somewhat of a novelty. Life proposed something new and exciting:
“By giving pictures their own magazine, [Life] intends that the camera shall at last take its place as the most convincing reporter of contemporary life.”
These, of course, are not the times that we are living now. Users of social media might be exposed to 3.2 billion images per day, the camera is no longer a tool exclusively used by experts, and just about any type of information is at our fingertips, one click away. Not to mention that our attention span decreases with the passing of every decade (apparently, it’s now 8.25s, .075s less than a goldfish!). In short, just about everything is different, except, perhaps, the value that is given to the photographic medium.
Issue One of The Raw Society Magazine was featured on Ted Forbes’ popular Youtube photography channel. Another thing that added to its success.
The Raw Society Magazine is of course NOT Life Magazine, and we’d never be so pretentious to think that, not even aiming for the stars would we be so lucky. However, when The Raw Society Magazine was but an inkling of an idea, a ‘SHOW-BOOK OF THE WORLD’ was not far off.
Jorge and I are photographers, so photography was always going to be at the magazine's core. In addition to this and perhaps due to our own experiences with publishing in magazines, the stories we wanted to include did not need to be ‘newsworthy’ in the traditional sense. ‘Newsworthiness’ is so dependent on what is going on in the world at a specific moment in time, and all kind of agendas and anything outside of that is often hard to publish. This then becomes very limiting in terms of the information that we receive.
Samuel Aranda, Photojournalist & World Press Photo Winner, on assignment for Issue One of The Raw Society Magazine. He documented the remote territories of Brittany, France.
If a photographer is interested in the history of the walls of Istanbul, and another is fascinated by the abundant life that exists in the inhospitable Saharan desert, we believe that it’s likely that someone else will also be interested. Because I believe that we not only need factual information but also wonder and imagination. We need to go to places where we might not be able to, that’s why we, the photographers, exist — to go there and bring you back slices of a world that is much more nuanced, interesting, and often beautiful than we have been forced to believe.
Lastly, we wanted writing. Literature and photography, the verbal and the visual, words and light, to come together in a way that the result would be greater than the sum of its parts. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee, or Long Story Bit By Bit: Liberia Retold by Tim Hetherington are wonderful examples of this and something that we aspire to in our little-big magazine.
Not long ago I was asked why there weren’t any captions to accompany the images in the magazine, a great question, especially since we are so used to having things explained to us. The thing is, captions leave no space for interpretation, no leeway for our minds to wonder, imagine and play a part in the creation of a narrative. Something that I personally find more intriguing.
Now, ideas are great, but converting those ideas into something real, something tangible is a whole different story. This is where our incredible community, or ‘ecosystem’, as our friend Daniel Milnor would put it, comes in.
Nothing great is ever accomplished alone.
Don’t for a second think that those warm fluffy towels fresh out of the tumble dryer are courtesy of a single brain, or that the world’s most hideous shoes that make you feel like you’re walking on clouds were made possible by one human (yes I’m talking about crocs). Even Dolly Parton needed two people for her to exist!
In The Raw Society Magazine’s case, our Pro Members are the ones that fill the pages with their incredible work, as well as talented writer and editor Kayla Green, who happens to be the wife of member Pro Micah Green, Designer Robert Shaw is a friend of another member and so, slowly but surely, through the wonderful web of networks, we were able to give form to something that resembled a blob at first and that could easily have ended up in the dusty attic of ideas.
MONEY MAKES THE WORLD GO AROUND
I don’t love this idea, but you can be damn sure that without it, it’s hard to do many things… including creating a magazine.
Printing is a big money drainer of course, but if you are lucky, those costs eventually get covered by sales. What is a much bigger and more important issue to us is that the photographers in the magazine get, not just compensation, but fair compensation for their work, along with everyone else involved in making the magazine possible.
It sounds like a pretty standard thing right? I mean, how many people do you know who would work for free? Well, photographers often do. Or at the very least, they work without any guarantees of payment: They do the work first and then try to sell it afterwards with the hopes that someone might find value in a story that they have dedicated hours to, sweated over, traveled for and given their heart and soul to produce.
It may sound exaggerated, but, let me tell you a little story. Several years ago I was asked to participate with one of my photographs in a book. Not for a small, independent company but for one of the biggest publishers in the world. And not just any book, but a book purely of photographs. 100 to be exact. Honored by the proposal, I asked about compensation and the answer I got was “zilch”. An entire book was going to be produced in which not one person was going to be paid? Surely this couldn’t be, could it?
It was, and the worst part is that after a lot of consideration, I agreed to participate anyway for one very simple reason: the prospect of the fabled ‘exposure’. I am ashamed of it because as photographers, we need to actively play a part in not being taken advantage of, and by agreeing I did the opposite.
FUNDRAISING WITH A TWIST
I am in awe of people who fundraise because although nowadays there are so many fundraising platforms like Kickstarter, GoFundMe and Patreon, that help make things easier, it is still immensely difficult to reach the audience you need, and not usually a viable solution in the long-term.
However, after spending some time in the US I came across an “adopt a highway” sign and something sort of clicked. People adopt all kinds of things: trees, corals, stars, beaches, and apparently even highways. So why not stories too?
My thinking was: wouldn’t it be incredible if people could actually control what is published based on their interests and curiosity AND as a byproduct of that, become a part of restoring the value of photography?
And so, the Adopt-a-Story model was born.
Each year there is a set of story proposals available on our website in which individuals can adopt part of or a full story and see it come to life in the magazine. In return, they become a part of the decision-making process, their names are included in the magazine, donors of $200 or more get a complimentary magazine and, as it’s a non-profit project, all US-based donations are tax deductible.
Amazingly, twelve stories were funded (of seventeen) for The Raw Society Magazine Issue II and now the story proposals for Issue III are up for adoption.
So, if you feel like being a tad delusional with us, if it’s a little bit of wonder that you are looking for, check the stories for the next issue. If you find one that feels right, donate and remember that when you open the book, that smell is the smell of success, and you will be part of it. Nothing is ever accomplished alone.
ISSUE THREE STORY PROPOSALS
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