dreams, fantasies, and idealizations….all ethereal in nature….and hardly anything one can grasp or hold onto…yet, this is what i live for and form the basic building blocks for anything i have ever done….the starting point….and what always keep me going…my crazy ideas are usually just that…gone with the wind…however, sometimes and only sometimes , does something come out of it….
Burn Magazine is one year old today….i have no idea if Burn will ever be two! but, i take things one day at a time, one idea at a time, and with a combo of fate and hard work will do all i can to keep this audience driven magazine alive and well…
2009 has been a year of surprises (like the Lucie Award) and born from a “crazy idea” that popped into my head for no apparent reason right from the table where i now write here in Durango, Colorado…yes, Road Trips conceived right here, and Burn first published right here on this date last year….from the very room where my father Alan died peacefully on a snowy Christmas morning with family gathered, and in the house where my mother Maryanna now lives…a room with memories and conversations that speak of the future…of optimism and fulfillment and warmth…in our family, possibility is always the order of the day…
the dummy cover above is such a possibility….well, a bit more than a possibility, and much more of a reality….hard copy….to be published as an on-demand collectors’ print magazine within the next few weeks….Anton Kusters and i are both working to make this happen….again, the above cover is dummy copy…the final edition could be a bit different than what appears above, but this gives you an idea…..yes sure, there will be hurdles as usual…but, while the major print publications are scaling down hard copy production and moving to the net, we have already our presence on the net and will move now towards some hard copy production in both magazine and book formats….
any of you who have followed me from Road Trips days knows that i always start with a dream/idea and do my best to make it come true…some ideas fall by the wayside, but some move forward to reality….you can go back and read right through everything that was being talked about and all that has happened…
for our Burn birthday today, i now announce a $15,000. stipend for the Emerging Photographer Fund grant for 2010 to be awarded to a worthy young photographer….details and deadlines to be announced by early January 2010…Sean Gallagher and Alejandro Chaskielberg have both been recipients in 2008 and 2009…if you track their work and their efforts you will quickly see the grant has been well placed…a jury of peers from our craft will be chosen to pick the EPF recipient 2010 from a selection of 10-20 finalists…
since this time of year is for taking stock and thanking those who have helped, i want to express my heartfelt gratitude to all of you who have made financial contributions to either Burn or to the EPF in 2009…each of you will receive a personal letter from me if you have not already…our new contribution button will now include the option for subscription, but of course all is totally voluntary and we will work just as hard for those of you who enjoy Burn as a free option as for those of you who are in a position to kindly contribute….we appreciate you all just being here…Anton and i alone cannot do any more than we are already doing with Burn and your contributions have at helped us to survive if not thrive…
we have two grant writers now working to see if we can receive significant support to not only maintain Burn but allow for payment to photographers…this has been our biggest hurdle and going for this funding is a full time job in and of itself……for us to do this is not so much a problem of sponsorship or grants which may come our way, but a requirement for a full time general manager…
the main thing is this…neither Anton nor i want to drop our life as photographers…we both have major projects going…for Burn to move forward in a significant way with regard to sponsorships and photographer commissions will require a full time full on person to manage these funds and the work flow….we both realized that if even a part of what we are asking for actually came in the door, then our lives as photographers would be over…for Burn to be more than what it is would take full on concentration from a management standpoint, not from a creative one…
the editing and curating and designing of Burn both online and in print can be managed by Anton and me with no interference to our photographic lives, but the one step forward now of managing significant funding is a full time job for someone…i am interviewing for that “someone” now….that someone is a manager, not a photographer…that someone is a biz person, not an artist…
this is of course exactly how we structure the biz side of Magnum…..and that model is a model that works….a model that most likely will include Burn as a part of the upcoming new online presence for Magnum…while Burn obviously features non-Magnum photographers from this audience , Magnum’s overall interest in the development of new talent, education, and the endorsement of a wide variety of authored photography, and the rights of photographers , falls well within the arbiter role that Magnum has played in general for 62 years…my push is for Magnum to be larger than Magnum….our place in history dictates a magnanimous role …
in one year, Burn has made its place on the net…we think we have earned it and we humbly pledge to keep it that way…we are a boutique shop and we will stay a boutique shop….we have zero desire to become something we are not…we simply know we can be better…..the Lucie Award was significant only in that it was an endorsement for an audience driven online publication in a world of print and, more importantly, a bit of merit for our educational imperative….my other awards are packed in cardboard boxes in the attic…unimportant to me….the only one sitting on my mantle is this one…and it does not have my name on it…it is your award….a Burn award…..so, Happy Birthday to you!!
-david alan harvey
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