About Photographie

Photographie

Photographie (own spelling: PHOTOGRAPHIE) is the German photo magazine, first published in January 1977. Published since 2015 by the IdeaTorial GmbH in Tostedt — the Redaktionsteam Späth — it appears monthly (ten times a year) under editor-in-chief Frank Späth. The magazine reports on current digital and analogue photo technology with tests and buying advice, and presents renowned photographers and young talents in portfolios, making-of reportages, interviews and portraits; the practice series convey photographic background knowledge and practical know-how for amateurs and professionals. Photographie is the official journal for the members of the Deutscher Verband für Fotografie (DVF). The ISSN is 1437-4951 — the identifier of the 1977-founded photo monthly, from the Swiss Schaffhausen to the Tostedt publishing house.

Overview

Photographie is a German-language monthly magazine for photography, published in Tostedt by the IdeaTorial GmbH (publisher: IdeaTorial GmbH, Tostedt; publishing house: IdeaTorial Redaktionsteam Späth). It appears monthly — ten times a year. The editor-in-chief is Frank Späth. The programme: the current digital and analogue photo technology — the cameras, the lenses, the accessories — with tests and buying advice; the portfolios — the renowned photographers' and the young talents' works; the making-of reportages — the pictures' creation; the interviews and portraits — the photographers' voices and faces; and the practice series — the photographic background knowledge and the practical know-how for amateurs and professionals. The technology coverage is the magazine's service core: the camera bodies tested — the sensors measured, the autofocus timed, the ergonomics judged — the lenses reviewed — the sharpness charted, the bokeh assessed — the accessories examined — the tripods, the flashes, the bags. The buying advice translates the tests into the purchase: the system recommendations, the upgrade paths, the price-performance verdicts. The analogue coverage — the film cameras, the darkroom, the film stocks — serves the film renaissance: the analogue photography's revival reported with the digital's thoroughness. The portfolios are the magazine's gallery: the renowned photographers' series — the masters' works — and the young talents' discoveries — the newcomers' visions — the pictures given the space. The making-of reportages open the studios: the lighting setups, the locations, the decisions — the pictures' creation demystified. The interviews give the photographers the word: the working methods, the philosophies, the careers. The practice series are the magazine's school: the exposure triangle, the composition rules, the available light, the flash techniques, the raw processing — the know-how for the amateurs and the professionals' refresh. The readers: the ambitious amateurs, the professionals, the DVF members — the German photography's practitioners. The ambitious amateurs — the hobbyists with the system cameras — read the magazine for the technique's mastery: the tests guiding the purchases, the practice series improving the pictures. The professionals — the working photographers — read it for the craft's currency: the new tools, the colleagues' works, the industry's news. The DVF members — the organised photography's competitors and distinction-holders — read it as the association's journal: the competitions, the news, the community. The DVF official-journal status — the Deutscher Verband für Fotografie's members' journal — anchors the magazine in the organised photography.

History

In January 1977 Ernst Meier brought out the first Photographie issue in Switzerland; a few years later the magazine also appeared in Germany. The redaction's headquarters was in the Swiss Schaffhausen until 1993; from 1976 to 1991 Urs Tillmanns served as the Swiss editor-in-chief. The redaction's moves — Düsseldorf 1993, Essen 2003, Hamburg 2008 — trace the magazine's German journey: the Swiss-founded journal becoming the German photo press's title, the redaction following the publishing geography. The Hamburg years — the Untitled Verlag's portfolio — placed the magazine in the German media metropolis: the photo press's hanseatic chapter before the Tostedt ownership. At the turn of 2016 the Photographie passed into the ownership of the IdeaTorial GmbH, Redaktionsteam Späth — Frank Späth remaining editor-in-chief. The 50 years — 1977 to 2027 — span the photography's revolutions: the analogue era's film and darkroom, the digital revolution's sensors and pixels, the mirrorless era, the smartphone's challenge — the magazine reporting the technology's transformation. The 1977 founding year's photography — the SLRs, the Kodachrome, the darkroom's chemistry — is the museum against the 2027 test bench: the mirrorless bodies, the computational photography, the AI denoising. The digital revolution — the 2000s' sensor wars, the megapixel race — transformed the magazine's test lab: the film's grain replaced by the sensor's noise, the darkroom by the Lightroom. The mirrorless era — the 2010s' system change — rewrote the buying advice: the mounts, the adapters, the new lenses. The smartphone's challenge — the computational photography's rise — questioned the camera's future: the magazine defending the dedicated camera's craft. Through each revolution the monthly's formula held: the tests, the portfolios, the practice. The publisher history — the Swiss Ernst Meier founding, the Schaffhausen redaction, the Düsseldorf-Essen-Hamburg moves, the Untitled Verlag's 2009 takeover, the IdeaTorial's 2016 acquisition — documents the German-language special-interest press's ownership changes: the founder's magazine becoming the portfolio title, the Hamburg publisher's interim, the Tostedt editorial team's ownership. The IdeaTorial GmbH — the Redaktionsteam Späth — is the editor-owned publisher: the editor-in-chief Frank Späth's house publishing the editor's magazine — the special-interest press's craftsman model. The Tostedt address — the Lower Saxon town's publishing house — is the niche press's pattern: the specialist magazine made where the costs are low and the commitment high.

Coverage and Content

The magazine's programme is the photography's technique and art. The technology: the current digital and analogue photo technology — the camera tests, the lens tests, the accessory reviews — with the buying advice. The portfolios: the renowned photographers and the young talents — the works presented, the pictures' power shown. The making-of reportages: the pictures' creation — the shootings documented, the techniques revealed. The interviews and portraits: the photographers' voices — the masters and the newcomers. The practice series: the photographic background knowledge and the practical know-how — the exposure, the composition, the light, the post-processing — for amateurs and professionals. The DVF connection: the association's news, the competitions, the members' works. The journalism is the photo press's: the tests, the portfolios, the practice — the photographers' monthly.

Organization and Ownership

Photographie is published by the IdeaTorial GmbH in Tostedt — the Redaktionsteam Späth. The editor-in-chief is Frank Späth; the publisher (Herausgeber) the IdeaTorial GmbH, Tostedt. The commercial model is the special-interest magazine's: the subscriptions — the ten annual issues — the kiosk sales, the photo industry's advertising — the camera manufacturers, the lens makers, the accessory brands — the DVF cooperation, and the online portal's digital revenues. The ISSN is 1437-4951 — the identifier of the 1977-founded photo monthly, from the Swiss Schaffhausen to the Tostedt publishing house, ten times a year. Detailed circulation figures are not publicly confirmed in the sources available.

Digital Presence

The magazine's website is photographie.de — the online portal with the current issue's excerpts, the tests, the portfolios, the practice articles, and the subscriptions. In the German photo-press landscape Photographie occupies the technique-and-portfolio pole: alongside the digital photo portals and the art-photography journals, the Tostedt monthly is the 1977-founded practitioners' magazine — the tests and the buying advice, the portfolios and the practice series, the DVF's official journal — ten times a year, in print and online, for the German photography. The DVF official-journal status — the Deutscher Verband für Fotografie's members receiving the magazine — is the institutional anchor: the organised amateur photography's journal, the competitions announced, the distinctions reported, the members' works shown. The practitioners' positioning — the ambitious amateurs and the working professionals — distinguishes the magazine from the art journals and the consumer portals: the technique's depth against the coffee-table, the practice's utility against the theory.