Great News!!

When I first came up with the idea of CiM in December 2007, it was because of several threads on the forums that showed that photographers were lamenting the demise of traditional photography in the magazines; even the few remaining magazines catering for film had begun to introduce digital articles. And so, Creative Image Maker was born in January 2008, dedicated solely to non-digital photographic processes and it will remain that way.

Since we relaunched at the start of 2009, I've been bowled over by the support you have shown towards Creative Image Maker as a whole; that support is in the form of just reading the articles in the PDF magazine that Chris puts together, sending us ideas or comments, or submitting articles and images. You may have seen on the Flickr group discussion that in all of November and December last year there were 1,600 page views on the CiM website; from January 1st to the 21st there were 5,000. That's three times as many pages served in just one third of the time! To me, something has happened, last year there was lots on interest in CiM but it was too big for me to handle, taking up too much of my time at the expense of my family.


This year it's different; between Chris and me we can work together (despite being several thousand miles apart) to bring you articles, images and inspiration for your own photography. There's a lot of interest from the readership and we thank you. But, it doesn't stop there - both myself and Chris are committed to building the magazine, and so here's the absolute latest news for you...

I'd like to welcome Rob Valine on to the team; you may know Rob from Flickr and he'll be writing a monthly article on 'something to do with photography' (that was the extent of the brief I gave him!).

The big news, the really big news though is all about March. Chris and I have both been working feverishly away, drinking cups of strong black coffee in a bid to work tirelessly to bring you... the option of a paper magazine. There I said it. In fact, not just one, but TWO!! Both magazines will be available from the Lulu storefront: http://stores.lulu.com/creativeimagemaker and you're probably asking why two?

Chris is going to put out, each quarter, a roundup of the magazines, as it happens this first one will be a bumper edition containing December through to March. Naturally this will be a paid for edition, so for all you people who requested a paper copy... it's coming!

The second magazine is a CiM Special. Put together by yours truly, it takes one element of photography and does it to death I jest of course, but it enables us to focus on one thing within the huge sphere of traditional photography, and this first issue is: Glass Plate Photography; featuring articles and images from museums, Denise Ross, Quinn Jacobsen, Michael Waite and a host of others. This will be available as a free download PDF, but also as a paper copy. I wanted to make this a 'special' for more than one reason though, and it crossed my mind that we could do goodly works with these specials when they come out, and so all proceeds from the sale of the Glass Plate Photography Special (well, the bit that Lulu doesn't take for printing) will go to charity.

At the time of writing I haven't decided on a charity, but it's very likely to be a charity local to me that provide disabled children a chance to get out, play and try out new experiences. Keep an eye on the website for up-to-date information. Chris has already selected his next two charities!

I hope that you are able to support CiM, provide cash to help disadvantaged kids and get a paper copy of the magazine special yourself. Everybody wins.

Finally, as if that wasn't enough, I'm also planning to start converting the articles on the website in to PDF files. The originals will remain there, but it struck me that as we run different articles in the PDF and the website, that you could actually create your own magazine! So, I plan to create a CiM front cover for you to download, then you can download the articles that interest you from the website; et voila! your very own tailored CiM magazine - now how's that for service with a smile!

It's fair to say that these are exciting times for both Chris and I, and we hope for your continued support - help us by letting your photographic friends know about Creative Image Maker and spread the word that there is an alternative to magazines filled with digital articles.

Thank you.
David
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We're Off To A Flying (Re-)Start...

Wow! Since we relaunched the magazine at the start of January, you've been busy providing Chris and I the drive to continue to build Creative Image Maker - just by turning up on the website and having a quick look around helps us gauge the interest in the community for such a magazine... and it's looking good!

How well have you all done? Well, if you take the page views for the entire months of November and December, there were a little over 1,600 - not entirely surprising as I'd had to bow out of producing anything new for the site over that period and Chris was working hard behind the scenes to produce the PDF magazine.

Since the 1st of January, until the 21st January, so not even a whole month, there have been (literally) a couple of page views short of 5,000. In 21 days, there have been THREE TIMES the amount of page views than in the 61 days of Nov/Dec last year! That's quite an achievement and I must thank you all for your support.

And you should see what we have planned for you lot over the next few months!

-David-
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I'm Really Excited..!

Well the title says it all really! It's great to get back in to the magazine again and after having to leave it to it's own devices around Sept '08, I started thinking about it again at the start of Dec '08.

Then Chris emailed me with the questions & answers and that just served to crystallise my thoughts further...

And so it was that I looked at building up a forum-style magazine - even went to the trouble of building it, got Chris involved and between we started to put articles in there and generally started to get the place tidy.

Then a few people were asked to comment on it - and the feedback was... "It's just another forum and we don't want that". The idea was to have articles put on that you could then comment on and pass information on to each other.

Chris & I decided to ditch the forum and I started to dust off the cobwebs from the http://creativeimagemaker.co.uk website. The Lulu storefront went up next and that gave us a great platform to distribute the PDF magazines that Chris is putting together (and they're really neat!). In fact, Chris has got some great things coming up in the magazine, so do keep an eye out for that.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to put together a 'special' - more details later, we're thinking about future competitions and I think that we might just have another member of the team to help out too.

I wish I'd done this last year (got a team together; although to be fair I did ask for help, but I guess the magazine just wasn't mature enough, or people were too tied up with other business) - anyway, a HUGE "THANK YOU" to Chris Walrath who stepped in last year and produced the first PDF magazine. Going forward, Chris and I are dedicated to keeping this all going and whilst I'm sure it's not going to be all plain sailing, we're looking forward to the challenge.

As for the other member of the team? Well, I've asked Rob Valine to produce a series of monthly articles for the mag.

All in all, I'm excited about the future of Creative Image Maker, and I hope you are too.

David.
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Healthier Than Ever...

Well, Creative Image Maker is one year old on the 13th January and we're still going, although even I have to admit that it's been a close run thing at times!

As it happens, we're not just still here, but we're now new and improved! Following several weeks of technical issues surrounding domain name servers and registration problems, the Creative Image Maker website is back on air and has been tweaked to hopefully provide a nicer experience.

But, that's not all - Christopher Walrath has been working extremely hard on the production of a magazine in PDF format for you to download. The first magazine became available in December, and January's issue is also available for free download from the Creative Image Maker storefront.

There's also a new photography challenge that we'd invite you to submit your images to; entitled "Rebirth", you can find out more here.

There's a proper gallery function added on to the site, and we'll be using this to display some of the best images that are sent to us - want to see your work highlighted in the magazine? Send it in! There are also several future exciting articles in the pipeline, and as usual, we'd ask you to submit your ideas / articles as well.

So, despite the somewhat turbulent year, the magazine is here and still growing - and with your help and support it will continue to do so. You can contact me at d.vickers@creativeimagemaker.co.uk or email Chris for items to be included in the PDF magazine at c.walrath@creativeimagemaker.co.uk. Of course, you can still submit images, comments and articles to the original info@creativeimagemaker.co.uk email address.

Thank you for your support, we look forward to hearing from you! All the best for 2009.

David Vickers.
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Happy New Year... 1 Year On...

I can't believe it's been months since I last posted here! Well, what a lot has happened! It's a year on since we first started properly and the magazine is still going (although it was close several times!).

Due to various projects and general stuff happening, I had to make the surprisingly hard decision to pull back from the magazine, which sort of left it dangling in nowhere for a month or two. Then Chris Walrath stepped in and continued to produce the magazine as a PDF file for free download. The first magazine went out in December and the January one has just been produced (and is available for download).

Chris and I are also working on something else at the moment, so I don't want to say too much about that just yet, but hopefully it'll pull all the various elements of the magazine together.

In the meantime, a Lulu storefront has been setup so that you can download the PDF magazine for free. You can find that at here. Please feel free and get up-to-date with the magazine.

Finally, over the last month I've been having several issues with the creativeimagemaker.co.uk domain, which is not working as it should. Despite several attempts to correct and contacting various support techies at the ISP, we're still no further forward (although work continues). I'll be glad to get the main site back online after all this.

Anyway, it's the first day of 2009, so that just leaves it for me to wish you all and Happy New Year.

David.
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