Who's in town? Erik Vroons

SALT Beyoğlu, Walk-in Cinema

We Make The Path By Walking: Or How To Survive In The Photographic Jungle

The popularity of photography is unprecedented – considering the fact that so many people have access to a device that allows them to take pictures. Yet, there is a serious imbalance between the amount of general exposure and the marginal interest for photography as art.

Within that “niche,” a few print magazines somehow manage to exist. GUP Magazine, based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, is one of them – mainly giving way to art and documentary photography, with a focus on emerging talent from across the world.

Since 2012, GUP Magazine editors also publish an annual catalog that includes short portfolios of a hundred new Dutch photographers. In 2014, the same team initiated a “freezine” on contemporary photography in The Netherlands: Newdawn, a bimonthly print edition in newspaper format that is distributed around the country and can be found in cultural “hotspots” and popular coffee houses and bars.

In this talk, Erik Vroons will introduce the position that magazines and books on photography have in our current “mediascape” and in what ways the editorial team of GUP Magazine attempts to sustain itself in a small market that seems to be in the process of reinventing itself in order to find a workable business-model.

Following the talk, a selection of images published in the catalogs of New Dutch Photography Talent (2012-2015) will be presented as a concise slideshow.

Erik Vroons is currently active as editor-at-large for both GUP Magazine and Newdawn Paper.