Aperture Magazine has been described by leading professionals as "the most serious and the most valuable periodical in the photographic world" and "a permanent testimonial to the great photographers of our time" and "essential for anyone who takes photography seriously." The printing and binding are of exceptional quality and the paper is extra heavy coated stock.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Not so artistic imo
Comment: I went to local book store to see few photography magazines, including "Aperture", to see what makes this magazine so famous and all.
I just quickly flipped through pages then there were those BnW pictures...
men and women having sex in bushes...like...2 couples or so...
Wow....it made me sick...although those pics didn't show such nudity
it was the idea. What's so artistic about BnW pics of a guy reaching inside a woman's underwear? or Is it that something 'amateurs' like myself cannot possibly understand the true beauty of those pictures. I say it's just BS.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Froma All I've Read
Comment: Although I have yet to subscribe to Aperture, what I've heard and what little I've seen advertised in one of Sally Mann's famous publications is enough to arouse my interest, and I can't wait to partake of a first issue of 'Aperture'. Feedback from other members is always anticipated and welcomed.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Worth the subscription
Comment: Aperture is indeed the preeminent art photography magazine, and consistently has enough good material to warrant a subscription independent of its clout. Although ostensively devoted to art photography, many of the spreads are essentially photojournalism.

If you are primarily interested in just art photography, and can subscribe only to one magazine, I would suggest "Blind Spot".

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Pretentious and Plodding
Comment: Aperture is THE premier photographic magazine today... which is to say it embodies all the fashionable cliches and pretentions of the contemprary post-modern scene.

Out of focus shots? Ragged borders? All here. Family snapshots reinterpreted as high art? We got 'em. Egocentric self-portraits by the dozen? Step right up.

The "art" in Aperture is uniformly artless, deadly dull, and devoid of any human feeling. But that's what the critics are selling these days.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Joyless Art
Comment: This magazine is full of ART (sound of trumpets here). The photographs are unfailingly serious, moody, joyless affairs. There is no room in its pages for smiles, love, or happiness.

As an example, the 50 year retrospective in 2002 had at least three photographs (all technically excellent) of bodies and one of an amputated foot (also technically excellent). Tucked in one corner of one montage was the only smiling face in the entire two issues of the retrospective.

So, if you like your art dark and depressing, subscribe. I'm looking for something a bit brighter.

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