Last Updated on 08/17/2016 by Chris Gampat
Hi everyone,
I’ve been very quiet since the Kickstarter for La Noir Image failed, but as I stated in our last update a while ago, that wasn’t the end. To refresh, La Noir Image is out black and white photography publication–which is also currently under reconstruction.
Last week, I let backers of the project know the progress state. And today, I’m telling you all about it.
La Noir Image returns back to its full production schedule in September. It’s going to be a website/community. If you visit the website now, you’ll see the Under Construction page is front and center. Obviously, this is temporary. But you can go behind and explore the rest of the website by clicking on the menu–and just a reminder that all this isn’t what the final site and content will look like, but instead a messier preview.
To Clarify
What I learned during the failed Kickstarter is that no one wanted to pay for an app. Readers that have been a follower of mine and the work that my team does for a while really like the websites that we produce. To that end, what I learned from people is that everyone wanted a website, not a monthly magazine in a app.
The upcoming iteration of La Noir Image is designed to look like a magazine. But it will publish posts every couple of days. These posts will be very well massaged, carefully planned, and every writer working on the posts will be receiving actual, magazine payment rates.
That results in better content to all of you considering that no one feels like they’re under a very tough deadline.
Forums
What you’ll also find is the new addition of forums. This is part of the community that I’m trying to build out and will be an on-going experiment for us. The forums are a place where readers can discuss various things in the photography world. We’d love the conversations to be on a higher, more intellectual level with less bickering and trolling that you see on the web everywhere else. While this is our initial vision, we hope that it will work out in the end though we understand that it may adapt accordingly.
The forums will initially feature sections for gear, artists, articles on the website, software, photo critiques, etc. They’re currently live, so you can go check them out and have conversations.
Content
“We” he says? Yes, I’m very happy to say that four staffers will join me in La Noir Image’s content production. They’ve all got various backgrounds and approach the art form in different ways. The result is a variety of black and white photography content that will appeal to a people of all levels, thought processes, and ages.
Content will be produced and published often. Ultimately, you’ll have La Noir Image publishing stories every few days. These stories will have a month’s worth of massaging, refining, and careful research put into them before they’re published. We’re approaching content production like a magazine in that we plan and produce the content a month or two ahead, while it all gets published in a high end blog format with a magazine look every few days. The result will be stories that I’d like people to think about as “Phoblographer Premium.”
To that end, the content will be ad-free. Occasionally (and let’s be honest, it’ll most likely be rare), we may do some sponsored content, but as we’ve seen on the Phoblographer, the way we do it proves to be popular with readers. Those tactics will be mimicked for La Noir Image.
If you’ve been a reader of the Phoblographer for a while, you’ll notice just how hard we’ve been trying to differentiate ourselves from all the rest of the photo blogs out there. La Noir Image will do the same thing with even better content.
Other Features
Content and forums aren’t all though. Here are a list of other cool features:
– Monthly giveaways for all those who subscribe to La Noir Image. That means when you buy a one year subscription that you’ll have 12 chances to win cool prizes and the chance to win more than once. Because this is only open to subscribers, it means that less people enter and your chances of winning some cool swag increase exponentially.
– Access to a premium La Noir Image Facebook group.
– Yearly workshops focusing on black and white image creation. These will be announced later on.
– Tentative print editions, also to be announced later on.
– Newsletters (probably weekly or bi-weekly.)
And more will be coming as the website evolves and grows. The more funding we get, the more we can do.
Pricing
So that finally brings us to pricing structures:
– The basic membership gets to access to the site and all its community benefits listed in this post for $15/year.
– The intermediate membership gets you all of the basic and one special tutorial video focusing on black and white processing that will be released earlier next year in 2017. This will cost $40/year.
– The advanced membership gets you the intermediate level in addition to one portfolio critique of up to 20 images from a La Noir Image staffer. This will cost $100/year and the portfolio critique may be used at any time.
These prices are incredibly fair for what you’re getting. For less than a glass of top shelf whiskey, you’ll get inspirational content every couple of days. You won’t find the content that we’re doing anywhere else and if you do, ours will be significantly better. A paywall for the website will be in place soon.
We are currently considering whether or not we will offer one free article per month or having everything behind the paywall. Why? $15 isn’t a lot of money, especially because many already understand that photography is a very expensive hobby!
In the interim, I’d love to hear your feedback.
Thanks so much for your support and your beliefs. We’ll be back soon and will broadcast continued updates as we get closer to launch.
Please be sure to follow La Noir Image on Facebook and Instagram for the latest updates.