Can’t even believe it. This is my photograph, Annular Eclipse, 22 September 2017, on the cover of the most recent Shots, issue number 140, entitled Forces of Nature.
Shots is a special magazine. It’s like nothing else on the newsstand. The publishers don’t give a damn about how well known your name is or what equipment you use. They just look for good black and white photographs and publish them in the best, most affordable way they can.
The magazine has been around for over 30 years. It was originally a weirdly large, single-color, newsprint magazine. Dan Price, the founding publisher, published it out of his house, which was actually a tipi. Dan would publish the photos along with whatever envelope they arrived in so you could contact the photographer if you wanted to. This was all pre-internet, you see. A much younger me used to look at the issues on magazine rack at Tower Books on South Street in Philadelphia. I didn’t have a lot of money at the time, but I did manage to collect a small stack of issues.
This older me is so honored to be on the cover. Thank you to publisher Douglas Beasley and editor Elizabeth Flinsch for putting me in my favorite photography magazine.
And while you’re here, I’m going to recommend that you subscribe to Shots. A year (four issues) only costs 29 bucks. As a magazine that consistently publishes great black and white photographs, it’s totally worth it.
But Shots isn’t just a magazine, it’s also a community. Your subscription also entitles you to submit up to 8 images to each issue for free. Compare that 29 bucks to the submission fee for the last photo contest you entered. You should subscribe now.
