Once More
For a year now, we’ve published Once. It has been an inspiring run, and we tell you with some sadness, but mostly pride in the work we’ve done, that the August 2012 release is our final issue.
Closing up shop has been a painstakingly difficult decision, but we think the right one for many reasons. In short, we couldn’t quite beat out the myriad forces working against us, a small publishing endeavor and the first long-form photojournalism magazine of its kind for the iPad. Along with the excitement of launching a product into uncharted territory came uncertainty and incredible challenges. Above all, we are inspired and interested to see who and what comes next, because we still believe the fields of photojournalism and publishing are ripe for experimentation. To read about our decision in more detail, see the Opening Remarks of the August issue.
Readers and subscribers: everything we’ve done was made possible by your enthusiasm for Once. Throughout the past year, we have been consistently encouraged by your praises and motivated by your critiques. You made us believe in our work and inspired us to do it better. Thank you.
As for logistics: subscriptions will expire before the end of August. If you have issues downloaded, they will remain on your iPad, and until the end of August you will be able to buy the ones you missed. In early September, each issue will be converted into its own app, and will be available for purchase in the app store, but no longer on Newsstand.
Before we go, we must extend a deep and heartfelt thanks. To the photographers and writers who took a chance with us before we had anything to show for ourselves. To the advisors, designers, investors, developers, and gallery owners who shared our passion for photography and our crazy inclination to try something entirely new. Thank you to our friends and family for their unwavering support, and to our staff, who gave their time and endless energy to make something they were proud of—to all our editors, fact-checkers, managers, and proofreaders. Thank you.
We can’t wait to see what is in store for the futures of photojournalism, new technology, and publishing. Best of luck to those who come next.
Sincerely,
The Once Team
We’re thrilled to feature Andrea Diefenbach’s work in the August issue of Once. Her story about families torn apart by Moldovan immigration to Italy has recently resurfaced in the news as both the Italian and the Moldovan national governments try to mend the growing void between parents working abroad and their children at home. Andrea’s photos follow family members left behind in Moldova, and those trying to make ends meet in Italy. See the full story, with an essay by Zaineb Mohammed in the newest issue of Once, out now.
Download the issue here.
Kehrer Verlag will publish a selection of photos from Andrea’s project in a book scheduled to be released this October, Land Ohne Eltern (Country Without Parents). You can preorder a special edition of the book, which includes a print, via Andrea’s website here.
The Cinematic Age: The Evolution and Future of Moviegoing Around the World, Once Magazine: Issue 9
Story by Stephan Zaubitzer, and Spencer Strub
Obituaries for the movie theater have been written since even before its birth. In 1894, the inventor Thomas Edison gloomily anticipated the commercial failure of his Kinetoscope, his peep-show movie-player. Each machine catered to only one viewer. The impractical device duly went bust, proving Edison right.
Two years later, mass audiences had jumpstarted the beginning of a movie theater industry. The early ages of American theaters were, in certain ways, radically democratic. The nickelodeon theater of the early twentieth century was a common social space, dishing up cheap entertainment to mixed working- and middle-class audiences. Prohibitionists of that time loved the movie theater; it challenged that older exercise in communal entertainment—the saloon.
The success of these theaters, however, though enormous, was always precarious. In the US and Europe, a series of small booms and busts in the industry in the first half of the twentieth century left studios and theater owners desperate for the next seat-packing gimmick.
Stephen has recently launched a Kiss Kiss Bank Bank campaign to fund the next installment of this story. You can donate here and help him reach Hollywood California, the cradle of cinema.
Turkana Warriors by Gwenn Dubourthoumieu
Gwenn Dubourthoumieu did not start out as a photographer. With a degree in Humanitarian Affairs, Gwenn spent several years as an aid worker, employed by NGOs in France, Somalia, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
After two years living in Congo, Gwenn decided to begin using his camera to document the issues he’d observed as an aid worker. He now works full time as a freelance photographer, and has been awarded several photography awards, including the Getty Images Grant for Good in 2011.
We recently saw a photo from Gwenn’s “Turkana Warriors” series and it caught our eye. He began the series as a follow-up to his previous series, “State of Arms,” which won the “Prix Special du Jury” at the International Scoop and Journalism Festival in Angers, France.
“Turkana Warriors” is a series of portraits of people living in the Turkana region of Kenya. Turkana is one of the places most affected by recent droughts, and the violence stemming from them.
Ravaging the arid and semi-arid areas of the Horn of Africa, droughts have put pressure on the already scarce resources in the region, and exacerbated the persistent conflicts between opposing pastoral tribes in the region. The tribes struggle to gain control over the limited water sources. Heavily armed, many of the conflicts between the tribes turn violent.
You can see photos from the series and learn more at Gallery Carte Blanche.
Generation Gap: Grandparents Stretch to Fill In For Mom and Dad, Once Magazine: Issue 8
Story by Maddie McGarvey, and Taylor Wiles
Between 2001 and 2010, the number of children living in grandparent-headed households in the United States jumped 26 percent. The Castos, who are raising their three grandchildren in the absence of their parents, and families like theirs, are grappling with what it means to be a grandparent raising your grandkids as your own.
Although many such grandparents rely on kinship care aid from the state to help them make ends meet each month, the health of these programs has been touch-and-go, particularly since 2009. Foster care receives significantly more financial backing; but despite this gap in support, children who are put into homes with relatives have been found to have better school attendance and fewer behavioral problems.
Photographer, Maddie McGarvey, has spent over a year with the Casto family, photographing grandma Lorrie, grandpa Lee, and three of their grandkids, Paige, Seth and Sonya. Lorrie Casto says, “I would have money all month long if it wasn’t for the kids. But what else is a grandmother for?”
This story is a beautiful example of the kind of intimacy that turns a good photoessay into a great photoessay. It is clear that Maddie took the time to get to know Lorrie, Sonya, Paige, Seth and Lee. As a student at Ohio University, she visited the family on birthdays, Mother’s Day, and everything in between, and the result is a stunning investigation of what it means to be a family where Grandma and Grandpa double for Mom and Dad.
