| Abstract: | Abstract From the very beginning, Canadian photography periodicals have had to cope with not only the small and uncertain home market, but also with the ready availability of similar imported publications, some of which included Canadian photographic news from time to time. As a result, the earliest native journals to appear were subsidized by photographic dealers, and were designed to appeal to both a professional and amateur readership. Around the tum of the century, with the rise in the numbers of amateur photographers, a few photojoumals directed specifically at them briefly prospered before succumbing to economic crisis and war. After the peace, it was the camera clubs, with their enlarged or new newsletters, that soldiered on during the Depression. Then another war intervened, during which time photographic activity halted once again. It was only in the 1950s that photomagazines began to appear (and disappear) with increasing frequency, until the efflorescence of the 1970s when the popular periodicals aimed at the amateur were joined by the non-profit ones devoted to photography as a visual art. This period of extraordinary photographic activity lasted about a decade, leaving behind a few popular publications issued by commercial concerns in French and English Canada, as well as one devoted to the history of the medium. |
