A slightly belated welcome to the 'difficult second issue' of Deep Sleep magazine, the theme for which is 'Alien'.
We have been greatly encouraged by the enthusiasm and positivity with which the inaugural issue was received and we're especially grateful to all the photographers and bloggers who lent their support by giving us a mention on their websites. As a result, we have had over eleven thousand visitors in the past three months and even feature on one list of the 40 "biggest and best" online photography magazines on the planet. Not bad after one issue!
Having got the first issue off to a flying start, we were relieved and delighted that any fears we had about not receiving enough material for the second were quickly dispelled. There were many more submissions than could possibly be published and so we have had to learn what it feels like to be on the other side of the fence, making the kind of judgements about the suitability of people's work (including our own!) that, as photographers, we have all been subject to ourselves. It must be said it ain't easy. So a special thank you is reserved for each and every one of you who shot and submitted a story. Hopefully you will not be deterred if it didn't make the final cut but will, in common with all the most talented and successful creative people in history, be inspired to carry on regardless and keep shooting, whatever else happens.
Predictably, there has been disagreement and controversy about the final selection, with a couple of stories in particular (you will have to guess which) producing violently opposed reactions of the "I love these" / "they suck" variety. But ultimately we all agree that we've ended up with a suitably diverse and eclectic selection of genres, subject matter, approaches, interpretations and photographic styles, from Dave Wyatt's simple and direct images of a bizarre, faux English town relocated to central China to Zhu Feng's willfully duplicitous starscapes. And from Bertrand Meunier's classical, contemplative black and white reportage to Jim Austin's original and wonderfully strange manipulated images of... well, you can work out for yourselves what they're of. In other words, there is hopefully something for everyone.
Theme for issue three: Dance (Deadline extended 1st September 2009) Theme for issue four: Memory (submission deadline 1st December 2009)
View issue 1: Invisible >
View issue 3: Dance >
View issue 4: Memory >
