Light Vision was a bi-monthly Australian photography magazine that existed between 1977 and 1978.
Foundation and duration Light Vision magazine, subtitled "Australia’s international photography magazine", was launched in September 1977, and though it lasted only eight issues, it made a more lasting impression on Australian photography than previous periodicals.Print Letter No.25 Jan/Feb. 1980, Vol 5, No.1, 8-9Downer, Christine. "Photography in Australia: a select bibliography." History of Photography 23, no. 2 (1999): 192-197.Ely, Deborah. "The Australian centre for photography." History of photography 23, no. 2 (1999): 118-122. In its first editorial, the magazine proclaims its purpose to become the "publishing outlet, key to large exposure, in this country reaching the level of quality which could trigger the international recognition that we need and deserve."Light Vision, issue 1, 1977
Personnel Jean-Marc Le Pechoux (born 1953), who had studied at Stage Experimental Photographique and who, from 1971 to 1974, was a freelance photographer in Paris, came to Australia and taught at Prahran College of Advanced Education and Photography Studies College in Melbourne from 1974 to 1976. Deciding to make the southern city his home, he recognised the need for a high quality magazine. He taught himself the trade of editor/publisher and set up Light Quest Publications in the front room of his home at 75 Wilson Street, South Yarra.
Producing the magazine, and responsible for the design and masthead, were Le Pechoux and partner Kalli Pulos, credited as 'editorial assistant' but who really was publisher, and never more than four paid casual staff, alongside correspondents from Europe and America and an increasing number of advisors, national and international: Associate Editor and 'Sydney Editor': Steven Lojewski; Art Director: David Lancashire, then from issue 2, Lin Bender; Los Angeles Correspondent: Graham Howe; Paris Correspondent: Dominique Anginot; Adelaide: Ed Douglas; Perth: Miles Glanville; Hobart: Geoff Parr
The magazine In his first editorial Jean-Marc Le Pechoux surveyed the emergent, positive situation for photography in Australia;
A large international corporation [Philip Morris International] has recently compiled a collection of works by Australian photographers. In Melbourne alone during the last few months the public could have seen the works of J. M. Cameron, E. J. Bellocq, Jan Saudek, Lee Freidlander, Ralph Gibson or John Cato. National Galleries are collecting photographs. Colleges, public and private art schools and workshops provide varied avenues for the study of photography and many bookshops are importing and retailing fine books on the medium. A national conference on photography will be held in Sydney this month and finally, in Melbourne, the first dealer gallery of international standing to open doors in this country was inaugurated last month.
Identified by photojournalist Geoff Strong as “that haute couture of Australian photographic magazines”, Light Vision was glossily printed by Norman J. Field & Co Pty Ltd in Richmond,Australian Book Review, Issues 1-27, 1978, p.33. P. Isaacson Publications. reproducing photographers' prints full page, and tackling photographic theory in essays, and in reviews of such contemporary texts as Susan Sontag's On Photography (1977). However, as a result of the cost of such support for the local printing industry, its cover price was the cover price was $2.70 which was at the high end of affordability at the time ($A15-$20 equivalent in 2019). The double issue 6&7 was $5. Annual subscriptions within Australia were $15.00 for the six issues, with postage, Air Mail to New Zealand was $A28.00 and to other countries $A34.00. Surface mail to all countries was $A19.00.
Content The magazine honoured its title Australia's international photography magazine with representations of American or European photography alongside Australian examples in most issues. More established photographers in their late thirties to late sixties dominated until the double number 6&7 of 1978 devoted to new Australian work. That featured 21 artists born around 1950 and with an average age of 26; the youngest, John Adair, being eighteen and the oldest, John Cerchi, thirty-four. Many, Fiona Hall, Sandy Edwards, Bill Henson amongst them, went on to important careers. Selectors were American William Clift; Christine Godden Director and Michael Snelling Administrator, of the Australian Centre for Photography; William Heimerman and Ian Lobb, directors of The Photographers' Gallery and Workshop; and Jean-Marc Le Pechoux and Steven Lojewski for Light Vision. The magazine worked in partnership with its near neighbour 1.5 km across South Yarra, The Photographers' Gallery, who mounted an exhibition New Australian Work with the selected imagery, which toured.
Book reviews, located in its off-white matt pages fore and aft, did not start to feature until issue 3, when the magazine appraised Craft Australia and Theatre Australia in a report on its joining an association of 'smaller magazines'. Artist and photography lecturer Tony Perry, in the 4th number, reviewed the American publications On Photography by Susan Sontag; Garry Winogrand's Women Are Beautiful; Sex Objects: An American Documentary by photographer Eric Kroll (misspelt 'Knoll' throughout the review); and Les Krims' Fictcryptokrimsographs, while devoting a scant paragraph to Kelly Wise's Still Points (rendered 'Stillpoints' in the review). In the next issue Robert Rooney joined Perry to compare Helmut Newton's White Women with Edward Weston Nudes and included a European with Herbert List Photographen (sic) 1930-1970, and photodocumentary in Americans Mark and Dan Jury's Gramp.
In the penultimate issue, in which three women photographers' books are considered, the pair are negative on Norman Sanders' At Home and in reviewing, for the first and only time an Australian volume, Timeless Gardens by Eleanor Williams and Wes Stacey, while reserving praise for Arnold Gassan's fourth edition of Handbook for Contemporary Photography, and the coffee table glossy Album Cover Album: The book of Record Cover Jackets, Maureen Lambray's The American Film Directors, and Barbara Blondeau 1938-1974. They finish with strong commendations for the Swiss photography journal Print Letter, while criticising Camera for its recent concentration on American photography, though Perry himself, in the last edition of Light Vision, topically covers exclusively American books of work by Lewis Hine, Robert Adams, William Eggleston, Lewis Baltz and others dealing with urban and rural landscape and the 'New Topographics'.
Unlike its treatment of books, on the numbers Light Vision was more equitable in inclusion of Australian photographers in its presentation of multiple-page 'folios' of individual photographers' work, even without taking into the calculation the 'Special Australian Edition'. Though there is no women's work presented in portfolios, the glossy colour printing as faithfully reproduces, effectively in tri-tone, the monochrome antipodean imagery of John Cato, Paul Cox, Phillip Quirk, Graham Howe and John Williams, the warmth of Robert Besanko's Kodalith paper, and Max Dupain's toned prints of the 1930s, as it does American Christian Vogt's saturated SX-70 and 8"x10" Polaroids. A full page is usually devoted to each image, with generous white borders allowing decent presentation of both landscape- and portrait-oriented images.
Critical and art-historical writing was building strength before the demise of Light Vision, with extended contributions from significant authorities, Australian and international, of both genders; Beatrice Faust, Peter Turner, Gael Newton, Memory Holloway and in the last issue, Max Kozloff. +Contents:Issue #DatePageAuthor/PhotographerItem1September–October, 1977CoverJohn CatoUntitled 34Peter TurnerRalph Gibson interview5Ralph GibsonImages from Days at Sea10Rennie EllisOn looking at photographs 12John CatoProteus21Athol ShmithJohn Cato22Dominique AnginotArles24Philip QuirkFrom Kipling to the Letter30ReviewTwo photographic schools 32CalendarExhibitions and Education2November–December, 1977Cover William CliftOld St. Louis Courthouse, Missouri3Beatrice FaustNo more paper4Peter TurnerOn Quality12George Hampel Court room reflections13William CliftCourt-house series22John RichesThe Print24Paul CoxInterview and Photographs 30Deborah GuyonSydney, a conference 32CalendarExhibitions and Education3January–February, 1978Cover Robert Besanko1975, untitled 3ReviewsMAG News4Robert BesankoFolio13Peter BurchPhotography Auction14Peter PerryOnto the curator's desk19Graham HoweSneaker in the Sky30CalendarExhibitions and Education31AnnouncementSingular Visions4March–April, 1978CoverChristian Vogt8x10 Polacolor 24John WilliamsFolio13Bob PileRedefining the photo essay18Tony PerryBook Reviews20Eelco WolfChristian Vogt21Christian VogtFolio30Information News31CalendarExhibitions31LettersReaders5May–JuneCoverMax DupainThe Sunbaker, 19374Mark HindrakerBeaumont Newhall6Max DupainPortfolio25Gael NewtonMax Dupain28Tony Perry and Robert RooneyBook Reviews30Information News32LettersReaders6 & 7July–October 1978: Special Australian Edition CoverIan Cerchiuntitled4Memory HollowayIntroduction 7Photographers Biographies9Photographers Plates50Tony Perry and Robert RooneyBook reviews52Information Directory8November–December, 1978CoverBruno RequillartVersailles, 19784Robbert FlickMidwest and Inglewood13Max KozloffA Problem of Photographic Perception16Tony PerryBooks18Suzanne HampelVenice Biennale 197820Bruno RequillartVersailles29Information News
Demise The expensive cover price required to cover Light Vision's high quality of production, the new and relatively limited audience for art photography in Australia, compounded by its removal after issue 4 from the stock of the bookshop of a major public gallery, on the basis of the appearance of pubic hair in a controversial image by Christian Vogt in issue 4, all contributed to the magazine's premature demise. Though not announced in its pages, Issue 8 was to be the last.
Influence During Creative Camera editor Peter Turner’s visit to Australia in 1977Gaskins, Bill 'PHOTOGRAPHY IN AUSTRALIA’. The British Journal of Photography, Mar 10, 1978; 125 he met Jean-Marc Le Pechoux and significantly, Max Dupain’s The Sunbaker was featured on the covers of both Light Vision and Creative Camera in 1978,Batchen, G. (1995). Max Dupain: Sunbakers. History of Photography, 19(4), 349-357. with Dupain himself contributing an essay in Light Vision issue 5.Online version of the 1978 essay originally published in Light Vision issue 5 provided by Gael Newton Such exposure, and that of the young Bill Henson in two issuesLight Vision, Nos. 6-7, 1978. raised the profile of Australian photography in the UK. The magazine played a role in setting Australian photography and photographers in an international context and in publicising their work overseasSontag, Milar, Brohaugh, Carroll, Frobisch, Lamprecht, . . . The Nikon Manual. (1978). Photography. Communication Booknotes, 10(1), 16-19. in a quality publication.
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