Source is a quarterly photography magazine published in Belfast

Belfast

Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...

. It is distributed throughout the UK, Ireland and internationally. It is the longest running photographic review in the UK since the closing of Creative Camera magazine in 2001 and is comparable to other international photography titles such as Aperture

Aperture (magazine)

Aperture is a quarterly photography magazine and a book publisher based in New York, New York. The magazine is published by Aperture Foundation, a non-profit organization devoted to fine art photography.-Magazine:...

  in the US, Camera Austria and Katalog in Denmark.

History

Source was first published in 1992 as a newsletter of the organisation Photo Works North. This organisation had been set up the previous year to promote photography in Northern Ireland. The first editor was the photographer Paul Seawright

Paul Seawright

Paul Seawright is an artist born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1965. He currently lives in Belfast and is Professor of Photography at the University of Ulster in Belfast.-Life and work:...

.
From 1995 Source expanded its remit to include review coverage of exhibitions across Ireland and the UK. Since 2002 it has also included extensive reviews of photographic publishing. In 2007 Source published its 50th issue and was relaunched in a new format with additional columns and more review coverage.

Coverage

Source is primarily concerned with social, historical or aesthetic uses of photography rather than technical or amateur photography. The magazine deals largely with art photography, in exhibition or book reviews, essays or in the portfolios of photographs it publishes. These portfolios are selected from submissions, including those from photographers who have attended the regular portfolio days the magazine has run at venues around Ireland and the UK since 1997.

However, as well as art photography the magazine is also concerned with other non-artistic uses of the medium and has in the past published essays on subjects such as police photography, pornography, satellite photographs, children's book illustration, copyright, photography and literature, and the history of photography. This approach is typified by two columns that have run since the magazine's relaunch in 2007, discussing photography in relation to 'advertising' and 'law'.

Source Website

Source has had a website since 1997. Since 2002 this has included a growing archive of all the back issue content of the magazine. Additionally it contains two projects that are specific to the website: oral history interviews and graduate photography online . The Source oral history archive consists of lengthy interviews with photographers, curators and writers about their lives and involvement in photography. These are gradually being made available as indexed audio files sometimes up to three hours in length. Graduate photography online, running since 2007 is a large gallery of the work of graduating photography students in Ireland and the UK with each student represented by a selection of their work indexed by the universities they have attended.
Notable contributors have included:

Photographers

Willie Doherty

Willie Doherty

Willie Doherty is an artist, who has mainly worked in photography and video. He has twice been a Turner Prize nominee.-Life and work:...

,
John Hilliard

John Hilliard (artist)

John Hilliard, is an English artist.Hilliard studied at Lancaster College of Art and St Martins School of Art, London. He lives and works in London...

,
Paul Seawright

Paul Seawright

Paul Seawright is an artist born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1965. He currently lives in Belfast and is Professor of Photography at the University of Ulster in Belfast.-Life and work:...

,
Phil Collins

Phil Collins

Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins, LVO is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, pianist and actor best known as a drummer and vocalist for British progressive rock group Genesis and as a solo artist....

,
Hannah Collins

Hannah Collins

Hannah Collins is a contemporary artist and filmmaker.Hannah Collins makes work on the collective experiences of memory, history and the everyday in the modern World...

,
Victor Sloan

Victor Sloan

Victor Sloan MBE is an Irish photographer and artist.Victor Sloan studied at the Royal School, Dungannon, Co. Tyrone and Belfast and Leeds Colleges of Art, England. He lives and works in Portadown, County Armagh in Northern Ireland...

,
Hannah Starkey

Writers

Geoffrey Batchen,
Fintan O'Toole

Fintan O'Toole

Fintan O'Toole is a columnist, assistant editor and drama critic for The Irish Times. He has written for The Irish Times since 1988 and was drama critic for the New York Daily News from 1997 to 2001. He is a literary critic, historical writer and political commentator, with generally left-wing views...

,
John Taylor,
Colm Tóibín

Colm Tóibín

Colm Tóibín is a multi-award-winning Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, journalist, critic, and, most recently, poet.Tóibín is Leonard Milberg Lecturer in Irish Letters at Princeton University in New Jersey and succeeded Martin Amis as professor of creative writing at the...

,
David Bate,
Ian Walker,
Lucy Soutter,
Will Self

Will Self

William Woodard "Will" Self is an English novelist and short story writer. His fictional style is known for being satirical, grotesque, and fantastical. He is a prolific commentator on contemporary British life, with regular appearances on Newsnight and Question Time...

,
Tom Paulin

Tom Paulin

Thomas Neilson Paulin is a Northern Irish poet and critic of film, music and literature. He lives in England, where he is the GM Young Lecturer in English Literature at Hertford College, Oxford.- Life and work :...

and Daniel Jewesbury.