B&W magazine

Not that I could shoot photographs as good as any of those that appear in B&W (the black and white collectors magazine, has a photo of Madonna on its cover this month), but in paging through it, I find that in most of the articles on individual photographers...the photography just isn't that good. Or is my taste not that good?

I find that the best photography seems to be in the paid ads. A question: how do they pick the people who are featured, does anybody know? The feature articles are so unrelentingly upbeat that they seem like ads -- are the "features" really ads in disguise? I mean, do the photographers pay for them?

Lord knows that we need some photo magazines that are more than fronts for advertising sales, but is that what B&W is? Thinking back, I've seen a few issues that I really liked; the Madonna issue is not one of them...

JC