Many photographers hope, as their skills and portfolios continue to grow, that they will be able to get paying jobs by shooting for magazines. As I wrote in Digital Photographers, Welcome Back to 1999, the photographer’s world continues to evolve rapidly. Now is not the time to put your head in the sand about how pixels are replacing drops of ink. Recent news continues to validate my observations.

The National Geographic Society recently announced that it is closing the print edition of National Geographic Adventure. The current edition, Dec/Jan ‘Best of Adventure 2010′, is the last newsstand issue. Launched a decade ago, Adventure’s cover always featured the symbolic yellow border of the mothership magazine. As will likely happen to many established publications, Adventure moves forward as a website and possibly as special-edition publications.

In October, many were stunned by Condé Nast’s announcement that Gourmet would close. After a 70-year run, the matriarch of food mags closed with the publication of its November 2009 issue. The Gourmet site is still live (for now). Subscribers will receive Bon Appetit, Gourmet’s younger sister in the Condé Nast family.  MediaShift, one of the PBS blogs, postulates that Gourmet was killed by the Web (a safe bet, I think).

According to the Magazine Publishers of America, magazine revenues for the third-quarter 2009 were down an average of 18% over the same period in 2008. According to the MPA report, available for free online, Adventure’s revenue dropped 54% and Gourmet’s revenue dropped nearly 36%. They were not alone. Of the more than 250 magazines on the report, only 40 showed increases in revenue. Not surprisingly, the statistics for changes in page counts followed the same path. Fewer pages means that fewer advertisers are advertising. Fewer ads and stories means that there are fewer opportunities for photographers to get paid. Perhaps the most telling fact in the MPA report is that more than 10% of the magazines on the list had ceased publication. Adventure and Gourmet will be among the more noteworthy MIAs when the stats are published for 1Q 2010.

It’s not just the economy, stupid. Income from magazine subscriptions started sliding well before the economy headed south. The Awl has a telling graphic that charts the dramatic plunge in revenues at such iconic magazines as Time. The fundamental truth is that more and more people turn to the electronic media for news and entertainment. The fact that PixSylated is essentially a free, online magazine serves as proof that print publications eventually will be considered for the endangered species list.

Would you subscribe to a year of Popular Mechanics, Esquire, or Cosmo for just five-bucks? You can. In a fight for their survival, many magazines have priced subscriptions at or below the cost of postage. To see what I mean, check out the magazine subscriptions available through Amazon. There are dozens of magazines that will show up every month for less than the cost of a couple of stops at Starbucks. Heck, qualified photographers can even get subscriptions to Rangefinder and AfterCapture magazines for free. I highly recommend that you do.

As an avid reader, magazines remain an important part of my world. But, figuring out how to remain economically viable as a photographer is even more important. So I regularly check out these sources of info on the state of the magazine world:

• Magazine Death Pool – The Reaper knows how to put a humorous spin on the most grim of stories
• Media Deathwatch – Given that Manhattan remains the galactic center of publishing, New York magazine has it’s finger on the pluse of what’s going on
• A Photo Editor – a prolific number of insights shared by the former DP for Outside Magazine and Men’s Journal.
• MediaShift – a great site hosted by PBS that covers the ‘digital media revolution’.

What can you do to remain (or become) viable as a photographer?

• Don’t freak out – get out there and shoot. The most talented photographers have the best chance of attracting work (nothing new there, I know).
• Don’t ignore the facts – these trends are structural shifts in the publishing world. The iPhone and Kindle won’t die when the economy recovers. The Web isn’t going away.
• Learn to produce images for new media – magazines may be withering, but our consumption of images continues to increase. New channels for imagemakers continue to emerge and evolve.