LIFE is coming back from the dead. The magazine that launched the careers of many famous photographers is publishing again. But can the new $45 quarterly succeed in a world full of free images?

For anyone who loves great photography, the news that LIFE magazine is coming back to to print should bring a smile. On November 23, 90 years after its first issue, the title will be back on newsstands, with a 250-page, large-format issue called Where Are We Now?

But here's the kicker: a copy will cost you a not inconsiderable $45. So during a cost of living crisis, in an era when we can access billions of images for free, it's worth asking: is it likely to succeed?

To answer that question, it’s worth reminding ourselves why LIFE mattered so much to begin with.

The golden era

When Henry Luce launched LIFE in 1936, the idea of a mass-market weekly that told stories mainly through pictures was totally new. Its first cover, Margaret Bourke-White’s photo of the Fort Peck Dam in Montana, made it clear that photographs weren’t no longer just added decoration to the main story. They were the story.

LIFE sent photographers on assignments, gave them the budget to shoot properly, and the space in the magazine to tell stories properly. It brought World War Two, civil rights marches and the space race into ordinary people's living rooms. And readers loved it.

At its peak in the 1960s, LIFE sold more than eight million a week. It made household names of Bourke-White, Robert Capa, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Gordon Parks, W. Eugene Smith, and many others.

But then, television arrived, and sales went into decline. LIFE stopped publishing weekly in 1972, returned as a monthly in 1978, but then stopped regular printing again in 2000, other than the occasional special issue.

A new way of LIFE

So what happens now? The new LIFE, published by Bedford Media will be published quarterly in an oversized 11 x 16in format, similar to the original. It won’t carry conventional print ads, and will instead rely on subscriptions, a “founding membership” scheme, and brand partnerships.

There are also plans to extend the brand to documentaries, video, events, collectibles and special edition prints. As someone who worked in print magazines for 30 years, my gut tells me this is where the real profits will lie.

All of this sounds great, both for readers and photographers alike. But let’s be honest about the numbers. At $45 an issue, the new LIFE will be in the same price bracket as a high-end photobook or a collector’s item.

Why it's important

This is not something people will pick up on a whim at a newstand. Its readers are likely to be people who already care deeply about photography; and of course, there's nothing wrong with that. But anyone who thinks it'll attract the same mass market audience it did half a century ago is kidding themselves.

Something the new LIFE may achieve, though, is the admirable goal of helping the art of photojournalism to survive.

Editorial budgets have shrunk dramatically in the 21st century. Consequently, there's a lot less photojournalism in the world, leaving a vacuum to be filled with an avalanche of YouTube speculators and fake news.

If a modern, well-funded version of LIFE is able to send photographers out to spend time with – as the editors’ letter puts it – “scientists and artists, entrepreneurs and athletes, children and octogenarians, coal miners and drone makers”, that’s got to be good news for both photography and the world in general. I wish it every success.