EDITOR’ S LETTER
EDITOR’ S LETTER
JAMIE WACHTEL
Every three months I have to write this letter and I dread it, to be honest. I am so busy putting the issue together and this is usually the last thing I have to do. I am the editor-in-chief / founder of this incredible magazine but my English lit grades were pretty low and it sometimes comes as a struggle. I also think to myself, I have no right doing this; that I should hire a professional to write it and just put my name on it. However, despite my lacking in education( I knew I wanted to be a photographer and didn’ t care about anything else) I do consider myself a curator of talent. And with the help of my editor( who is educated!), we put it all together, collaborating with creative people on any level, be it photographers, artists, writers or architects; their talent inspires me, hence my reason for starting TREATS!.
If you look back at each issue of TREATS!— this is the 5th— you will always find a photographer or a model that you have never heard of, but has the talent. We have put unknown models on the cover because no one else will take the risk on them. It seems to be paying off and it thrills us to see their careers flourish.
There is so much undiscovered creative talent out there and we hope to showcase as much as we can in TREATS!. I don’ t care if you are the model of the moment or a trendy photographer, it’ s about a creative collaboration, the trusting relationship a model has with the photographer as they inspire each other and create something so amazing you can feel that connection coming off the pages. This is a magazine by a photographer for photographers. We’ re not really interested in featuring celebrities; there are so many other publications for that. Instead, we feature people we consider cool, creative or pushing the limits: Like Kilian Hennessy in this issue, who brings unbridled passion, poetry and creativity to his sublime perfumes. We are doing it a little different here; we are not out to push advertising on you, but when we do take ads, they are curated with the same care as the rest of the magazine. Of course, we have to make a living, but not at the expense of the publication. I mean, why ruin your viewing pleasure, right?
But it’ s not all about the photographers completely; we continue to collaborate with writers who find singular stories not from run-ofthe-mill PR releases but from digging through the annals of history looking for gems that, again, inspire and titillate. In this issue we bring you the tale of the late Elmyr de Hory, the most prolific and lucrative art forger the world has ever seen, a man who fooled billionaire art collectors, respected museums and snooty art critics with his flawless imitations of Van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso and other titans of the art world. And, as of writing this letter, de Hory, in a sweet twist of fate, is now being looked upon as a master artiste by the very community that he made fools of for more than half a century, as his fakes are selling on their own to the tune of $ 30,000.
We’ ve also looked to bring another dimension to the magazine world as we have partnered with incredible directors to turn our articles and photo shoots into short films to be viewed on treatsmagazine. com / videos. As our videos continue to get millions of views around the world, we have taken it to another level: In this issue, the award-winning director, Samuel Bayer, took a crew to Santiago, Chile, with one of our models, and shot a 6-minute film called Black Tongue, which will be released on our website the same week the magazine arrives on newsstands; images from the film are on page 166 but I suggest you go to our website to see the incredible finished movie. Also, director Paul Minor shot a 4-minute noirish film about our article“ Sexsomnia,” a psycho-sexual-sleep-disorder whose sufferers seem to on the rise; both the article / pictorial and film are sure to open your eyes to this strange and under reported disorder that can only be described as Jekyll & Hyde let loose in the bedroom.
I sincerely hope you enjoy the issue and the films— and make sure to check out treatsart. com, as we have now made our limited edition prints available to purchase... from our pages to your walls, as we like to say.
Cheers,
Steve Shaw
6 treatsmagazine. com