Photographer Jeremy Saffer has issued the following announcement:

"I started a magazine with some of my friends. (and its not about music) - The Graven

The catalyst for this was almost a year ago when Metal Hammer went under and there was about a month of… not uncertainty… but the dream being dead. It was soul crushing to get a dream gig and lose it… it hit hard (thankfully it has risen stronger than ever, and I just photographed the massive 300th issue). But… in that time of uncertainty was also a time of inspiration… What do I do? What can I do?

I’d been working with Outburn for almost 12 years I believe, and I love it, its my home and will continue to be, but I needed a home for the stories, ideas and shoots I wanted to do that don’t fit Outburn or Metal Hammer… So I decided to make one.

About two days after the news of Metal Hammer hit, I started planning. I reached out to my friends: Alissa, Doyle, Cristina, Ghost, Josh, William, Wednesday, and a slew of others to see if they would be interested… luckily they all said yes and we had a lot of time to plan this out and do it right.

Then I came up with the concept of what the magazine would be: an art and photo magazine with mainly full page images, in depth behind the scenes of photo shoots, and some very specific features I always wanted to do. I didn’t want it to be about music but about passion. Many musicians have passion outside of music and I wanted to really focus on things that would never be in a music magazine. I wanted my friends to be able to share their passions and to use this as an outlet to inspire and enlighten others. I love writing, so this will also serve as a home for me to do more of that. I teamed up with my amazing friend Ashley Holley who is fresh off tour with In This Moment, and is a former graphic designer for MerchNow and Equal Vision Records, who has worked with me a bunch both as a subject and as an assistant. She completely understood what I wanted to create and she was the one who could take the raw content and put it together to bring it to life.

There are so many shoots I do that don’t end up in magazines between personal projects, photo shoots I do for fun with friends/bands/celebs, and even assigned photo shoots that just don’t make it and fall off the face of the earth for whatever reason… and now these shoots have a home. I can talk more about the process and the stories behind the shoots.

Each issue will feature 3-5 full photo shoots with full write ups about the shoot, articles from the amazing writers (Doyle, Alissa, Wednesday, Cristina, Simone, William, Josh, Christine, and more to be announced soon). It will feature full page full bleed photos for at least half of the magazine. It will not be available digitally. I am a firm believer that images are meant to be seen in their physical form, not on a screen. It will be printed as a special cover limited edition hand numbered signed edition with high quality prints included and a regular edition. It will be available in print only.

When coming up with a title I struggled for months. I am terrible at coming up with names and I feel they are very important as it’s a brand and identity and needs to fit the subject matter. I was looking at the ten commandments… 'Thou shall not create graven images of anything in heaven above or earth below, thou shall not worship or bow down to these graven images' and everything fell into place and the magazine found its identity. I realized that’s exactly what I do for my life’s work. I create images of idols and heroes that others look up to, and those images in turn are looked up to, worshiped in a sense, hung on walls, and put into places of prominence, and thus the tagline that follows the commandment 'We create the graven images' and the title, The Graven."

Pre-orders for issue zero begin on devils night.

10.30.17

Check out The Graven's official Facebook page here.