Photo District News, or PDN, has been folded.

PDN’s current owner, Emerald Expositions, has confirmed that the print edition of the magazine will no longer be published, and that no new content will be added to its online edition. Rangefinder magazine, also owned by Emerald Expositions, will continue to be published.

“The PDN online content will not vanish, and we’re looking for ways to ensure that what content there is will continue to be easily accessible, but there won’t be new content,” said a spokesperson for Emerald Expositions, which operates business-to-business trade shows in the United States, including the PhotoPlus show in New York and the WPPI show in Las Vegas, the largest trade show for wedding and portrait photographers and filmmakers. Both trade shows will continue.

The move to fold PDN was made “to deliver what our most active and engaged market was looking for, and that was more content and information around Rangefinder and WPPI. We also wanted to create a content platform that supported the PhotoPlus community,” said the Emerald Expositions spokesperson. “That meant evolving our portfolio to no longer include PDN.”

The fate of PDN’s ancillary publications, including the PDN Annual and PDN’s 30 — an influential spotlight of emerging talent — has yet to fully be determined.

“Those are things we would like to service the market with, though we may need to reimagine them,” said the Emerald Expositions spokesperson. “The PDN 30 in particular is a really important channel for rising photographers.”



A statement from the company, including information on how current PDN subscription fulfillment will be dealt with, will be coming “in a few days,” said the company’s spokesperson.

First published in 1980, Photo District News quickly became a mainstay of the professional photography industry.

According to its Wikipedia page, PDN “was founded by Carl S. Pugh, who was working as a photographer's assistant and sought more freelance work. He inquired as to the best way to advertise his services and was told to post a note on the community bulletin boards found at local businesses frequented by professional photographers. This sparked the idea to create a newsletter for the loose-knit community of professional photographers who populated the inexpensive loft spaces along lower Fifth Avenue.”

In 1983, PDN launched the trade show Photo Expo, since renamed PhotoPlus. Pugh sold PDN and the show to Adweek in 1984. In 2015 Time magazine declared that PDN's annual list of "30 New and Emerging Photographers" was "the go-to outlet to discover up-and-coming photographers, determined on the basis of creativity, versatility and distinctive vision.”

Under the direction of longtime editor Holly Stuart Hughes, PDN became a indispensable source of inspiration and information for professional photographers. PDN journalist David Walker’s coverage of legal matters affecting professionals was of critical importance to pros navigating the complexities of copyright law.