Showing class
A new magazine about BC covers the student body - fully clothed
Marc Andrew Deley left Boston College to cover it.
In a tiny corner of a South Boston office, Deley runs Rez(life), a new magazine that chronicles culture, fashion, and student life at the Chestnut Hill campus.
Deley recently dropped out of BC because of his hectic work schedule as a freelance news photographer. But he also left to focus on a magazine that is written by college students who are also featured as models in the photo spreads.
College-inspired magazines aren't anything new but they've become a growing presence on local and national campuses. H-Bomb offers high-minded views on sex by Harvard University students. Boink provocatively covers sex and uncovers the student body at Boston University.
In contrast, Deley's Rez(life) serves as a sedate antidote to those soft-porn literary outlets. His models, after all, are clothed.
"You can have girls in dresses that are just as sexy and just as hot as women who are naked," said Deley, who added that his magazine's coverage goes beyond campus news and sports results, which is the cornerstone of college newspapers. He describes his glossy as a cross between Boston Common and Improper Bostonian, with a college sensibility.
"I wanted to make it sexy and not slutty," he added. "I don't want anyone feeling uncomfortable looking at Rez(life)."
Deley's plunge into publishing counters a long-held industry belief that young people prefer to read their news and entertainment online. Although he created an online version of the magazine, it's the print version that serves as the spine of his media operation.
"There's a thousand magazines. There are a ton that hit or try to hit the demographic of my generation, but the one thing I always found is this lack of student-produced and student-run magazines," said the slight 22-year-old publisher, sitting in the Fort Point office he shares with Boldfacers, a site that profiles local up-and-comers, and Elevin Studios, a local photographer's base. "People underestimate a lot of times what 18- to 24-year-old kids can do," "Students will read fashion and music and entertainment. Why not take that format [the campus newspaper] and get rid of the news element and your top three sports elements? I wanted it to be a forum where you might want to go and cover what you want."
Executive editor Patrick Camacho said Rez(life) gives students exactly what they want. "It's the idea that this is what the college students are writing. This is what they want to hear," said Camacho, who also dropped out of BC recently. "It's not someone else from the outside. It's from their own peers."
Attaining new heights
A native of Buffalo, Deley began photographing rock shows such as the Dave Matthews Band while he was a high school sophomore. When he was 18, Deley's work was syndicated by agencies such as FilmMagic, which sold his work to national publications such as Rolling Stone, People, and the New York Post. When he began studying at Boston College, he became a regular freelance photographer in Boston. He quickly built up a portfolio of backstage photos at concerts, parties, sporting events, and nightclubs.
Between his studies and his role as photo editor for BC's campus newspaper, The Heights, he continued his freelance photography work, which increasingly took him out of state. Assignments included the 2005 MTV Music Awards in Miami, the 2006 Super Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla., and Fashion Week in New York City.
Because of the workload, he decided to go to school on a part-time basis. Then he had a flash of inspiration: the idea for Rez(life).
"It plays off the Residential Life department that most schools have in place to organize and oversee student life," explains Deley, who lives in Quincy. "It's a name that takes on a meaning while one is in school, which meshes perfectly with the publication's overall mission to be entirely student written [and] produced, as well as depicting only current students in the major photo spreads."
With help from two investors, one a former student and another a local DJ, Deley launched a maiden issue last December with 2,500 copies. That was followed in April by the most recent issue with 4,000 copies. Both included nightclub ads that carry some of Deley's professional photography.
BC students pose as glamorous models in various photo spreads. Headlines promise stories about "charting the complex paths of intimacy," "wine, candles, chocolates, and HSV," and "the evolution of the non-relationship." Sports stories focus on ice climbing, sailing, and the urban pastime parkour. Car reviews highlight hip rides and affordable ones. One writer pays tribute to the late Heath Ledger.
On a recent weekday morning, Deley and Camacho hunched over dimly lighted desks in their cramped office space. They studied photos they plan to use for the next issue, which will serve as a city guide for incoming freshmen. Students from Lasell College in Newton and Boston University will serve as models in the pictorials.
For now, Deley's distribution approach has been purely viral (and cost-effective). Since the magazine is not a college publication and is not allowed to be placed in distribution points on campus, Deley has his writers, copy editors, and models, who are unpaid, hand out magazines to people on and off campus.
Joseph Neese, the arts and review editor at BC's school newspaper, picked up a copy at a restaurant in Cleveland Circle.
"Aesthetically, it's really pretty amazing. It's attacking the core audience and giving us a fresh perspective," said Neese, an English and Latin American studies major. "There is plenty of room for growth. And as they continue to grow, there is no reason why the written content, the journalistic pieces, can't match the excellence of the photography and the layouts and the graphics they have done. They understand their audience very well."
Johnny Diaz can be reached at jodiaz@globe.com.
