So magazines are on their last legs, gasping for life and going belly up in record numbers. But two big magazine  revamps made news this week, and both seem to be paying special attention to photography.

Hugo Lindgren took the reins of the New York Times Magazine last October and promptly started slashing and burning (not sad to see a lot of it go). Among the changes expected to be unveiled this Sunday, March 6 (with a cover story shot by Mary Ellen Mark):

… “What They Were Thinking,” a feature of intriguing photos and a Q. & A. with the photographer; “Look,” a three-page photo essay of events and gatherings around the world — from a reality TV show audition in Los Angeles to a dune race in Dakar …

And then there’s the new Tina Brown-helmed Newsweek. The anemic weekly needs a major shot of something to get it going, but perhaps Brown has the magic formula (she’s done big things before). The Cutline blog says the forthcoming magazine will have “bigger pictures,” and a staffer reports:

“It’s slick, contemporary and feels like something out of the new millennium–sort of New York mag meets GQ, and pretty distinct from Time, with big photo spreads, graphics that pop and draw you into the page, lots of entry points into a story, infographics, sidebars, etc.”