UPDATE: I went a bit overboard with this post, and I’m sorry as I sort of said here. However, once something’s bolted on the internet there’s little point in closing the gate, so I’ll leave this here. However, I have cut a few bits which went too far. Please note - nobody asked me to do this.

A couple of days ago I posted a review of the e-magazines “Photographer’s i” and “Photograph”. I now regret this - or rather, I regret that I implied that “Photograph” was in the same space as “Photographer’s i”. It isn’t. David duChemin, and his publishing company, Craft & Vision, have an unblemished reputation for integrity and quality. Ilex Press Ltd, the outfit behind “Photographer’s i”, have dropped the ball here though.

Let me explain:

Up until Issue 3, Photographer’s i (bit of a stupid name, by the way), was doing great. It featured high quality content, a range of interesting and sometimes renowned contributors, and great photography. Then Issue 4 went missing in action. The release schedule was supposed to be bi-monthly - which seemed very ambitious, but nobody forced it on them. Now Issue 4 has turned up. Let’s see what it’s got:

• An editorial by Adam Juniper. Who the hell is he ?
• 14 sections on various aspects of technique, blatantly recycled from Michael Freeman’s vast back catalogue
• A single totally out of context page of “Pring’s Photographer’s Miscellany”, which almost looks like part of an article which got included by mistake. This is the only “contributing author” section - 1 page of utterly tedious trivia

What’s gone:

• Editor Michael Freeman, apparently
• Executive Editor Marti Saltzman
• Editing, basically
• Nothing, zilch, nada about photographers, portfolios etc
• Zero meaningful contributors

The is a weak excuse that this is actually A TOTALLY DIFFERENT PUBLICATION, called, wait for it, “Photographer’s i Plus”, although this is not mentioned on their website, or in the App Store, or indeed anywhere in the Issue except the introduction by Who-The-Hell-Is Adam Juniper.

Clearly, “Photographer’s i” got tangled up in it’s own ambition, and/or Michael Freeman got bored / fell out with the publisher, or whatever, but basically imploded. And what we’re seeing now is a “contractual obligation album” to try to placate irate subscribers.

WARNING: since I wrote this post, Photographer’s i Issue 4 has been published, and it is quite different Issue 1 to 3. My conclusions on this publication here do not apply any more. See my (updated) rant on the matter for further details.

I’m an avid reader of photography magazines. These days I’ve got over the repetitive, shallow print titles that seem to be little more than dressed up advertising wrapped in either ghastly overblown epic landscapes or the perennial soft porn. I’m also increasingly getting bored with gear, and more and more realising how meaningless in real terms the vast majority of gear review sites are. But what I do still enjoy is reading about photography and photographers.

The publishing world has been turned on its head first by the internet, and then by the iPad and its copycats. A direct-to-consumer business model has emerged which allows viable publications to be run free, or almost free, of advertising or the more insidious product placement. Two particularly nice examples of this are “Photographer’s i”, edited by Michael Freeman, and “Photograph”, edited by David duChemin. I’ve subscribed to both.

Photographer’s i, which has reached Issue 3, is perhaps the most ambitious. Edited by the renowned author-photographer Michael Freeman, it uses a fully interactive format and is distributed as an iPad Bookshelf app through Apple’s App Store. The format allows for embedded video, for interactive tutorials, and for variable formatting. It is quite similar in approach to National Geographic’s electronic edition. It features an eclectic and impressive range of contributors, and each issue is pretty weighty. Production standards are immaculate. It does cover some technical topics, but completely avoids gear reviews. But mostly it’s about photography, in all shapes and sizes. It’s available by subscription, at £2.99 for 2 months, or by issue at £3.99. There are also free samplers. Issue 4, however, seems to be rather overdue, and I’m pretty sure my subscription auto-renewed already. There are several complaints about this on the App Store. I suspect it is due at least in part to Apple’s restrictive pricing models. Another downside, for some, is that so far it’s iPad only. But if you’ve got an iPad, and you’re into intelligent writing on photography, then it’s a no-brainer.

Photograph is brand new, with Issue 1 just out. Published through Canadian world & humanitarin photographer David duChemin’s Craft & Vision, this is a straightforward PDF title, so it’s more universally accessible. Going by Issue 1, and by the general quality of Craft & Vision titles, Photograph has little to envy Photographer’s i for. The list of authors is equally impressive - Photographer’s i may have Steve McCurry, but Photograph has Art Wolfe. Photograph also gives more space to, well, photographs, with generous portfolios from a series of photographers, ending with an interview. A classic, but effective, format. And although they’re at different points in their careers, duChemin is just as eloquent and readable as Freeman. Photograph also covers a wide range of styles and downplays gear - although, again, there is some technical content. Based on Issue 1, the balance is fine. Photograph Issue 1 costs $8. A subscription to 4 issues will cost $24 - and you can try Issue 1, then pay an extra $16 to subscribe if you like it. A pretty fair deal.

Both titles are well worth your money and your time. Of course, if you haven’t got an iPad, then Photographers i is out of bounds, which is a shame. Hopefully they will find a way to reach a broader market (although I’m sure the iPad market alone is perfectly viable). Long term, I do wonder if the less overhead-intensive production approach of Photograph might give it more staying power. I’m afraid that Photographer’s i may have bitten off more than it can chew. But the key, in both cases, will be maintaining the quality of content, and avoid repetitiveness. Time will tell, but so far they’re both doing a great job.

A couple of days ago, while searching for photo books on Paragonia, I discovered the work of Linde Waidhofer, on the Western Eye Press website. Linde is, it seems, a long established landscape photographer with a particular affinity for Patagonia. She has an extremely nice eBook available on her site, Unknown Patagonia, which she is freely distributing in the hope of raising awareness on the risks to a stunningy beautiful, isolated part of Southern Chile which is at risk from the energy industry. This sadly reminds me of similar destructive forces in parts of Iceland.

The location is amazing, and the photography even more so. Linde Waidhofer has an understated style which does not impose itself on the subject matter, does not overly abstract things, but presents natural beauty with great taste and judgement.

Since the eBook is available for free, I would encourage you to download it, enjoy it, and pass it on, and hopefully the message that Linde is trying to put out will spread. And at the same time you’ll discover some classic nature photography (actually not just nature) which deserves to be widely known.

In mid-2012, given the parlous state of film-based photography (especially colour slide film), and the less than encouraging signs from Lasersoft Imaging, the chances that a new book on Silverfast would be published must have been remote. That it would also be a very good book, even less so. Scanning veteran Mark D Segal has nevertheless confounded expectations with his eBook, “Scanning Workflows with Silverfast 8, Silverfast HDR, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop”. The title may be quite a mouthful, but it is justified through the contents.

Although the book was written in close collaboration with Lasersoft, makes of Silverfast (of itself a positive sign), it’s no hagiography. Where the author feels that Silverfast is not going to give you best results, he makes no excuse for providing alternative solutions in Photoshop and Lightroom. However, with his exhaustive - but never exhausting - exposition of Silverfast’s vast feature set, he reveals and clarifies areas of the application which I’ve either never used or never been comfortable with.

The book targets Silverfast 8, which for me remains something of a pipedream, and I’m stuck with SF6 for scanning with my Minolta film scanner, and although I religiously download each new public Beta of SF8 HDR, I’m sorry to say that that is still way short of usable. However, although some tools, for example AACO shadow recovery, are improved in SF8, what Mark writes is still applicable to SF6.

The last book to be written on Silverfast was Taz Tally’s Official Silverfast Manual published in 2003, which while pretty good for its day, only covered film scanning as an afterthought on the included CD. Mark’s book on the other hand is firmly focused on film, both positive and negative.

The writing still is clear and communicative, avoiding the trite humour that so many writers seem to feel they can’t do without. The author is not going to get rich with this book, which is available for €29.95 from the Silverfast web site. It is clearly something of a labour of love - let’s hope it doesn’t turn out to be a requiem.

My bookshelves currently feature 16 books of Icelandic photography. I guess one way of describing that is “enough”. Another might be “obsession”. So much, that I decided that on my most recent trip to Iceland that I would not be buying any more. Absolutely none. That didn’t turn out so well…

I could claim that “Last Days of the Arctic” by Ragnar “Rax” Axelsson doesn’t count, because (a) it isn’t about Iceland as such, and (b) I bought it from Amazon because it was too heavy to carry. Not to mention costing half the price. Then again I did order it whilst in Iceland. Let’s say it’s a borderline case.

However, for “Rauðisandur”, by Rut Hallgrímsdóttir, I have no such excuse. I was snagged by it at the deadly trap of the Eymundsson bookstore at Keflavik airport, and with a few thousand kronur left in my pocket it was a foregone conclusion.

So why did I fall for it ? Well, “Rauðisandur” is different. So far, a very large majority of Iceland landscape photo books are generic. Basically they take the wide view, and take you all around the island. Different photographers have different approaches, but by and large they’re still working in the first generation of “serious” icelandic landscape photography books, which as far as I can tell only really got going around the start of the century. It’s a young market, and although it is beginning to mature, I’d say it isn’t saturated - yet. But it’s edging that way. So, it was interesting to see what could be a precursor of the next stage, a book with taking a deeper approach to a (much) smaller area.

This has been done before, in a way, but more as hybrid trail guide / photo books, such as Daniel Bergmann’s “Skaftafell National Park”, and even that seems to be a rare exception.

As far as I can tell, Rut Hallgrímsdóttir is a professional photographer living and working in Reykjavik, specialising in formal portraiture, so this is not a typical project from her. Rauðisandur, an area in the extreme West of Iceland, on the South-Western edge of the Westfjords, is an area she discovered through her husband. It’s an area well known for its vast, sweeping sandy beaches, a bit reminiscent of the Irish northwest coast, but little visited due to being really well off the beaten track.

Although it has a rich and fascinating past, Rauðisandur is largely deserted these days. The (relatively) rich farming lands are not much of an attraction compared to the (ahem) riches of Reykjavik, and the old farms are derelict and fading. This is the natural and human landscape that Rut sets out to capture, and in my opinion she does it very well.

To be clear, this is not classic landscape photography. While there are some decent shots in the book, and some of the seascapes are excellent, they’re not really in tune with the modern landscape ethos. Indeed, I get the feeling that more than a few were shot quite some time ago ... on film!! There are no technical details in the book, not that I care at all, so I’m just guessing. What the photography does do very well though is to convey an intimate connection with this small, faraway - but still quite awe-inspiring - corner of Iceland. The commentary is full of fascinating anecdotes, and spent ages getting drawn into the stories about the farm at Vellir, and the photos of the surrounding landscape.

The book also include a nice section at the end on the area’s history by local expert Ari Ívarsson.

The photography is largely split between wide angle landscape vistas and semi-abstract close-up rock, wave and beach details. Again, it’s a combination that works well in conveying a sense of closeness to the land, and the more abstract work adds a considerable touch of artistic weight to the book, which otherwise might end feeling a bit bland. It’s through these abstractions that I feel we get a glimpse of Rut’s true skill as a photographer. It would be interesting to see more of these.

I guess “Rauðisandur” isn’t going to win any major prizes: it’s not that kind of book. But in its own quiet way it’s a very interesting and worthwhile book, which might leave a more lasting impression than just getting Lost in Iceland.

As far as I can tell, you can buy “Rauðisandur” directly from from Rut Hallgrímsdóttir’s website. I guess you could also order it from Eymundsson. It doesn’t appear to be on Amazon 😊

APOLOGY: The following shots are, I’m afraid, very poor quality. I’m not really set up for product shots (i.e too lazy too bother…). But they should give a rough idea of the book’s direction.