documentary

A Good Start

Releasing a new photobook is always exciting and the completion of my fourth book felt like an important milestone. The Territorial Army photo zine in July was a great way of celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the photography project, but it has also led me towards a rethink regarding future book releases.

At the core of the issue is cost and time, with the recent photo zines showing a potentially better way of producing a photo book that is affordable for those wishing to purchase. The books also need to be delivered in a more timely manner without years between releases.

The first photo book, Sea Sky, Sand and Street came out way back in 2011. It was a great collection of iPhone images of Norfolk that came together in a hardback book that is still available on the Blurb store. The project was a great way of learning about building a book and it was an exciting period of developing a book from start to finish.

Back to Basics

After such a strong start with the first book, book project ideas went into a protracted development hell with the inevitable result that nothing was finished. By 2019, I’d decided that a simple photo zine format was the best way into making books again and the result was the very personal ‘Caught by the Tide’.

With the recent Southerly Point and Territorial Army photo zines a design template was created used to speed up the design and layout processes. It appears to work well with the Territorial Army photo zine taking just six months from the basic idea through to release. A large part of that time, however, was spent ‘remastering’ the original film shot images to get the best print quality for the book.

The first two books had release dates eight years apart, whereas the two recent zines two had only a year. That just seems a better way of completing the release of a photography book or zine.

Managing the Books

The book development philosophy needed to change. I enjoy creating photo books but I’ve recognised that some books are just FAR bigger projects than others – not only in scale but also the cost in money and time.

The aim now is to get at least one book, usually a photo zine, released each year with a larger book arriving every two or three years. Some of the planned books will transfer to the zine format but there will remain big project books i.e. a hardback photography book.

An important factor is also making the books affordable for those who wish to buy them. A zine that costs under £20 is far more viable than a hardback book that costs £80. Blurb often have generous discount offers that can reduce the price by up to forty percent.

The Next Chapter: Northumberland

Going forward the next photo zine will be about Northumberland with the plan to create an hundred page zine with approximately ninety images. The photography will cover quite a few years from my first visit to the county in 1992 through to 2026. I’d like the release before the end of the year but if not then early next year would suffice.

Projects such as Two Towns and the first of the books covering my work in Norfolk will remain books rather than zines. I’ll be talking about the changes to the books in the next podcast.

Check out the Richard Flint Photography Podcast for that and also some terrific new photography links that are mentioned in every episode.