Agenda

Guardian press photo booklet series

UK readers should keep an eye out for a 9-days series of booklets being distributed with The Guardian and sister Sunday newspaper The Observer, beginning tomorrow, Saturday 7 November 2009. Tomorrow's volume of !00 Years of Great Press Photographs takes the reader from 1910 to 1929, whereafter the series moves a decade at a time up to the present day. More information at The Guardian's website.

How to Make and Publish a Photobook

Every photographer’s must-have accessory!
In this new and unique little book Chris Dickie guides the reader through the various stages and decision-making processes involved in the making of a photobook. He offers advice based on over 30 years’ experience in publishing, during which time he has been professionally involved in every aspect of the publishing process: from writing and editing to art direction, from typesetting and design to print buying. For the past 25 years he has been publishing photography, in magazines and books. To date he has racked up almost 1500 photography publications.
How to Make & Publish a Photobook takes the reader step-by-step from image selection to selling your finished book. The way in which digital technology has revolutionised the publishing process is explained in depth: the costs and merits of the various print production options are compared and contrasted, and advice is offered on which route to take according to the scale and nature of your project.
How to Make & Publish a Photobook is published by Picture-Box Media at a mere £15. For more information or to place an order visit www.picture-box.com, or you can telephone on 020 8941 0249. UK postage is free. The book is also available as a pdf download at just £10 (no postage!) - click here for details.

Salgado is the greatest - official

The cover boasts: 'The world's greatest photographer joins Guardian Weekend' (11.09.04). I hope that Sebastião's toes curled. I look forward to sharing a pint with him of a lunchtime on Clerkenwell Green. Hang on, he's only an 'acclaimed photographer' according to the contents page. Then, few readers (of any paper) could even name a photographer - usual suspects aside. And SS ain't one of (either of) them.

A little learning

Spot the difference: it's a brief lesson in digital colour management. Left, yesterday's Indie, on the right, good old Ag magazine's current issue. It's not all the paper's fault, the featured book's publisher is culpable too: not for the first time were we sent digital files separated for duotone printing and, as you can see, they need a bit of adjustment before reproducing in cmyk. Not long ago, a famous image of Ernesto 'Che' Guevara appeared in The Independent in bright orange (for the same reason), and bearing in mind my last meeting with the photographer, René Burri, (when Burri nearly clocked me with his M6 for jumping in front of him in the wine queue, Arles Rencontres 1989), I'd be looking over my shoulder. But photographer Andrew Shaylor is not at all as scary as the subjects of his new book and will no doubt be grateful for the plug: 'Hells Angels Motorcycle Club', Merrell ISBN 1-85894-243-8. However, a little technical training at the nation's 'serious' papers wouldn't go amiss.

World Press Photo?

To illustrate a piece on today's GCSE exam results London's Evening Standard newspaper has come up with this gem of an image. So that's where I went wrong 35 years ago: couldn't tick the boxes on (a) Young female (b) Blonde (c) Pretty. No wonder the country (and its picture desks) are going down the pan.