Valleys parade

I've written about David Hurn and his work numerous times before, but I was hardly going to turn down the opportunity to do so again at the invitation of Brian Carroll of Offline. My debut contribution to the biannual photography magazine is a review of Hurn's current exhibition South Wales Valleys: Colour at the Workers Gallery, drawing on the launch event and his later interview with Michael Sheen. It was an honour to be asked, and hopefully I won't prove to be a one-cap wonder.

The review is in fine company in the issue, rubbing shoulders with interviews with Daniel Meadows and Glenn Edwards (on their projects Book Of The Road and Yucker's Year respectively), Tom Booth Woodger (the new steward of the excellent Bluecoat photobook imprint) and Pembrokeshire photographer David Wilson (whose black-and-white image of Carn Llidi and YHA St Davids hangs in our hallway). Copies are available here.

The issue's overall theme is publishing, and to mark its publication there was a photobook fair held at Ffotogallery on Saturday. Unfortunately, I couldn't be there - but I was able to attend the Pictures In Print event on Friday afternoon, hosted by the University of South Wales and organised in conjunction with Offline and Ffotogallery. On the agenda was everything from designing and producing self-published zines, accompanying text, different types of printed form and the approach of a traditional photobook publisher, RRB.

It was a stimulating few hours, and introduced me to both Ffion Denman's Hadau Mag and quarterly art, literature and philosophy magazine Nawr. The latter looks especially intriguing, and now is making the bold step from digital to print - for which I wish the team the best of luck.