Newsletter 12/25
Hello again
This Offline Journal Newsletter is one with a festive twist!
What follows is a short listing of current photography book and zine titles you might consider as a gift or stocking-filler for a photographer friend or relative - or even yourself!
Brian
EIGHTEEN FIT MEN by Julie Cook
Ditching digital and opting for a scalpel and cutting mat, photographer Julie Cook's latest photobook embraces photomontage to celebrate the male form with a twist of vintage vistas.
"The images began with finding a stack of old 1950s magazines in a great second-hand book stall in Pontypridd Market and combining a new interest in the representation of landscape with an old interest in the male body. Old-school body building relooked at, with some surprising discoveries."
– Julie Cook
Images from 'EIGHTEEN FIT MEN' by Julie Cook
Published by Julie Cook and partner/collaborator Paul Davies' INVISIBLE YNYSYBWL INTERNATIONAL (their community work to date on the former Lady Windsor Colliery site in the village of Ynysybwl near Pontypridd featured in issue #014 of Offline Journal), Eighteen Fit Men is the latest of her photography experiments as a small book, a format explored in fascinating detail in the very excellent 'Various Small Books: Referencing Various Small Books by Ed Ruscha' (MIT Press, 2013) which includes Cook's 'SOME LAS VEGAS STRIP CLUBS' photobook (held in The V&A collection, but copies are still available directly from the photographer).
Signed copies of Eighteen Fit Men are available from the Julie Cook's website (link below) at a special launch price of just £10.00 per copy. Whilst on the website, take a moment to explore her other unique and highly collectable self-published photobook titles.
ANOTHER PLACE by Paul Cabuts
Gallery Gwyn in the seaside town of Aberaeron will host the launch of Paul Cabuts' next book 'Another Place' and an exhibition of the featured photography this coming Saturday 6 December.
"Another Place presents photographs made without any apparent purpose - not part of some conscious schema. Taken in west Wales and Cornwall between 2013 and 2018, each photograph was an immediate response to a particular place at a particular time.
Brought together for the first time several years later, they reveal a story of place, dislocation and longing."
— Paul Cabuts
The new book, priced £14.00, includes essays on the making of the photographs.
ANOTHER PLACE
by PAUL CABUTS
Published December 2025 by Tirnod Press
226 x 170 mm
60 pages / soft cover
Recycled silk stock, perfect binding
Edition of 50
ISBN 978-1-9163896-2-5
Book and exhibition launch: 2 - 4pm, Saturday 6 December 2025
ANOTHER PLACE
Paul Cabuts
6th December 2025 – 28th March 2026
Gallery Gwyn, Aberaeron SA46 0JB
gallerygwyn.co.uk
DAVID WILSON on ITV Wales
Pembrokeshire-based photographer David Wilson has recently spoken to ITV Wales on this photography and career.
He featured on the channel's Face to Face programme yesterday evening and talked about this career to date as a landscape photographer and recent autobiography An Unlikely Photographer, published by Graffeg with whom he has produced several popular titles of his work.
The programme went out 11.05pm Monday 1st December but is now available online here: ITV Wales.
You can also listen to a longer in-depth conversation with David Wilson below, recorded at his home in Pembrokeshire back in October 2017 for the Ffoton Wales podcast.
www.davidwilsonphotography.co.uk
'CORPUS | DELICTI' features in RPS Journal
North Wales-based photographer Rolf Kraehenbuehl has gained five spreads in Issue 96 of the RPS Contemporary Group's printed Journal publication (November 2025) featuring images from his CORPUS | DELICTI series.
Prints from the series featured in an exhibition which ran in Oriel Colwyn earlier this year 17th May - 28th June.
Watch a flip-through of the spreads on Rolf's Instagram feed here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DRr4OKNiqdx/
And/or listen to the photographer tell the story of one of the images from the project on the Ffoton Wales YouTube channel's ongoing 'ONE IMAGE' series
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc0LEbV4WGQ
See more Rolf's work on his website www.rolfkraehenbuehl.com
@rpscontemporary on Instagram
AFFINITY for photographers
A completely free alternative to Adobe Lightroom for putting together your self-published photozines that incorporates image editing, typography, page layout and print-resolution PDF output in CMYK for finished zine artwork.
More information and how to sign up for one of the ten spaces coming early January. In the meantime, download the free App for Mac or PC and have a play.
https://www.affinity.studio/get-affinity
TO BUILD A HOME by Amanda Jackson
Amanda Jackson's long-term photography project on the Lammas Tir Y Gafel eco village in Pembrokeshire should see its new photobook start shipping in coming weeks.
'To Build A Home', published by Another Place Press this month, is her first photobook and brings together Jackson's work from 2013 to present, and includes work from two exhibitions: 'To Build A Home' and ‘Where the Red Kite Flies’.
Two book spreads from TO BUILD A HOME by Amanda Jackson
With 70 pages, the book measures 250 x 210mm with a softcover. Two versions are available as book only for £24.00, or a Special Edition limited to 15 copies with an A4 limited edition print signed and numbered by the photographer at £59.00.
Cwm Eigiau: Y Wal Heb Sylfaen / The Wall Without Foundation
Sunday 2 November 2025 marked 100-years since the failure of two dams causing a flood that swamped the village of Dolgarrog in North Wales, killing 16 people.
Revisiting the site over decades, Aled Rhys Hughes' images of the stark and imposing man-made remote structure that failed, are now showing in a new exhibition titled Cwm Eigiau: Y Wal Heb Sylfaen / The Wall Without Foundation in Ffotogaleri y Gofeb and Pen'rallt Gallery and Bookshop in Machynlleth until 7 March 2026.
Spreads from the new catalog 006: Cwm Eigiau: Y Wal Heb Sylfaen / The Wall Without Foundation. Images © Aled Rhys Hughes
A new exhibition catalogue, the sixth in Offline's catalog series, has been published in collaboration with Aled and gallery, and is now available from the photographer, the gallery, or via the Offline Journal online store.
Current Subscribers to the printed Offline Journal are eligible for a 20% discount on any available Offline catalog or essay. Just email me at offline.journal@gmail.com with info on what item you'd like to order and I'll reply with a special payment link.
Cwm Eigiau: Y Wal Heb Sylfaen / The Wall Without Foundation
Aled Rhys Hughes
25 October 2025 - 7 March 2026
Ffotogaleri y Gofeb and Pen'rallt Gallery & Bookshop, Machynlleth SY20 8AJ
www.ffotogaleriygofeb.co.uk
PHOTOPOETRY - Phil Cope
The green-lit function room situated above the Sustainable Wales 'Sussed' shop in Porthcawl hosted an evening of poetry and PhotoPoetry last Friday 28 November and I went along to hear some of the poetry and meet the participants.
Subscribers to Offline Journal who received the Offline Essays supplement titled 'The Shadow of a Shadow' by Phil Cope will be aware of his efforts in researching the long history of collaborations between photographers and poets. having given an illustrated presentation of his Essay to photographers at a previous Offline SIGNATURES event in Turner House, the evening in Porthcawl offered the opportunity for him to give a shorter talk to poets and poetry fans.
Poet Gerry Ray reading from his and Cope's The Mermaid of Al-Andalus (culture & democracy Press, 2025)
Also in attendance on the evening was Gerry Ray, whose poetry featured in the recent collaborative PhotoPoetry title 'The Mermaid of Al-Andalus' which had Cope's photography respond to Ray's poems – reflecting on a period of time when he lived in the Spanish region.
Phil Cope will be launching a new website for his culture & democracy Press next week, which will also carry more writing in early 2026 on his (and Offline Journal's) eagerness to see more collaboration between photographers and poets in Wales. I encourage any photographers interested in such collaborations to contact Cope via the new website.
Subscriber supporters of the Offline Journal website can listen to Phil Cope's presentation from the evening event below.
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