A must-buy

Perhaps my favourite magazine of last year was Strange Light. It was a beautiful, elegiac magazine made up of images from Sydney’s dust cloud storm. Most remarkable, however, is how, and how fast it was put together.

It was created in the USA by Derek Powacek, founder of JPEG magazine, from photos he found on Flickr – he identified the owners, got their permission, and had a lovely little magazine on sale via print-on-demand service MagCloud, less than 48 hours after the storm hit.

More of the service’s potential is on view with Onè Respe, a magazine made of archive photojournalism from Haiti, showing its vibrant population pre-earthquake. A group of photojournalists donated some incredible images to the mag, all proceeds from which go to the American Red Cross International Response Fund for Haiti relief. The magazine contains a couple of articles as well as some fantastic full-bleed double spreads.

Its title is Haitian creole for “Honour and Respect”. You can see a preview and buy the thing here. It costs $16, $12 of which goes straight to the fund. $12 – I assume the price change means that all monies go straight to the fund (well done, HP). UPDATE: yep.

The idea for the magazine was photographer Lane Hartwell’s, and it was designed by Powacek. It looks like it’s been really well put together, and fast. There’s a Q+A with Lane here. Now go and buy it.