Magnum Photographer Publishes Book on iPad & iPhone

“Capitolio” is documentary photographer Christopher Anderson’s cinematic journey through the upheavals of contemporary Caracas, Venezuela, in the tradition, he says, of such earlier projects as William Klein’s New York and Robert Frank’s The Americans. But instead of just publishing the work in book form, the Magnum photographer has also released it on the iPad and iPhone platforms for US$ 4.99.

“The ultimate and ideal form of the work for me is a printed book. But there are certain constraints of the printed form: it is expensive (both to produce and buy) putting it out of reach for all but a select group with the means to shell out that kind of money, and there are only a finite number of books available. It occurred to me that here was the potential to reach an infinite audience,” Anderson explained.

Acccording to him, his book on the iPad for the moment is an experiment. “I’ll let you know how it goes. But I do imagine that this could be an interesting model that plays a role in all future projects,” he told British Journal of Photography.