Photography's upward trajectory

BY August next year, 20 new books by as many local photographers will have hit the shelves of bookstores, as part of a project TwentyFifteen.sg by photo collective Platform.

Each book ($25) will contain 15 new works by the photographer, and one book will be published every month, until Singapore's 50th birthday next August.

This project is one of the most ambitious of its kind yet, and would have been close to impossible to carry out in Singapore in the past, say industry practitioners.

Firstly, you wouldn't find 20 photographers willing to do a book pro-bono, nor would you be able to sell enough books and prints to support the publications.

So far, six books have been published, with a 500 print run each. Close to a third of all the books have been sold. As for prints, 10 out of the 18 (three per photographer) have been sold at $1,200 each. The pr…