Apparently, The Books are Way Better

First of all, thanks much to those of you who were actually taking up a collection to fund a sub to Commercial Photo magazine for yours truly. That kind of thoughtfulness is much appreciated, but not necessary. Yeah, it looks great. But $300 is a lotta ball bungees. if you know what I mean.

I am actually looking for a Strobist reader budget-friendly alternative, and it looks as if someone may have found it.

Got some info from Strobist reader Jon, and I am passing it along in what I promise will be the last post about Commercial Photo.

(At least for a while.)

"... Commercial Photo is a great magazine, but I don't think the pages on lighting setups you may have seen are representative of the magazine as a whole, and this might have a bearing on whether you wish to spend $300 on a subscription.

Unless the magazine has changed since I left Japan a year ago, only a very small section is dedicated to a detailed breakdown of a photo shoot. The overwhelming majority of the magazine will be unintelligible to anyone who can't read Japanese, although it usually has some decent photos to peruse (although there are much better magazines for that purpose such as 'Phat Photo' and 'Dejitaru Shashin Seikatsu"). In short, a $300 subscription may not be the best value for money.

What might be, is the Commercial Photo Series set of books published by the same company. These books are about 150 pages long, cost 2,340 yen (c.£10/$20) each, and 90% of that is strictly photos and lighting diagrams. I've included some links to photos from their fashion photography edition. ..."

Check Jon's Flickr stream for some page grabs. Apparently the books are pretty much non-stop pix and lighting diagrams. I have done some looking, but have not found a source for the books in English/$US.

Any ideas? Post 'em in the comments section.

And click on the pic for a selection of the books at an auto-translated page.