A small Sunday letter, written slowly.
On Paper is a weekly letter about photographic prints worth owning. It is written by one person, on one laptop, on most Sunday mornings before the rest of the house is up. It reaches a small number of readers and has no growth target.
Each issue is built around three to five entries — usually a mix of new photographic prints, photo books, and small-press zines. An entry is just an artist, an object, the relevant specs, a price, and a few hundred words from me on why I think you should pay attention. The artists are picked because I like the work, full stop. The galleries and publishers don't pay to be here. There are no affiliate links.
I am not a critic; I am a photographer and collector who thinks out loud. I have been collecting work and making my own prints on paper for many years. I am always on the lookout for new work from anyone making something that catches my eye — established names, first-time zinesters, and everyone in between.
What I write about
Three formats, in roughly this order of frequency: signed-and-numbered prints (open editions, fine-art runs, the occasional one-off); photographic books from independent publishers and the better trade houses; and small-run zines — risograph, photocopy, hand-bound, whatever the artist is doing. Paper choices matter to me. If a thing is printed with care, I'll find a way to write about it.
What I don't
News. Auction results. AI image generation. NFT-anything. The point is to keep the signal high.
The format
On Paper goes out most Sunday mornings. The web version is the canonical one; the email is a slightly simplified version of the same. There is no app, and there will not be one.
Submitting work
On Paper is open to submissions from anyone working on paper — established or just starting, gallery-represented or self-publishing out of a kitchen. If that's you, the submissions page explains what I need to take a look.
Editor
Tim Trautmann is a photographer based in Portland, Oregon. His own work lives at timtrautmann.com. He can be reached at tim@onpaper.photo for tips, corrections, and the occasional argument about Baryta.