When we had binders done they were custom made slim ones and quite neat,
with cords not rods, and they held two years or more at a time. I shall
investigate the options anyway.

There is no option to expand Freelance to include the digital mag... in
brief, the Master Photographers Association decided there was too much
equipment and technique in 'their' magazine (which they paid for at half
the rate of a normal subscription, with half the number of readers to
make it viable). They also disliked the way that the 'digital' issues
attracted twice as much advertising, had far more content, and appeared
to make digital seem more important than photography per se. We made a
compromise first by boosting the size of the non-digital editions by
adding 32 pages from Freelance, reprinted free of charge, but they
didn't like or understand the content - if the pictures were good, they
outclassed professional work and that's not acceptable; if they were not
good (in the professional eye) that was equally unacceptable. Essential
what the pro studio portrait photographer wants to see if work just like
his/hers but a little different, or better, or comparable but with some
commercial lesson to be had from its success.

In the meantime, I had acquired almost 1000 outside readers for the
digital magazine, who were not going to be happy seeing it disappear.

The Bureau of Freelance Photographers, who got involved with Freelance
when I launched it by pointing out that they sort of had a claim on the
name - we disagreed but I said 'OK, let's just work together' - were 100
per cent happy with a name change, and with the digital content coming
into Freelance. They said that more than half their members were now
shooting digital, all the clients were insisting on digital, the
libraries had all gone digital and in the five years since Freelance
launched, the world had changed.

We should change with it and so we have - f2 is 'Freelance+Digital' as a
strapline, but really, it will be an all-round mag aimed at anyone
working towards publication, stock sales, exhibition, print selling,
award and contest entry, or just aspiring to that general field. My 1000
digital readers have been transferred to f2, MPA gets their rather
slimmer monthly with just their own stuff and their own news, and my
creative efforts will be concentrated on the title I own - f2 - and not
the title which takes most of my time - MPA. The other way round is
suicide. f2 is going to be the best thing I've done, I hope, though some
of the early 1990s flash will never be recovered. Duotone varnished
pages on matt stock... cut outs on the page for photo frames... 4-page
gatefold panoramas... all that took some BIG help from the industry,
often volunteered just to see things done well. That money goes on
websites and not print these days, but I still love print; I just like
the result. I wish we could do the extreme quality stuff again and maybe
one day it will come back.

And, seriously, I never see the sort of immaculate sets of fine art
prints which make me say 'this must be high end duotone scanned and spot
varnished'.

David