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I decided to look at an online book fair. I've never actually been to a book fair but from what I know they're kind of like conventions with booths where companies advertise things they've published or photographers advertise books that they've published themselves. It seemed that due to lockdown and COVID-19 restrictions, things like book fairs wouldn't be going on but I was absolutely delighted to hear that I'd be able to attend one from the comfort of my own home. I've always wanted to go to one but for one reason or another I've never been able to attend. The fact that something like this can be done virtually, I think is such an outstanding achievement in our field as it shows just how adaptable photography is. I think we've kind of pushed more into a digital age, even though digital photography has been around for quite a few years now we've never gone fully digital. Things like books and prints have always been in high demand, we're always wanting physical copies which I think is kind of ironic considering a main theme of photography is immortalising aspects of life that otherwise decay.

However when I went on this book fair (you can find it by clicking here) I was incredibly disappointed. I can't fault them they've tried their best but the website was chaotic. It takes about two attempts at a minimum to actually load the website in order to be able to look round. It's sort of laid out as it exhibition type thing or a virtual tour if you will. Here you can see the first thing that you're met with on the virtual tour. At the risk of sounding really negative, I found this really tacky. We are a creative industry yet you're met with quite literally a giant potato. I absolutely hated the design. There are other aspects in the virtual tour as well as the booths and it took me a good five minutes to find the booths, which by the way you have to click the giant potato to actually get onto.

Once it was loaded, the chaos began. I was met with an overwhelming amount of booths. I will say that the fact that this is a virtual book fair has meant that it can be international and you can see work and publishers from quite literally all over the world which is amazing. But realistically there was over 200 booths and unless you're really avid fan, or you know exactly who you're looking for, it's unlikely that anybody is going to want to go and click through every single booth, which actually disadvantages a lot of people involved. There was just too many and it was insane. Then you get the problem of language. Some of the booths, all their information was written in a different language to what I had the website set to (English) with absolutely no offer of any type of translation. There was no interface on the website that allowed you to select the language of this text, the website can be put in Japanese or English, but even in those, it often popped up in say Dutch for example. I don't know if they had rushed putting the website together or if it was just poorly done but I was very disappointed at what I came across.