I have just come across a couple of London-based photobook swapping sites and given the recent spate of violent theft of cheap sportswear in London and across the UK, swapping seems like a welcome alternative. Zineswap has been doing online zineswapping since 2008 while the recently founded Photobookswap will be organising book swapping events complete with the tantalising and rather strange combination of cake and beer… and let’s not forget Wife Swap for some supremely trashy but frequently hilarous reality TV. Laurence Vecten of oneyearofbooks fame already started an online photobook swap site last year but I’m not sure how active it is these days. All Swap Everything!

If anyone is interested in swapping books for some Japanese photobooks, get in touch at info [at] eyecurious [dot] com

No I don’t mean that show Wife Swap which did produce some moments of truly horrific TV reality genius. I mean photobook swaps. I recently went through all my photobooks and decided that a handful of them needed to find a new home, either because I have their twin or because they deserve to be more loved by somebody else. This is where Photobookswap steps in. I have already posted about it before, but now that I have swapped quite a few books through Laurence’s blog, I thought I should sing its praises again.

Just to give you an idea of the good stuff that can be found on there, here’s what I’ve swapped in recent weeks:

• Man Ray, for Daido Moriyama, t-82.
• Shomei Tomatsu, Aichi Mandala, for Paul Shambroom’s Meetings.
• Shomei Tomatsu, Okinawan Mandala, for Robert Adams, Listening to the River.
• Irving Penn, Le Bain: Dancer’s workshop of San Francisco, for Thomas Struth, Lowenzahnzimmer.

I’ve got a few books that are still available so do pay Photobookswap a visit.

Vive le swap!