The photographic highlight of the Edinburgh Festival will be the National Galleries’ exhibition of the work of Hiroshi Sugimoto (he’s doing a talk on 4 August). We have copies of the superbly printed The Nature of Light from Japan which covers the two new series in this exhibition, created in homage to William Henry Fox Talbot. “Lightning Fields,” which was produced by discharging electric current directly onto the film and recording the path of light, was inspired by the scientific experiments into electric discharge that were carried out, but later abandoned, by Talbot. In the second series, “Photogenic Drawings,” Sugimoto takes Talbot’s paper negatives, created 170 years ago and on the verge of disappearing, transfers them onto another medium and reinterprets them for the future.

Among contemporary photographers, none are more closely associated with popular music than Anton Corbijn. His mammoth tome documenting a 30-year connection with Tom Waits has been promised for several years but it is due to be published by Schirmer in June (view their website for images). This slipcased edition of 252 pages contains 193 plates in colour and duotone and measures 25.2 by 36 cm. The recommended price is £135. We are selling it at £121.50 (cheaper than Amazon at the time of going to print!).

Hot on the tails of Steidl’s recent Lewis Baltz box set comes another multi-volume retrospective of a contemporary American great: Robert Adams.  The Place We Live features selections from all of Adams's major projects, from his early work in the suburbs of Colorado Springs and Denver to his recent portrayals of trees in the Pacific Northwest.  There are essays from John Szarkowski and Tod Papageorge among others.  3 volumes, 9 3/4 x 11 ¾ inches, 589 pages.  We are giving 10% off the recommended price of £175, which again is cheaper than Amazon at the moment.

I know some customers have been impressed by the recent BBC programmes on the photography of Ragnar Axelsson who has documented communities across the Arctic over 30 years.  Sadly his beautiful book Faces of the North is now out of print but his new book Last Days of the Arctic has been very favourably reviewed. An extensive preview is available on the Polar World website.

It’s been a few years since we had a book of photography by filmmaker Wim Wenders, whose Once was a long-term bestseller in our Cockburn Street shop. His new book Places Strange and Quiet collects large-scale photographs taken from 1983 to 2011 in countries all over the world. You can view images from this book on the Hatje Cantz website.

Nazraeli will soon be publishing a first monograph by Argentinian photographer Alejandro Chaskielberg, recent winner of a Sony award.  He spent two years with islanders in the Parana river delta and the results are displayed in La Creciente.  While the subject matter confirms his place in the documentary tradition, his way of working - taking photographs of precisely staged scenes at night, using moonlight and artificial light – creates powerful, hyperrealistic images.  You can see why it would appeal to Martin Parr who introduces the book as part of the Parr/Nazraeli Series of Ten. You can see images from this series on Chaskielberg's website.