“This is a newspaper for people who like to look.” That’s how photographer and 10 Magazine collaborator Josh Hight describes Idle Pages, his quiet yet striking new project. Part broadsheet, part manifesto and entirely analog, Idle Pages is a limited-edition newspaper that reimagines print media as something slower, more intimate and defiantly human.
Launched in spring 2025 with a first issue photographed across the Sussex Downs and coastal paths, Idle Pages is printed in editions of just 50. It features black-and-white portraits that feel both mythic and mundane – images that refuse to rush, that ask to be sat with. It’s photography unburdened by briefs, timelines or commercial gloss. In Hight’s words, “Images made outside the logic of commissions.”
For a photographer known for his keen eye and collaborative spirit, Idle Pages is as much about connection as it is about composition. “The project began as a way to strengthen relationships through photography,” he explains. “Each issue is built around collaboration: with friends, peers, colleagues and passing figures.”
Indeed, the act of collaboration is at the core of Hight’s creative process. “No image happens in isolation,” he says. “Whether it’s the subject or someone who mentioned a location in passing, it’s all part of the chain.” This interconnectedness gives the portraits a charged stillness – each frame feels like the result of deep looking, and deep listening.
Despite – or perhaps because of – its modest format, Idle Pages feels radical. In an era where images are optimised for swiping, Hight gives us pages that must be opened with both hands. “Print gives you time,” he says. “It gives the image weight again – physical and emotional.”
That weight is literal too. The broadsheet format is expansive and generous. It requires space, both in the room and in the mind. “I’ve always been drawn to the texture and scale of newsprint,” Hight explains. “It’s democratic and temporary. It’s affordable to produce, and I can decide when and how it comes out.”
That independence is key. Hight controls everything – from curation to distribution. “You have to get it through me,” he says. “It keeps it manageable and personal. It opens up a direct line of communication with the people who are actually interested in engaging with the work.” And yet, Idle Pages isn’t about control. In fact, Hight describes the project’s evolution as organic and unexpected. “Originally I set out to make something with more of a storyline, but it shifted into photographing the people around me,” he says. “I started to realise the project was a way to talk about people and the space around them. It became just as much about place as it was about portraiture, letting the myth write itself.”
That phrase – “letting the myth write itself” – captures the quiet ambition of Idle Pages. These aren’t portraits of the famous or fashionable. They are portraits of presence – of people inhabiting space, inhabiting themselves. Shot in black and white, the images feel timeless and immediate. “It helps me focus on tone, shape and composition,” Hight says of the monochrome palette. “For this first issue, it gave the project a sense of clarity.”
And why call it Idle Pages? “It’s a play on the idea of idleness,” he says, “not as laziness, but as creative potential. A new place for ideas to flourish.” In this way, the paper reads like a love letter to slowness, to lingering, to the kind of attention that feels increasingly rare. It’s a reminder that looking can still be an act of care – and that print, far from obsolete, might just be the perfect medium for presence. And what does Hight hope people take from it? “Curiosity. A bit of mystery. Maybe the itch to go make something themselves,” he says. “If it slows someone down for a moment to really look, that’s enough.”
In a media landscape built for speed, Idle Pages doesn’t shout. It invites. It waits. And for those willing to sit with it, the reward is rich.
Photography courtesy of Josh Hight.
