“175 Photographers” is finally published!

I just wanted to put up a short post to say that 175 Photographers, A Collection of Contemporary Photography from JPGmag.com is finally complete and available at my Blurb page. This is a book I’ve been working on for three months, pulling together images from my favorites pages on the JPGmag.com website. 175 photographers from all over the world have graciously agreed to allow me to collect and print their photographs in a beautiful book. They have all contributed this work so that I might make it available to the public and hopefully find the support to turn this collection into a fantastic show of contemporary photography.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with JPG, it’s another of the internet’s photography sites where photographers upload images to their pages, often based on specific themes, to share them and to compete for a spot in the print version of JPG Magazine. Members vote on the images that best fit the themes, and can also comment, contact the photographer, or tag images as favorites and build their own collection of other photographers’ works. I have been placing images there for almost three years and have collected over 300 favorites. I always felt they would make a great book or show, and when it looked as though JPG might shut down at the beginning of this year, I decided, in a bit of a panic, to try and make this happen. And so success. The book is published and available to all. You can purchase a copy directly from my Blurb page at cost.  So we all make it available to you now. There are over 200 images in color and black and white punctuated by quotes from famous photographers. Over 240 pages in all and a listing of every photographer and with URLs for most where you can see more of their work or contact them directly if you are interested in purchasing images. I would post some of those photographs, but have only a license to use them in the book and will respect that.

So if you are looking for one of the most interesting, stimulating, complete and diverse collections of contemporary photography today, go to this page and order a copy of 175 Photographers, A Collection of Contemporary Photography from JPGmag.com edited by me. You won’t be disappointed.

Cover design Copyright © 2009, George Cannon and Imageguy Artbooks, All Rights Reserved.

Beware the Ides of March

I have been away from my blog for a while. Not by conscious choice, I just haven’t had an extra minute to sit and gather my thoughts. I have posted a couple of posts from Running To Places performances. That’s a must after I shoot those. But I have been so occupied with other things this first part of 2009 that I have hardly been able to do much of anything that I usually do when I’m not at work.

My daughter is applying for colleges right now. That is she’s already applied, we’re just waiting to hear from everyone. She applied to ten schools. We’ve heard from seven. Accepted at six and wait-listed at number seven. The other replies are due any time. She’s a smart girl and has received good offers already. So she will have a tough choice to make soon. She’s applied for a major in Zoology at all but one, DeSales University in Pennsylvania, where she’s applied as a dance major. I had the wonderful opportunity to take her down to visit and audition for the program.

I can say that I’ve never been around so many positive attitude students ever. These kids had nothing negative to say about the school, except perhaps that there’s not much around the campus for entertainment, so the school brings the entertainment in to them on a regular basis. My daughter had a friend nearby, so spent the night with her while I stayed in our cheesy little motel.

At work, we installed a major exhibit of Australian Aboriginal art and the George Eastman House’s show Picturing Eden. Both very big shows and amazing work. The Aboriginal show include the construction of a ten foot square sand box which we filled with two tons of sand that we dyed red. Three artists flew in from Australia to create a design on top of the sand in the traditional ways they do it at home using dyed plant fiber.

I’ve tried to grab a few shots on the highway the few times I’ve been out with my cameras. The weather here has been so cold until late that I just had no desire to be out shooting. But the buzzards are back (my robin of spring) and the cat is leaving the entrails of small rodents on our floor two or three times a day now, so I know Spring is really here.

Last weekend my daughter’s dance school celebrated another 5 year milestone with a big dance party for all. I wish I had the energy of these kids. They danced for about 5 hours straight and I was thankful that I got to simply be a bystander with camera. I love being around them all though because they are so full of life.

The main reason that I have been so unable to keep up with blogging, however, is that January 1st I began a project that has been all consuming. I am a contributor to JPGmag.com on a regular basis and at the beginning of the year it looked as though JPG was going to close. I had always wanted to put together a book or show of the photographs that I have tagged there as my favorites, so when thinking that might be impossible if the site closed down, in a bit of a panic, I decided to do the book. It took almost three months to pull it all together working almost every night, but two days ago I sent it off to Blurb for publication.

175 PHOTOGRAPHERS, A Collection of Contemporary Photography from JPGmag.com will be available to the public soon. It has the work of 175 photographers from every continent around the world (except Antarctica of course). Over 200 color and black & white photographs. It’s an amazing collection and a tribute to the fabulous photography at JPG. It appears now that JPG will not shut down after all, but I am so glad I took the time to make contact with all these people all around the world and pull this together. I have another blog that has been keeping the contributors up to date and I will post there about any other books I produce as well. If you’d be interested in buying a copy, it will be available at cost (no profit markup) from Blurb soon. Watch this blog for the announcement.

Oh! and the reason for the title of this post. On Tuesday I was notified that my job at the museum is being eliminated because of the economy. Retirement when I least expected it.

A very eventful month! Nice to be back. Looks as though I may have a little more time to keep up now.

All photographs are Copyright © George Cannon, All Rights Reserved.