Not So Fast …
Another email has come today from the people at JPG Magazine :
We couldn’t ask for a better community. In the week or so since our last email, the outpour of support has exceeded our wildest expectations. Your efforts, such as starting savejpg.com, writing blog posts, commenting on Twitter and Flickr, and generally making your voices heard, have provided exciting new opportunities for us.
We’re thrilled to say that because of you, we have multiple credible buyers interested in giving JPG a home. We will be keeping the site up after all, and hope to have a final update in the next week or so on who the acquirer will be. Thank you for making all of this possible.
I am very delighted to hear this and it is my hope that the new owners of the magazine will maintain the site with little changes. I guess we will see how it all pans out over the coming days.
In the days since hearing about the possible shutdown, I searched for a new candidate to fuel my creative juices so to speak. Yes, I do like using Flickr but to me, JPG had brought something a little different to the table. What I particularly liked were the caliber of photographs that were submitted to the various themes but also the ability to browse the most recent uploads. I know that you can do this on Flickr but to me, on JPG, the caliber of the uploads is considerable higher. For the most part, the users are much more selective of what they upload to JPG as opposed to Flickr.
If you are aware of other sites like JPG, please let me know. I am always interested in learning what else is out there. You know, just in case …
Successfully Matting and Bagging Prints
For gifts for the holidays, I have started to have some photographs printed so that I could mat and bag them. I first came upon the Redimat site in a JPG Magazine article that detailed the supplies and the steps needed to mat and bag your own prints. As you may have seen in a previous blog entry, I was a little unaware of proper image sizing for printing the images that I wanted to mount. Fortunately I got it all figured out and was able to get back on track.
After the experience that I have gained in the process, I would not recommend getting the Redimat unless you know that you want you photographs cropped to fit the dimensions that they have available. What may be difficult about ordering ala carte the items you need is that all the online stores that I found had a minimum spending limit that had to be reached in order to avoid a “small order charge”. When shopping at Documounts, I realized that I could order other sizes of mats and backs that would get me to their minimum and to get something extra for the money that they were going to charge me anyways. In my case, I purchased a set of mats and backs for 5″x7″ prints. What I did not get were bags for this size. What can I say? Sometimes I am a little slow.
Here are is what the final products look like …
Goodbye to JPG Magazine
The following message was posted on the JPG Magazine blog this morning …
JPG Magazine Says Goodbye
Posted by Laura Brunow Miner on 1 January 2009.
Today is a particularly sad day for all of us at JPG and 8020 Media.
We’ve spent the last few months trying to make the business behind JPG sustain itself, and we’ve reached the end of the line. We all deeply believe in everything JPG represents, but just weren’t able to raise the money needed to keep JPG alive in these extraordinary economic times. We sought out buyers, spoke with numerous potential investors, and pitched several last-ditch creative efforts, all without success. As a result, jpgmag.com will shut down on Monday, January 5, 2009.
The one thing we’ve been the most proud of: your amazing talent. We feel honored and humbled to have been able to share jpgmag.com with such a dynamic, warm, and wonderful community of nearly 200,000 photographers. The images on the website and in the magazine were adored by many, leaving no doubt that this community created work of the highest caliber. The kindness, generosity, and support shared among members made it a community in the truest sense of the word, and one that we have loved being a part of for these past two years.
We wish we could have found a way to leave the site running for the benefit of the amazing folks who have made JPG what it is, and we have spent sleepless nights trying to figure something out, all to no avail.
I am very sad to see this site go. It has been a tremendous source of knowledge, community, and inspiration to me since I first found it.
JPG Magazine and Future Content on the Blog
You may remember me mentioning JPG Magazine a month or so ago. I feel that I must mention for those of you who will type the address of the site to go to www.jpgmag.com and not www.jpg.com. Type in the latter and you will see what I am talking about (you have been warned). I was given the chance to write a more descriptive article on it for the Digital Photography Channel of Brighthub.com.
You can check out the article by clicking here.
In the future I will be writing more articles for Brighthub and because I cannot publish them in both places, I will be linking to them from here. This gives me the chance to make this more of a photoblog and to write content here of a more personal tone to what I am learning. I am exctied about the possibilities.
I have been slacking a little lately on taking photographs but I should be back on the horse soon.
New Themes up for JPG Magazine’s Issue 20
The submissions have ended for Issue 19 and the themes have opened for Theme 20 on JPG Magazine’s Website. Currently I have one submission for Issue 19 and two for Issue 20. You can find them on my profile page. on the right.
I would love your comments, feedback, and votes if you have a chance.
The themes that opened for Issue 20 are “Beloved”, “Severe Weather”, and “Shoot From the Hip” which is being sponsored by Lomography.
My submission for “Beloved” is one of my gorgeous wife from a time where I was experimenting with my SB-600 and the submission for “Severe Weather” was taken while on a bicycle ride in my neighborhood.
The photo above was taken in our home and is my submission for the “Delectable” theme of Issue 19. As mentioned before, it is a ‘hot’ photo on the site and I hope that it makes the cut into print.
Thank you all for your support!
JPG Magazine
I am not really sure how I came to find JPG Magazine but I am so glad that I did. It is a wonderful collection of amateur (me) and professional photographers who submit stories and photos (up to 10 a day) for a variety of themes and challenges. The submissions to the themes and challenges are grouped together and members of the site are able to review them and to make comments, add them to their personal favorites, or to give them the nod for being suitable for the theme in which the photo was submitted.
The magazine is published every two months and contains three main themes that were open for submissions and votes for the previous months. Along with these themes are the results from some of the challenges that have gone on between publications of issues as well as some of the stories that had gained a lot of attention on the site over the past few months.
The navigation of the site is quite nice as well. The main tab is the PHOTOS tab. Here you can choose between one of two views in order to see the most recent photos uploaded by different users. If you ever get the time, browse this area. It is inspiring and motivating to see what others are shooting.
The tab is the STORIES tab. Here you can see the variety of “how-to’s”, photo essays, and well, stories that users have submitted. Myself, I have submitted one from an Antique Car Show that was down the street from me a little while ago.
The PEOPLE tab really doesn’t need too much explaining. It is a small smattering of some featured photographers on the site. What I did not mention before is that while you can favor photographs, you can also favor photographers by making them a contact of your on the site. It makes it easy to keep up with their latest works.
The THEMES and the MAGAZINE tabs are the collections of the, well themes and the past issues of the magazine that you can browse online.
Voting for the next issue closes in a day. I have what is considered a “HOT” photo for the theme called, “Delectable”. I hope this means that I have a shot of getting it published. We’ll see ….
While you can see the photos and issues online I recommend buying the subscription. Seeing the images in print goes a long way for me.
I hope you find the site as amazing as I have!
