http://jpgmag.com

ok, i haven’t written any posts in a LONG time but i figure i better get one in during december, before the new year is upon us. the reason for this absence is that for the past couple of months i have been totally addicted to jpgmag.com - and because of this, jpgmag.com gets my favorite time suck and social network of the year for 2009. woot woot!

in case you don’t know about it, jpgmag.com is a photo sharing social network site. the thing that makes it different from flickr or any other photo site is that the most popular and well accepted photos by vote make it to an actual printed magazine. in some old school analog way, that is way cool! the other difference is that jpgmag.com doesn’t want all your photos; they just want your best photos. of course flickr has some great photos and jpgmag also has some crappy ones, but when you’re asked to upload your best, it really makes one (and in this particular case, photographers) really think about what they will show the public. after all, we all want to get our best work published.

Sister mine. by edd carlile

so to make a long story short, i have spent hundreds of hours looking at and uploading photos -  and the truth is that i have spent most of that time looking at great work from some awesome professional and amateur photographers. i have probably viewed thousands of photos -  from amazing portraits by edd carlile to stunning abstracts by ina k to amazing landscapes by marc krutiak. but i could go on and on… anyway, you can find me here so sign up and vote for my photos (wink). i even got chris sofe to start posting there again. now to get dave schiliro to put up his abstracts.

This is such a cool project that has the goal of representing all 50 states through photography… the website for The 50 States Project says it best:

The 50 States Project has brought together 50 photographers from across the USA.

Each photographer lives in one of the 50 States and during the year long project each photographer will represent the State where they live. Every two months each photographer will be sent an assignment by e-mail, they then have two months to produce one image in response. The images must represent both their style and the State in which they live.

The first assignment, (”People”), was sent on 2nd January 2009. The second, (”Habitat”), was sent on 1st March 2009. The remaining 4 assignments will be announced on 1st May, 1st July, 1st September and 1st November 2009 respectively.

By the end of the project there will be 300 images which hopefully represent the talent of the photographers involved and have something to say about the USA today.

Check out the photos from the first assignment (”People”), here.