projects

Artists In Jackson, The Book

For the past five or six months, I’ve spent a lot of time getting to know the artists, creatives, and makers in Jackson, Michigan, as a part of my Artists In Jackson project.

The culmination of the project, I always figured, would be a book. Photos and profiles of the artists, an explanation of the project, and a beautiful artifact of all the work I’ve done.

I love photo books. I’ve become a bit of a collector in the past year or so. That, and (as @alesserphotographer advocates) paper is what you keep for 100 years and give to your grandchildren.

So the Artists In Jackson book is now available for sale. I couldn’t be more proud of how it turned out.

This first run of copies (about 25) are going to get some special love and attention from me before they ship out. After that, I’m doing a buy-on-demand system from Blurb, the book publisher.

Also, the project’s artist profiles are now live on the website, along with a selection of photos from each artist’s portrait shoot.

It feels mighty good to have this project out the door and into the world. I’ve received lots of great feedback from family and friends, and lots of support from the community. Thanks to everyone for their time and attention.

I made something. It shipped. And away we go.

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Artists In Jackson

Since June, I’ve been working away on a portrait project featuring artists from my hometown of Jackson, Michigan.

For one, it’s the second part in what I hope will be an annual project of highlighting interesting people in my community. And two, I love talking to people with interesting talents and hobbies. It was great to meet the 15 artists profiled and chat about artsy stuff with them, the artistic community in Jackson, and what their successes and roadblocks look like.

The project is now just about ready for primetime. You can see the particulars at artistsinjackson.com.

There’s lots more to do. I’m working on a printed book, the flagship end product of this project. Once that’s done and ready to print, I’ll publish the artist profiles on the website, and release an eBook version of the print book.

And from there, I hope to have a show of some sort in the Jackson community, and invite the community to meet the artists and see some of their work.

It’s been a lot of work, and a lot of fun. Artistically, it’s very different from the kind of photography I’ve focused on in the past. I feel different, too. It’s like all the portraits and images I’ve worked on before this have been overly amateurish.

With this project, I’m actually making photographs that matter.

I hope you join me for the ride in the next few weeks.

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Albion Circa 1995

Albion, circa 1995

One of the great parts about my day job is working with talented students on fun projects, like our recently-launched Albion 1995 throwback video.

The idea? What Albion College was like in 1995, told through music and technology.

The team did an amazing job starring in this thing, grabbing vintage (”vintage” – oy, I remember 1995!) clothing, and being good sports. For my part, it was all shot on an iPhone 5S, often using the VHS Camcorder app for the ‘95 scenes.

Check out the full video.

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Make Local

Over the summer, I worked on a portrait project with local artists in Jackson, Michigan. I talked with them about their craft, how they got started, and why they stuck around our hometown to do creative work.

The project is called Artists In Jackson: Make Local. The kicker was each artist had to be from Jackson, and had to still be doing their thing in Jackson. And the project focused on visual artists, but that could be anyone from graphic designers to painters to videographers and photographers.

This fall, I’ll launch the project to the public. But for now, you can sign up for a newsletter (of sorts) to get updates when it’s ready to roll, including fun behind the scenes shots and announcements about the project.

Stay tuned!

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