JPG Magazine says goodbye
Posted on | January 4, 2009 |
I am very sad. On Friday, I got an email from JPG Magazine saying that they were closing their doors.
Why am I sad? It was a bold plan well-executed. It banked on the participation of the photographers. They submitted photos, voted on them and their photos graced the cover and inside pages of the magazine. You could also write your own articles, which also had a possibility of being published. It was the essence of our new world where everyone gets a shot at sharing and recognizing each others’ work.
I work in a world of professional photographers, and it’s their job to be excellent at their craft. JPG wasn’t about being a pro, it was like the Olympics - you practiced and networked and if you were good enough, you got in.
Good luck to all of you who worked at JPG, and also those of you who took a magazine from nothing to 50,000 circulation in 2 years, including all the passionate lovers of photography who participated. Sorry I came late to the party!
But, I suppose in our current economic climate that a publication with less advertising than most had its challenges. Perhaps someone will revive it when things get better.
Email from JPG after the jump. Previous post on JPG Magazine.
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 we 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 photography on the website and in the magazine was 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. Some things you may want to do before the site closes:
- Download the PDFs of back issues, outtakes, and photo challenge selections. We’ll always have the memories! www.jpgmag.com/downloads/archives.html
- Make note of your favorite photographers. You may want to flip through your favorites list and jot down names and URLs of some of the people you’d like to stay in touch with. You may even want to cut and paste your contacts page into a personal record.
- Catch up with your fellow members. Our roots are in this humble flickr forum and we recommend going back to find fellow members, discuss the situation, or participate in another great photo community. www.flickr.com/groups/jpgmag/
- Keep in touch. This has always been much more than just a job to each of us, and we’ll miss you guys! We’ll be checking the account jpgletters@gmail.com in our free time going forward. We can’t promise to reply to every email (since we’ll be busy tuning up our resumes) but we’d love to hear from you.
- Stay posted. Although the magazine is ceasing publication, we’ll be updating you on what’s happening with your subscription early next week.
We’re soggy-eyed messes, but it is what it is. At that, JPGers, we bid you goodbye, and good luck in 2009 and the future.
Laura Brunow Miner
Editor in Chief
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