Hey buddy, got a few bucks lying around? Or, a few hundred? Do you want to support the creative arts? Kickstarter has become a wonderful platform for artists to find funding, and where those who are fortunate enough to have the extra scratch can support artistic endeavors. Here are five photography-related projects that are worthy of the the funding they’re seeking. Check them out and give generously.
Focal Plane Magazine
The Project: Focal Plane magazine is a new quarterly publication launched July 2017 that features the work of photography faculty in higher education and high schools, alongside their students’ work. The purpose of the magazine is twofold: to give credit to hard-working photography instructors, and to promote their students’ best work. To get your work into the magazine, you need to be nominated by someone who has already been published.
The Ask: Fundraising is the biggest challenge for this project. The issues are already planned with contacts made to make them possible. With the funds from the Kickstarter campaign there will be no obstacles for completing all four issues for the coming year!
The Financial Goal: $8,000 by December 31, 2017.
Hate Hurts
The Project: A documentary photographic project by Cinzia D’Ambrosi that exposes violence towards refugees and asylum seekers and the factors that contribute to its use. D’Ambrosi has been chronically the personal costs of psychological and physical violence against refugees and asylum seekers in Greece, Italy, Hungary, Iceland, and Serbia.
The Ask: “I want to take this project further and capture the other side to this story and investigate why violence is taking place. With your support, I would be able to travel to Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovakia, countries where violence and anti-refugee sentiment run high and produce a body of work that investigates the links between violence, anti-refugee sentiment, rising nationalism and xenophobia.”
The Financial Goal: $5,002 by December 21, 2017.
2018 ‘Damn Montana, Why You So Ugly?’ Calendar
The Project: Andy Austin’s tongue-in-cheek campaign to show the beauty of Montana in his first-ever calendar featuring “13 totally hideous” pictures of the state. Photographers considering a Kickstarter campaign, take note of how he self-promotes here!
The Ask: Enough money to print the calendar.
The Goal: $1,000 by December 15. (The goal has been met.)
RUR.ALBO
The Project: Petter Löfstedt has spent the last three years in Albo, Sweeden, a parish he describes as “an area with an almost fairytale-like environment.” He has been documenting this rural area in a style reminiscent of the likes of Josef Koudelka, Tony Ray-Jones, and Elliott Erwitt, using 35mm black & white film. “My desire has been to capture the spirit and character of Albo during three years through pictures. This process has been interpreted by the perspective of an outsider, permanently living in Albo during the time of the project.”
The Ask: RUR.ALBO, a photo book to display his work and show off Albo to the world.
The Goal: $7,277 by December 27.
Photographic Memory: Polaroids to Remember Who We Are
The Project: Summer Jones has met many families who have been torn apart by war, ethnic cleansing, violence and immigration in Central America. Many people in these families now have cell phones with cameras, and there are more pictures available to them than there used to be, but Jones still saw a demand for physical photographs to remember multi-generational families. Says Jones: “I love looking through old family photos. They are a potent vessel of such an important history, and every time I look through them I’m filled with love, joy and pride about where and who I come from. I want others to have these family photographs too, because everyone deserves to remember what their baby looked like in perfect printed detail, and children should be able to envision their grandparents from a photograph and be proud of their ancestors.”
The Ask: She will be going to Nicaragua in February, spending time in rural communities there as well as in Guatemala and Mexico, working with matriarchs of families to help them identify photos to print and preserve. She needs funding for materials and travel.
The Goal: $3,000 by December 31.
