JPG Magazine Bids Farewell

For all the members and fans of JPG Magazine, the morning after New Years came with the unhappy news that the magazine would be closing its doors.  JPG Magazine is the product of a vibrant and intimate community of almost 200,000 photographers who have built the magazine over the past two years. Be sure to catch all the PDFs of back issues in their archives and try to get as much out of this innovative attempt before it shuts down.  From the announcement of the Editor-in-Chief to the community:

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.

Following the announcement, there was an outpouring of disappointment and brainstorming over how to save what the community built.  15×100, a group of photographers who met through JPG, even set up savejpg.com which is both a tribute to what the magazine meant to the community and another forum dedicated to keeping the contacts JPG created.  The JPG Magazine project was a huge undertaking and wonderful to watch flourish, but the difficulty to monetize creativity in tough economic times ultimately brought about its sad demise.

[Tip via DK]