JPG magazine closes its doors
Well, I’ll be damned…
I just received an e-mail from the editor over at JPG magazine, bearing a rather quite sad message: They’re shutting the doors for good. I was a subscriber (and hell, when I was working in publishing I tried to talk the publishing firm I was working for into buying the magazine, but nothing ever came of it). I’m not even bothered about whether or not I lose money as a result – the amazingly original concept of JPG was a breath of fresh air, and a lot of my friends got their first (and – for some – only) images in print on the venerable pages of JPG.
JPG – you’ll be missed. I hope that the economic tides will turn so it turns out not to be the final nail in the coffin for one of the most inspirational and creative magazines out there!
The e-mail from Laura, the editor over at 8020 media below…
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
My day job, if it can be called that, is being a writer. I've got one book out there so far and it's awesome, so go ahead and buy a copy! It's available from 
In front of you, five hyperactive men with guitars, drums, and microphones. Behind you, five thousand fans. In your hands, a camera... You're going to need more than just a little bit of good luck to pull this one off. That's where this book comes in.
Take a Canon EOS 450D. Attach a Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens. Hit the streets of London. See what happens.
Insights, suggestions and comments
the year starts bad – just received this e-mail, too. we’ll miss you, JPGmag!
Yeah, I know, isn’t that just awful? I couldn’t believe it. I hope this isn’t an indication of what’s to come in photography world – would be most annoying!
Yes, just got this sad mail too…
As you said, JPGMag offered me my first magazine publication, for which I’m grateful!
It is sad to hear this, JPG is a great site and magazine where one can see so many talented photographs and creativity in the realizations for the themes…
We’ll surely miss JPGMag!
Sorry to hear the news but I have never heard of JPG magazine until today!
That is really sad :-(
I’ll miss it, one of the few magazines just about photos.
Ryan
http://www.ryanhollowayphotography.com
This is for those of you who want to be in a community to learn, share and be inspired (rather than for being published): a friend of mine invited me to a photography network which currently is in closed beta, but I can also sent invites to a limited number of people. They offer most of the features we have on JPG (minus print, of course) and some interesting equipment related stuff. From what I could see, it’s not so artsy but rather for the technically oriented. If you’re interested, just drop me a mail to trevorwardin-at-yahoo.com
Maybe not all know the true story behind JPG magazine. The original founders were forced out in a huge controversy albeit a small circle of people knew the whole story. While I’ll miss the idea of JPG Magazine, I won’t miss the people that took it away from the original founders and changed the way things were ran.
Below is pasted from wikipedia.com. For the whole story you can read a blow by blow on Derek’s blog.
In May 2007, shortly before the release of Issue 10, founding editors and creators of JPG Magazine Derek Powazek and Heather Champ announced their departure. In a widely read and widely linked to post on his personal blog, Derek Powazek wrote about being forced out of JPG Magazine along with fellow co-founder Heather Champ and said 8020 Publishing CEO Paul Cloutier attempted to “revise the history” of JPG Magazine to minimize their contributions. The circumstances of their departure became a subject of intense online discussion, meriting widespread coverage on various technology and photography blogs and a discussion on Metafilter.
Yeah, I did hear that, Bobby, and I’m a little grouchy about the politics of it. The truth is that JPG remained a very good magazine, though, and it’ll be missed nonetheless…
I’m missing Heather and Derek, though…
Sad – a great concept that provided opportunity to many photographers.
Very sad news, and unfortunately I was too late to be able to download the last few issues too.
Bad start of 2009.- I badly need the pdf’s issues of JPG, if someone did download them, would you please please send me them in a zip file via usend.io to my email mr.loor@gmail.com that would do my year! I have days trying to download, But for some reason I just doesn’t download anything.
Thanx alot.
I have the full ZIP file but it is password protected! *sigh*
This is a post from JPGMagazine.com!
Wanted to take a moment and give you a quick update on where we are relative to finding the next suitable owner for JPG. There has been a lot of speculation about who could be a potential acquirer and whether a deal has been closed, so let me be clear that there hasn’t been any decision yet. Last night was the deadline for all offers, and we’ve received several from some wonderful companies. We’ll be working through the weekend with these companies to finalize their offers, and then make a decision as quickly as possibly. So, I would hope by early next week we’ll know for sure what the plans are for the future — and of course, we’ll let you know immediately. In the mean time, JPG will remain online so please continue to post photos, comment, vote, favorite and be your usual selves. We have actually seen record traffic on the site in the last week, so you probably didn’t need us to tell you that. Thanks again for all your support.
Good luck, Mike – it’d be great to get JPG back!
Share your wisdom