Print for Prints Transforms Donated Prints into Portraits for Third World Families

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Photographs may have become depressingly common in your world, but there are still vast chunks of the globe where images are rare and powerful. A new charity is hoping to fill some of that void by offering portrait sessions and prints in impoverished areas, funded by the sale of prints by noted photographers.

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Prints for Prints, founded by Portland, Ore.-based photographer Joni Kabana, sets up makeshift studios in rural villages and then provides prints to portrait subjects. Part of the goal is to give these people durable mementos of their lives and family history. But the project, subtitled “A Global Rally for the Printed Photograph,” also seeks to promote the value of prints in an era when most images at best receive a brief display on an electronic screen. “We celebrate the value of a photographic print in this disposable digital world!” proclaims the project’s Web site.

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Most of the project’s funding comes from online and occasional gallery sales of prints donated by photographers ranging from newspaper shooters to fine art professionals. The site has close to a hundred images for sale now at $200 each, ranging from cityscapes to a portrait of Rhianna. Cash donations are also welcome.


Image credits: Prints for Prints

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