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Many creative fields offer educational endowments, project grants, sabbaticals, and other forms of funding so that authors, musicians, and artists can pursue special projects or educational opportunities. There has been little of such support available on a worldwide basis until now for creative photographers.
The Luminous Landscape Endowment has been created to address this shortcoming. The sole purpose of this not-for-profit foundation will be to provide a source of otherwise unavailable financial assistance to creative photographers. This funding may be used by photographers like you to pursue a special project, further formal photographic education, finance project related travel, or to mount an exhibition or show. Almost any worthwhile project associated with fine art photography will be considered.
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Source of Funds
The Luminous Landscape Endowment will initially be financed by The Luminous Landscape Inc., which will be donating 15% of all revenue from the sale of its new major download tutorial – From Camera to Print. This 6 hour and 40 minute educational video offers a comprehensive video seminar on almost every aspect of fine art printing. The download video costs $34.95. Of this, $5 from each sale will be contributed to the Endowment Fund.
This means that when you purchase From Camera to Print you are also making a $5 donation to the non-profit fund, which will then go toward creating grants for photographers to pursue their personal creative projects.
Here's the math as we currently see it. This site currently enjoys visits by almost 1 million photographers each month. If just 1 out of every 10 of you were to support this project over the next year by purchasing From Camera to Print for $34.95, your automatic $5 donation would create an endowment fund with half a million dollars. Maybe it's wishful thinking that we could get 10% of our readers to support this undertaking, but wouldn't it be wonderful if they did? Imagine the amazing photographic projects that this money could support. Maybe one of them could be yours!
More realistically, if 10,000 people purchase and download From Camera to Print during the first few months, then the fund will have been seeded with $50,000. Not a bad start, and enough to get the project off the ground. That's our initial goal, and we will keep you informed of our progress.
Our commitment to you is that the funds placed into the Endowment will be devoted to financing photographer's projects. Only administrative costs will be deducted, such as legal and accounting expenses. We anticipate that not more than 5-10% of all moneys will go toward administration, with more than 90% going toward photographers and their proposed activities. An even higher percentage will become available as the size of the endowment increases.
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Individual and Corporate Donations
While there are many photographers whose projects and dreams may be helped by funding from the Endowment, there are similarly photographers who are not in financial need. Indeed, those who may be able to make a direct contribution to the fund above and beyond that derived from purchase of From Camera to Print. Below are the names of those individuals who have contributed more than $100 to the endowment. If you would like to do so as well, please drop me a line for where to mail your check.
Alistair Flood, Nicholas Kitto, Kevin
Gallagher, Adrian Levesque, Alistair Flood, John Huss
– please add your name to this
list –
We will be seeking corporate support for the Endowment as well. Below are companies that have thus far committed more than $1,000 in financial support, or products and services.
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Donor Recognition
By purchasing the From Camera to Print video tutorial you will automatically be making a donation of $5 to the Endowment Fund. While we can't publicly acknowledge each of the thousands of people making their donations this way, there will be very tangible rewards for doing so. Stay tuned, and don't miss out.
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The Selection Panel
The Luminous Landscape Endowment is being established as a not-for-profit foundation. It will call for proposals for funding from fine art photographers worldwide. Funding requests will be considered by an independent panel of judges, which will consist of some of the world's leading photographers and photographic educators. The composition of the panel is still underway, and will likely change over time. At the moment the following individuals have agreed to sit on the judging panel:
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Applying for a Grant
Details regarding submission guidelines will be available in Q4, 2007and will be announced on What's New.
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The Future
Before anything else happens we need to get enough money into the fund to ensure its success and long-term viability. Your purchases of From Camera to Print are what will launch the Endowment Fund. This initial funding is made possible by Michael Reichmann, Chris Sanderson, and Jeff Schewe relinquishing part of their profits from the tutorial to help finance the startup.
In the months and years ahead The Luminous Landscape Inc., intends to also contribute monies from future video tutorials to help grow the funding available for supporting worthwhile photographic projects on a going-forward basis.
Help the Endowment grow! Purchase the From Camera to Print video tutorial today and automatically make your contribution to the Endowment. Remember, 15% of the $34.95 cost of the download ($5) will be given to the not-for-profit Endowment, and any photographer, from anywhere in the world will soon be able to apply for a grant for any worthy photographic project.
Michael Reichmann – August, 2007
Last updated Aug 8, '07.
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