Nuru Project

* To celebrate the launch of Monika Bulaj’s print,...

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 15:27:00 -0400

* To celebrate the launch of Monika Bulaj’s print, we’ve discounted her print 20% through midnight EST Thursday. *

WEDDING SEASON IN LIBYA

Nuru Project CEO JB Reed explores wedding culture at home and abroad

I have a confession to make… I shoot weddings.

I’m a photographer by trade and weddings have provided a steady income as I try and get Nuru Project off the ground. While I enjoy the work and appreciate how much it means to my clients, I have worried what the photojournalism community wouldn’t consider my shooting weddings to be ‘serious’ work.

But in the course of considering Monika Bulaj’s stunning print from a Libyan wedding, I realized that she and I are in the same line of work!

What grabs me about Monika’s print is the light emanating from Saba. A ray of sun peeks through the roof in the next room. Tiny mirrors in her headscarf shatter it, scattering hundreds of points of light about her alcove. She is, quite literally, radiant. It sounds trite, but wedding day radiance is something I’ve seen dozens of times in the course of shooting weddings. And it’s not just brides. It’s mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and girlfriends. And it’s not just women. Grooms, fathers, sons, and brothers also often beam with anticipation.

To be sure, the institution has its flaws. Child marriage is a huge issue around the world. In the United States, not everyone who wants to get married can. Same sex couples are currently waging a passionate campaign for equal marriage rights. And for those who can get married in the U.S., many lose sight of what makes the day truly special. As we all know, not all beautiful weddings lead to beautiful marriages, and American culture is too absorbed with the former.

During a recent wedding I shot in Brooklyn, the officiant asked those in attendance to imagine the countless other weddings that were taking place that day in cities and villages around the globe. For all the cynicism surrounding the wedding industry and the institution of marriage in the United States, she was reminding us that finding a mate and partner with whom to share life remains among our most fundamental human desires. When we find that person, we radiate light.

Monika’s print reminds me that this is true all over the world.

- JB

JB Reed is Co-Founder and CEO of Nuru Project. If you’re looking for him on a weekend during the spring or fall, at least until Nuru Project becomes a much bigger deal, he’s probably off shooting a wedding.

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT How 21 Jump Street Forecasts Success for...

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 12:01:17 -0400

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT

How 21 Jump Street Forecasts Success for Nuru Project

I met with a guy on Friday who runs a website that facilitates charity auctions. I shared with him my frustrations about non-profit funding, specifically grants. Many grants have lower acceptance rates than Harvard’s undergraduate program. Why should a scrappy start-up spend limited time and energy applying for funding at those odds?

I told him that I want Nuru Project to be funded in the course of our regular business. That is, I want to sell prints for a price and at a revenue share that supports not only the important work of non-profits and photojournalists, but our own organization as well. I don’t want to depend on getting funding in one lump sum from a fickle institution. I want to be funded by our customers, through a share of each print they buy. The gentleman insisted I would have to apply for grants, because there isn’t a real “commercial market” for Nuru Project’s prints. In other words, he doesn’t believe there are enough buyers out there who will want to hang Nuru prints in their home for print sales to be our only source of funding.

On the walk home, I remembered the recent movie, 21 Jump Street. In the film, Channing Tatum is a former jock and prom king and Jonah Hill is a former geek who got laughed at by Tatum in high school for asking “the hot girl” to prom. Both are now baby-faced cops who get sent back to high school undercover to bust up a high school drug ring. Posing as students, they expect to fall into their old high school roles. Tatum expects to once again be received by the cool crowd and Hill fears being re-relegated to the nerds. Only when they get back on campus, it quickly becomes apparent that the students’ values have changed. When Tatum and Hill graduated high school, it was cool to pick on nerds and be apathetic. But in 2012, the cool kids are those who are pursuing intentionally un-mainstream lifestyles: vegans, environmentalists, drama nerds. The movie presents a half-truth: while high schools are no doubt still full of mainstream bullies, the ranks of the “weird” kids are indeed growing.

Once they’re out of school, the kids portrayed in 21 Jump Street are not going to fill their first home with vapid decor. They are going to want meaningful objects that connect them to the rest of the world, that tell powerful stories, that support social causes, and that express how they see the world. It’s a silly example, but we at Nuru Project are betting that connecting with this new, growing community will make us plenty viable in the long run.

@PhotovilleNYC seen from the #Brooklyn Promenade #photography...

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 19:23:31 -0400

@PhotovilleNYC seen from the #Brooklyn Promenade #photography #photojournalism #photo (Taken with Instagram)

Photoville = Exhibits + Shipping Containers + Brooklyn. Come see...

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 12:25:13 -0400

Photoville = Exhibits + Shipping Containers + Brooklyn.

Come see it this Thu-Sun: http://photovillenyc.org/

Nuru prints setup, ready to raise some funds for @CookbookProj...

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 16:47:48 -0400

Nuru prints setup, ready to raise some funds for @CookbookProj 2nite! (Taken with Instagram)

Prints en route to California, Michigan, and the...

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 13:42:22 -0400

Prints en route to California, Michigan, and the UK!

Shown:

http://www.nuruproject.org/products/bob-miller-01

http://www.nuruproject.org/products/justin-maxon-03

http://www.nuruproject.org/products/ross-mcdonnell-03

http://www.nuruproject.org/products/kirk-mastin

Photo exhibits IN shipping containers = @PhotovilleNYC (Taken...

Sun, 24 Jun 2012 18:02:47 -0400

Photo exhibits IN shipping containers = @PhotovilleNYC (Taken with Instagram)

See great photography and catch some rays at @PhotovilleNYC!...

Sun, 24 Jun 2012 16:08:21 -0400

See great photography and catch some rays at @PhotovilleNYC! (Taken with Instagram)

Folks staying cool under the Nuru Project tent at Photoville...

Sat, 23 Jun 2012 14:31:12 -0400

Folks staying cool under the Nuru Project tent at Photoville (Taken with Instagram)

Come see us at Photoville in Brooklyn! (Taken with Instagram)

Sat, 23 Jun 2012 14:20:56 -0400

Come see us at Photoville in Brooklyn! (Taken with Instagram)

Where our Photoville tent stood 30 min ago! What a storm…...

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 14:48:41 -0400

Where our Photoville tent stood 30 min ago! What a storm… (Taken with Instagram)

Photoville Rainout? (Taken with Instagram)

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 14:29:46 -0400

Photoville Rainout? (Taken with Instagram)

Bit of a downpour at Photoville… (Taken with Instagram)

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 14:26:00 -0400

Bit of a downpour at Photoville… (Taken with Instagram)

UNREAL: what remains of Nuru’s Photoville tent!!! (Taken...

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 14:22:59 -0400

UNREAL: what remains of Nuru’s Photoville tent!!! (Taken with Instagram)

http://bit.ly/Knqd1f - A poem to the Taliban from a defiant...

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 11:45:04 -0400

http://bit.ly/Knqd1f - A poem to the Taliban from a defiant Afghan girl. Buy Lana’s print today and get 20% off!

Prints en route to Germany, Canada, CO, CA, FL, TX, NY, Utah,...

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 13:53:00 -0400

Prints en route to Germany, Canada, CO, CA, FL, TX, NY, Utah, TN! nuruproject.org

Prints pictured (counter clockwise from upper left):
Bob Miller
Ami Vitale
Jody Macdonald
Lana Slezic
Kathryn Obermaier

VOLUME = IMPACT Part of the status quo that we seek to disrupt...

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 12:38:00 -0400

VOLUME = IMPACT

Part of the status quo that we seek to disrupt here at Nuru Project is the sale of photojournalism prints as luxury goods: high prices, low print production volume, wealthy clientele.

We believe the true spirit of photojournalism is to tell a story to as wide an audience passionate about social change as possible. We work hard to keep our prices affordable in order that most people who want to have one of our prints in their home can do so.

Whereas the traditional art market associates volume with depreciation, we associate volume with impact. The more prints we sell of a given image, the more people we can draw into a conversation about the social issue depicted and the more funds we can raise for the non-profits our customers choose to support.

We believe: VOLUME = IMPACT

That’s why we were thrilled to recently ship our 100th 8” x 10” copy of Kirk Mastin’s print, the first print for which we’ve shipped 100 copies at a single size. A number of these 100 copies were distributed as part of our participation in TED’s gift bag, but even these are people we’ve drawn into a conversation about the intersection of social change and art, and about the work of our non-profit partners. We would like to say a BIG thank you to all of our customers who purchased a copy of this print and to Kirk Mastin for making his incredible print available through Nuru Project!

Which Taylor Weidman print from his Vanishing Cultures Project...

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 11:51:54 -0400

Which Taylor Weidman print from his Vanishing Cultures Project would you be most likely to buy from Nuru? Place your vote in the Comments of the latest post on our Facebook page.

1 - Baby goats are separated from their mothers during winter grazing and placed in a heated yurt. Mongolia.

2 - Villagers return to town after a day working in fields. Upper Mustang, Tibet.

3 - Nomad on horseback in snowstorm. Mongolia.

4 - Senior monks gather for a ceremony. Upper Mustang, Tibet.

Nuru Project + photographer Ross McDonnell are featured today on...

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 12:19:09 -0400

Nuru Project + photographer Ross McDonnell are featured today on Very Short List!

New Pep Bonet prints of microfinance in Philippines just in for...

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 12:59:25 -0400

New Pep Bonet prints of microfinance in Philippines just in for tomorrow’s Kiva event!