Local photographer launches photography cards

OGDENSBURG — Photographer Paul Michael Kane has followed up his successful Fot Grafis campaign with a new project on Kickstarter aimed at getting photographers thinking in new ways.

LightBox Photography Cards are designed to inspire photographers and get them exploring outside their comfort zones, Kane says.

Kane's own work has been published in the pages of Weird N.J., on the cover of numerous books and last year, he successfully launched his Foto Grafis Playing Cards, which he calls pocket sized, fine art.

This new campaign, which can be found on the crowd-source funding web site, Kickstarter, is intended to reach a broad audience. Kane, who teaches the craft of photography to various groups and organizations, said he hopes the international reach of Kickstarter will help LightBox Photography Cards reach every corner of the globe.

"When I did the Foto Grafis Campaign, it was amazing to see support coming from all over the place," he said. "In the end, people from 21 different countries backed the project. The concept of the new project has the users shuffling the deck of LightBox Photography Cards, drawing a single card, revealing a photo challenge. The challenges range in skill level and include tasks like going out and photographing specific colors or shapes, or more defined subjects like portraits or landscapes.

The face of each card issues the challenge with some encouraging words from Kane. They'll also showcase Kane's own work with an example image to help inspire the users.

Kane is partnering with the group AdMagic to produce the cards and said he hopes to achieve funding by the end of January. His biggest hope is that folks will pledge for a tier he calls the education ambassador.

For more on Lightbox Photography Cards, visit the project page at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pmkane/lightbox-photography-cards.