I have entered several national and international photography competitions this week in hopes of gaining both recognition for my work and funding for projects I have in their early planning stages. These competitions are with prestigeous organizations:

Hasselblad Foundation
Aaron Siskind Foundation
Ultimate Eye Foundation
Nikon
Sony

I would encourage you to try your hand, also. Most of these that I have entered are divided between amateur and professional photographers, so even if you don't make your living as a photographer like I do, there is no reason why you can't strive for something wonderful.

Give it a shot!

http://www.blurb.com/my/store/public

To view all of my self-published books on Blurb.com, click on the above link and you will immediately be taken to them - however, you must then enter the Blurb "Bookstore" to get a preview of each books content.

Thanks!

Last night I met with Duane Wood, Principal, Publisher of WDG Communications, Inc. in Cedar Rapids to discuss the possibility of working with him on some of my book projects. Of particular interest was getting my documentary on Iowa's County Courthouses published.

The University of Iowa Press and I had signed a contract five years ago to do the Courthouse and One-room School projects simultaneously, but once I had completed the work, Holly Carver, Executive Director, refused to honor the contract and publish the work. I broke the contract with her and have been trying to find a new publisher all over the United States and Europe.

Now it seems I may have a publisher to take on the project - and right in my own backyard!

Duane and his talented staff will be reviewing the images and investigating all the budgetary considersations that go into publishing a book and have promised to work with me in trying to make it happen. WDG Communications normally does the design work for books for colleges and universities nation-wide and brokers the publishing.

In my case, however, they may decide to move to a different plateau. I believe it is the success of the books that the UI Press did publish from my Iowa Barns and One-room Schools that will be the deciding factor to the marketability of the Courthouse documentary.

Stay tuned and I will inform you of any developements.

On October 15th, my third book with the UI Press was released - "Harker's One-room Schoolhouses: Visions of an Iowa Icon" - and is now available through bookstores, Amazon and other internet sources. It is printed on beautiful paper in full tone black and white that match the master images perfectly.

I am very proud of this, my third book with the UI Press.

Iowa Public Television received a copy of the book two weeks ago and contacted me to ask me to do an on-camera interview for an hour long documentary they are doing on Iowa's One-room schools. We met in Winterset, Iowa last Friday to shoot the interview inside the "Tusha School", a museum quality one-room school located on the grounds of the Madison County History Museum.

It was a perfect setting! We spent two hours setting up equipment and about an hour of actual shooting. Along with the interview, there will be scenes of me with my 4x5 wood field camera (the one in my portrait on my home page) showing how I set it up for my photography.

The documentary will air in March 2009 during IPTV's Spring fund drive - it will be shown twice in a forty minute edited version and then the full one hour version will air a week after the fund drive is over. This program should be excellent and if you want to get a beter impression of who I am, I hope you can tune in.

I can't wait to see it myself.