Brief History

Back in the early 2011, we, an online community of photographers on social network Google+ thought it might be a fun idea to get together and publish a photography book containing some of our favorite photographs taken in the year just ended. As the idea of Plus One Collection book was born, it evolved into a project for a good cause, with all net proceeds from the sale of the book donated to charity. 

As a result, we published a beautiful photography book in print and ebook formats containing photographs from 500+ photographers from 50+ countries around the world. Book shipped to 60+ countries. More importantly, we raised over $10,000 which were donated to Kiva. 

Plus One Collection 2012

It felt great to publish this book last year, and we're doing the next volume this year. The rules are the same - anyone can contribute an image. We will then publish a print book, and an ebook which will contain all contributions.

To learn more about the book, and how you can contribute your photography, please visit our website. 

Charitable Cause We're Supporting

This year we're pretty excited to partner with The Kilgoris Project, and through the sales of the book and with your help we aim to raise enough money to supply children from the Kenyan Maasai Community with digital cameras and the skills to document their lives, photographing their families, their schools, their friends and their daily activities. In liaison with schools, orphanages and community leaders, our aim is to encourage and assist the children to create a visual documentary of their environment.

The images created will be collated in a book or content for an exhibition. This will then be launched with purpose of hopefully raising sufficient funds to feed back to the community, providing vital equipment such as clean water systems, medical supplies, food and clothing.

We hope this to be just the first step with this incredible project, a project that will not only gives us all a better insight and understanding into these children's lives. But also empower them to document their own story and to keep their traditions and culture alive.

What We Need 

We're doing the fundraising campaign because for this year's book we've teammed up with Oddi Printing, a professional publisher who will print the copies of the book. Here are the details - 

• We will print 500 copies of the book
• Each copy of the book will be hardcover 11x11.8" in size
• Paper used is 150 gr UPM Finesse Silk 

Initial funds through this campaign will be used to pay the fees for fundraising, print the book, and ship it to early contributors. Any extra funds raised will go to our charitable cause. 

Other Ways You Can Help

Some people just can’t contribute, but that doesn’t mean they can’t help:

• Submitting your photographs for publication doesn't cost anything, and that's what will make our book beautiful!
• We would love for you to get the word out and make some noise about our project
• You can easily share the news about our project using social tools provided right here on Indiegogo.

What Others Said About Plus One Collection

Last year there was a lot of excitement about what we were doing. Here are some of our favorite quotes. 

"A huge group of very talented people decided to use their talents to help others, all with a big doze of a Silicon Valley technology" - NBC Bay Area

"While the collection includes work from some of the who’s who in professional photography, it has a definite democratic feel." - Forbes

"Within two months, working entirely through the online community - a book designer in London, a Web designer in Switzerland, an engineer in Germany, and a law office in Washington, D.C., all donated services - Makarov has self-published a visually stunning coffee-table book called "Plus One Collection," with 200 full-page photos." - San Francisco Chronicle

"I’ve loved seeing this project come together as photographers from all over the world have contributed (literally only 65% of the photographers are from the US/Canada, the rest are from all over the world including Europe, Asia and as far away as Oceania!). The book shares a love for photography and fine art along with a way that we have been able to give back to the world that we all find beauty in and photograph every day" - Thomas Hawk

Contact

Any questions about the project? Feel free to send Ivan an email (ivan[at]ivanmakarov.com) or ping him on Google+. 

Images of Last Year's Book

Here are some images of what last year's book looked like. 

Visual representation of last year's book cover and image layout.

Ebook poster and a mosaic of all images submitted last year. 

Peter Manis, one of the photographers featured in the book, with his copy. 

Copies of the book, during the "shipping party" that lasted 24 hours. 

Making of fine art prints that come with every Limited Edition of the book