OK, the book is out and is being distributed!

All those who want their copy, and missed the original campaign, get it here: http://amzn.com/1494484846

Let me add that I don't have full control over price on Amazon, the additional discounts are all Amazon's business :o)

If you received your copy of the book (or even just the PDF) and you like it, please leave some nice comments and reviews on the Amazon page - thanks!

IN OTHER GOOD NEWS, if you want large size prints, framed pictures and very nice looking canvas prints of the photos from the series Without People, please visit my gallery on Crated: https://crated.com/oleg.mastruko

Crated is beautifully organized art showroom and gallery, please, browse the gallery, like, comment, share the link, and buy some nice prints. For now it's just photos from the series Without People, in couple months I will start adding photographs from the series Expiations and others.

THANKS AGAIN FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

Boing Boing:
http://boingboing.net/2014/02/26/crowdfunding-without-people-a.html

Atlas Obscura:
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/without-people-project

Smithsonian:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/what-would-world-look-without-people-180949835/

STRETCH GOALS

*** stretch goals *** stretch goals *** stretch goals ***

OK so when a campaign reaches its goal waaaay before the deadline, meaning there is solid interest in the project, the nice thing to do is to offer a STRETCH goal, ie a new goal and new perks for EVERYONE. The stretch goal for this campaign is.... ta daaam....

10.000 USD

I will use funds for my NEXT book. IF I reach this goal, everyone, EVERY participant, the OLD and the new ones, will get following perk for free:

- Perk "The Next One" where you get FREE Digital Copy of my NEXT book - the one about religious temples, with the working title "Expiations".

I am not going to list this perk in the column to the right, with other perks, because IF I REACH the STRETCH goal the perk will be free for all supporters.

So, nothing groundbreaking so far, but I hope these are nice incentives for existing supporters to try to attract new ones, to try to reach the new stretch goal, and for those on the proverbial fence to decide to support the campaign. Thanks.

*** stretch goals *** stretch goals *** stretch goals ***

Video editing by: Dusko Korlat

Music: MOON - Paris, used with permission (thanks, man!) http://music.musicofthemoon.com

Without People

I am journalist and magazine editor from East Europe but what really makes me tick is photography. I travel a lot and make all sorts of photos, however I am especially passionate about a handful of my favorite motives. One of them is the eerie solitude of empty, abandoned places. Locations that were formerly inhabited or used by people, but now lie abandoned.

I would like to publish a book of my best photographs of abandoned places from all over the world. Some of them are not abandoned in the strict sense, just dehumanized enough for my taste :-) These are not just your regular "run of the mill" abandoned houses - each and every location in the book has a story to tell. Some of these places are easy to get to, some required long preparations, meticulous planning, considerable cost and significant risks.

The book is under the working title Without People, and it looks like some weird postscript to human civilization. It's a great gift for travellers, introverts, loners, zombie afficionados or survival freaks. It's incomplete but it looks absolutely great, so far only on my PC though.

Without People is just the first part of a planned photo book trilogy. The second book in the series has the working title Expiations: Stairway to Heaven, and it will feature my favorite photos of religious temples from, well, basically all major (and some minor) world religions. The third book in the trilogy will be about the sea. Everybody loves the sea... but to get there I need to make my first two books successful.

And for that, I need your help!

What I Need and What You Get

By streamlining the production process I managed to cut cost considerably, and can do a beautiful book for a relatively modest sum. I need money to cover the production costs – DTP, proofreading, printing... I would also like to feature some locations I haven't photographed yet.

I can't do this without your valuable contribution. By pledging your support for this project, you get to participate in what will be a unique photographic document of places and locations that are changing basically every day, and some of them may be lost forever sooner than you think.

5% of the money I raise I will donate to a local east european animal charity of my choice.

The book "Without People" will feature a selected passage from the book "Eaarth" by the famous author, academic and environmentalist Bill McKibben, as the foreword! Many thanks to Bill for the special permission to use his text in the foreword - if you like it, please, buy Eaarth by Bill McKibben on Amazon. http://www.billmckibben.com/eaarth/eaarthbook.html

In return for your help you get photographic prints, books, e-books and.... You can see more details in the funding options on the right.

Well that's it folks! Thanks for reading, many MANY thanks for your contribution. Please, contribute, share, like and do everything else people do on this fine thing called Internet... while it's still there... you never know when the apocalypse might strike ;-)

Check out some of the featured photos below! 

All photos are subject to change (these are working versions!), and captions are short, just to give you some idea - most captions in the book will be more substantial. 

Child-sized gas masks in elementary school, Pripyat, Chernobyl zone of exclusion

Ghost town, Nevada, USA

Since this is the cover photo for my campaign, I'll leave the proper caption for the book itself ;-) 

City of the Dead, Cairo, Egypt

Casa  Academiei, Bucharest, Romania (and yes, there are actually people in some photos)

Spring in full swing in one of the depopulated villages in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

Naissaar island, Estonia, former Soviet naval mine factory

Former NSA listening post, Teufelsberg, Germany

PERKS!!!

Yay, perks! You're not here to support art, you're here for the PERKS, right? ;-) 

DAS BOOK! - photo book, 70 photos, planned dimensions 22 x 22 cm or 8,5 x 8,5", depends on the funding I get, it won't be smaller than that, possibly bigger

Oakstagram v1.0 and v1.1 - beautiful hand crafted oak frames (20 x 20cm or 8 x 8"), see the description on the right

Wall Beautifier - signed 75 x 50 cm (30" x 20") Photo Print featuring an image of your choice from the book. Here we have some photos in the their natural habitat, a living room. Photos in this picture do not all belong to series "Without People", they are shown for informational purposes

And this is me... I wasn't too keen on putting pics of myself here, but you know, crowdfunding "experts" said "you gotta build trust", "you gotta make personal contact", "you gotta put yourself up front", "you gotta stop being reserved", so I said fine... LOL

Death Valley, USA

In the cockpit of the An-124 Ruslan, a flying giant from Ukraine

Famous ferris wheel of Pripyat, Chernobyl zone...

...and with my buddy Nikša, on the runway 14L of the abandoned, monstrously big airbase Zeljava (Google it). Yes, some pics from Zeljava - both the above ground and the tunnel complex under the mountain - will be in the book...