Psst! Breakfast of Champions, on sale

Cereal Art, purveyor of fun art multiples, has a 40 percent off sale right now. The super secret sale code is JUNESALE. Shh.

Image: Hank Willis Thomas & Ryan Alexiev's Obama-in-cereal portrait, available as a limited edition print or poster.

Books plus

What should a recession collector choose: books or art? How about both. Juliana Beasley and Shen Wei both have book-plus-photo editions out right now, for under $300. Shen Wei's is a portfolio of his best "Almost Naked" images (suitable for framing), while Juliana Beasley's knock-out "Lap Dancer" book comes with a spectacular color print. If you've been itching to treat yourself, here's where to start.

Help Humble!

The Humble Arts Foundation needs your financial help, and generosity never felt so good: Support the organization by buying fabulous limited-edition photographs at 30 percent off the normal price. (Use the code HAF30 to get your discount).

Humble is one of the best, most important resources for emerging photographers, and I can personally vouch for the quality of their limited editions. Besides, who wouldn't love Susana Raab's print of Playboy bunnies serving tofu hot dogs while dressed in lettuce bikinis?

Zoe Strauss's I-95 show is this weekend!

W.C. Fields famously declared that he'd rather be dead than in Philadelphia. Clearly he never envisioned a Philly powerhouse like Zoe Strauss. Strauss's annual I-95 exhibition, held outdoors rain or shine under the I-95 ramp, has become a pilgrimage for photography lovers. It's not only a chance to see over 200 photos by La Divina Strauss, it's also a great chance to collect:

Sunday, May 3th, 2009
1pm to 4pm
Under I-95 at Front St. and Mifflin St., Philadelphia

Zoe Strauss has all the trappings of fancy art world success -- prestigious grants, Chelsea openings, a slot in the Whitney Biennial, a major book publication -- but she makes her work accessible to all. Photocopy prints of the I-95 images will be available for $5, and visitors are welcome to literally take the art off the walls at the end of the show. Is there anyone cooler than Zoe Strauss?*

*She'd probably insist that Lynn Bloom was cooler. I'll give her that one.

Photo: NOT Philadelphia, but part of Strauss's I-95 exhibit.

After the Fallout

"People are not supposed to live here; wild boars, rabbits and deer thrive in the lush greenery...What Don [Weber] found was a haphazard community of survivors and emigrants from other cities, who told him they preferred Chernobyl's rural peace to the urban blight of Ukraine's industrial zone...Were they afraid of dying early? No, people told him, they were afraid of modern life."
- afterword to Bastard Eden, Our Chernobyl.

One of my favorite new photography books is Donald Weber's Bastard Eden, Our Chernobyl. Weber has an unusual background for a photographer -- he was an ultra distinguished Canadian architect before trading it all in for a camera. But it seems fitting that a former architect should photograph Chernobyl, since what men built there determined everything that came after.

If you love Weber's work as much as I do, hurry over to 20x200, where two of his best images are available for the staggeringly low price of $50.

April is the Coolest Month

It's that happy time again. Photography non-profits are offering their annual fundraising prints. San Francisco Cameraworks has new limited editions by Julie Blackmon (above), Brian Ulrich, Lisa Robinson, and others.

Meanwhile, the Museum of Contemporary Photography is offering a wonderful selection of prints all priced at $300. This is your chance to get an Amy Stein, folks. Don't waste it.

CONTACT Toronto Photography Festival

As a Montrealer, it pains me to say nice things about Toronto, but I make an exception for the CONTACT photo festival. In May, the entire city goes photography crazy with exhibitions all over town. If you're anywhere near the Big Smoke, check it out.

FYI collectors: CONTACT also sells limited-edition fundraising prints. This year, Edward Burtynsky (who seems to be one of the most generous photographers to non-profits) donated a 20x24 print, in an edition of 25, for $5,000. His print last year sold out in about five seconds, so don't dawdle if you've been longing for his work.

Image: Edward Burtynsky. (I'm going to resist the snarky temptation to identify the picture as downtown Toronto.)

They Paved Paradise and Put Up a Parking Lot

I'm a big fan of Liz Kuball's "California Vernacular" project, so imagine my delight when this photo arrived in my mailbox as a gift. Liz has an eye for wry detail that reminds me of Joan Didion's essays about California. I can't wait to see how the series develops.