Winter 2006 Hot Shot Juliana Beasley (whose work will be featured at Art Fair! opening tomorrow) and Brian Ulrich, who exhibited work in A New American Portrait at Jen Bekman Gallery, are two of the fifty photographers participating in The 50 States Project. The year long project began January 2nd, 2009, when Stuart Pilkington emailed an assignment to all fifty participating photographers (one per state) asking them to capture one or more individuals they felt represented the state they live in under the topic of "People."

He writes,

I asked them to interpret the assignment using their own unique voice and to photograph something/someone iconic, or emblematic, symbolic, or real to their own lives. They were free to interpret the assignment however they wished.

Each photographer had two months to produce one image in response to this assignment, (namely 'people'), and what you are about to see are the results. As you visit each State, (in alphabetical order), hopefully a picture of the United States will be conjured up for you like a quilt made up of 50 parts.

Every two months, photographers will be sent a new assignment by email, then have two months to create an image they feel best represents the topic, as well as expressing their own photographic style. The results from the second assignment, "Habitat" will be visible on May 1, 2009.

To see the images and learn more about the participating photographers, visit the The 50 States Project website and follow the progress of the project on twitter.