BOOKMARK
National 'family album' packed with photos, essays

AMERICA 24/7, by Rick Smolan and David Elliot Cohen; DK Publishing, oversize hardback, $50.

By Wanda Adams
Advertiser Books Editor

By now, you're familiar with the concept: Photographers throughout a particular region are sent out to bring back the best image they can expressing their sense of the place during a particular time period. The result is the kind of thing that made Life magazine a powerhouse — images that make you look at them over and over again, paper-thin slices of life.

"America 24/7" is composed of more than 1,200 photos selected from submissions by more than 25,000 Americans of shots made during the week of May 12-18. Among these: photos by Advertiser photographers Jeff Widener and Deborah Booker, and 19 other Island photographers. Essays by leading American thinkers accompany the photos and an unusual interactive program on the book's Web site allows you to place your own photographs on the cover of the book.

Project director Rick Smolan calls it a "family album" of America.

This is the first of a series of books; 50 state "24/7" volumes will be released in September, 2004.

Sergio Goes and Widener will be showing photos and video from "America 24/7" at noon Saturday at Borders, Ward Centre and raffling off an Olympus digital camera (Olympus provided cameras used by professional shooters for this project).