Award-winning photojournalist Stephanie P. Ledgin has announced that her entire photo exhibition, From Every Stage: Images of America’s Roots Music, is up for auction. This once-in-a-lifetime, winner-takes-all auction will reap the winning bidder 40 select custom prints from her book of the same title. This acclaimed exhibition debuted with 12 prints in 2005 at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, continued at Lincoln Center, where the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts expanded it to its current 40 panels, and was then placed for a year’s showing in Owensboro, Kentucky, at the International Bluegrass Music Museum, <http://bluegrassmuseum.org>  where it will close June 15.

The exhibition showcases 24 color images and 16 black-and-white prints; the original twelve are housed in custom museum-quality frames, while nearly all the remaining photographs are matted, ready for framing. All are signed by Ledgin. Twenty percent of the winning bid will be donated by Ledgin to the International Bluegrass Music Museum. Minimum bid is $12,000. Winner will also receive a personalized copy of the companion book. Bidding closes midnight Eastern time, Sunday, June 16. Winner will be notified via email by
Tuesday, June 18.

Thumbnails of the prints and full details about the auction may be viewed by clicking the “auction” link on Ledgin’s web site, fiddlingwithwords.com. (Bids on individual prints will be accepted simultaneously but will be awarded only in the event the entire 40-image collection fails to meet the minimum. Details also on the auction page.)

Preserved through the lens in candid backstage moments as well as in performance are musicians and dancers representing bluegrass, country, folk, Cajun, blues, Celtic, cowboy music and more. From the Grand Ole Opry to Lincoln Center, Ledgin captures their expressions, gestures and postures in intimate clubs, on international festival stages and at prestigious concert halls. CBS News Sunday Morning anchor Charles Osgood, in his eloquent foreword to the book, invites the viewer to “feel and hear” the music through Ledgin’s photos, a vibrant panorama of roots music genres heard in America and enjoyed worldwide. Publisher’s Weekly Online referred to (the book) as an “exhilarating collection.”