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I love telling stories.

I've been earning a living-though sometimes it's been hard to call it that-from storytelling since I was sixteen years old selling vacuum cleaners door to door. Funnily enough, some of the stories I told back then were more fictional than the novels I write today.

Over the years, the mediums I've used have changed, but for me, it's always been about the story. Through blogging and songwriting and photography and speaking and design and sales, I've learned that the power of story is universal.

Today, I apply my passion to writing novels and producing films for nonprofits and businesses. Sometimes I'm trying to affect change in the world through fictional characters and magical adventures. Other times, I'm showing the world how my nonprofit and business clients are heroes in the lives of the people they serve. I'm often surprised to find that the real stories are even more magical than the fiction.

And that is why I created Fast Wide Open.

I realized many of the true stories that have inspired me over the last fifteen years were being held captive on my computer's hard drives. Whenever I see these images, I remember the way I felt when they were taken. I think of the people who allowed me to share for a small time the richness of their lives, the people who live or worship or play or learn in these places, the people who work these machines.

This book is not about pictures. It's about the fairytales inside the pictures. These pictures are mere snapshots of real lives, but the snapshots give us a window through which we can dream for a short time that we are inside the fairytale. That we are someone else. And sometimes, every so often, a little bit of that dream rubs off on us, and when we wake, we find we're just a tiny bit changed.

I hope these stories inspire you as much as they inspire me. About Fast Wide Open

This collection of 37 photos from Justin Blaney provides a panorama of the inspiration for his anthology of post-modern fairytales, exploring character, architecture, setting, texture and visual storytelling.

Praise for Justin Blaney's work
"Dark and amazing" - Silverine
"Unique and rustic and wonderful" - JoJo's Corner
"Absolutely awesome" - Renee Chaw
"Justin Blaney creates a wonderful world of intrigue, mischief, and magic that comes alive through vivid storytelling" - Kari Skinner
"Freaking amazing upside down, side ways and back again"- Hope to Read
"Magical, mystical, imaginative and compelling" - L. Stronjny
"Wickedly complex" - Mary Weber
"Appeals to the aesthetic value of everyday mundane things" - Nerdzy
"Justin Blaney has his finger on the pulse of artistic current." - Kat in Kentucky