Welcome
to the Austin Book of Days Desk Calendar website
For nearly two decades, publishing the Book of Days calendar of photos was a work of love, not just for me (Danny Schweers), but for scores of other photographers in Austin, Texas who wanted to publish excellent black-and-white photographs.
All 13 editions of this weekly desk calendar featured 60 or so images, each by a different photographer, one for each week of the year.
Each year, new editors selected the most appealing black and white photographs from among the hundreds submitted in competition. Over the life of the project, from 1977 to 1995, 756 photos were published, representing the work of 400 or so photographers, listed on the Artists page of this website.
Thanks to the Internet, this body of work can be shared around the world. When I first created this website, I hoped to display all the photos and, if the photographers were still active, provide links to their websites. Some of the work is here.
Also, these calendars are available at a few museums and libraries in Texas. Click here for details.
--Danny Schweers
October, 2020
Book of Days Murder:
The Fox-TV show, America's Most Wanted, first aired the Book of Days Murder segment in 2007. Their television crew interviewed several photographers about the unsolved murder of Mike Cahill that took place in 1979 in Austin, Texas, a murder tied to the publication of the 1978 Book of Days photographic calendar. Interviewed were Ave Bonar, Berkeley Breathed, Watt Casey, Randy Ehrlich, Roy Flukinger, Rick Patrick, and Danny Schweers. Click here to see the America's Most Wanted press release. A year earlier, on March 31, 2006, an excellent article by Denise Gamino appeared in the Austin American-Statesman. Click here to read more about Michael Cahill's murder on the Imaginary Magnitude website.
PHOTO ABOVE, THE SECOND NIGHT OF COLLATING. The first few editions were collated and bound by volunteers. Ave Bonar took this shot in 1976 of folks putting the calendar in order, going round and round a long table stacked high with loose pages. That's me in the very back of the photo, binding the books with inexpensive GBC binding. Those going round the tables are, left to right, Tomas Pantin, Bill Gibson, Chip Spier, and my first wife, Carol Hust. This photo was used as a postcard to invite people to the first exhibit of Book of Days original photographs.