Please Help If You Can

[Dallas]

I have been putting off writing this for as long as I can, but given the state of the world right now, the economic outlook is somewhat grim. I have personally lost all incoming revenue from photographic work and I am very fearful that the money I am owed for work already completed will not be paid by the end of the month. Fortunately I am not carrying any major debt, but if there is no money coming in, I will not be able to continue paying for the hosting of Fotozones for very much longer. The hosting costs are not huge but every penny counts and if things get too tight I will have to suspend the site until the situation returns to normal (well, as close to normal as possible). 

 

I need approximately $50 a month to keep this server space. Unfortunately the current number of subscribers is only 6 and most of them have paid annually, so it's not enough. There will also be software license renewals coming up soon for $105. 

 

If you are not currently a monthly subscriber but you do visit Fotozones often and would like to see it unaffected by this pandemic, please consider subscribing now. There are options for monthly payments of $2,95 (preferred) or you can pay $25 for a full year's subscription. You will get a number of special features that ordinary members don't get, including the ability to upload attachments to the site. Full details of the available subscriptions are here. 

 

I realise that money is tight for most, but if you are able to help keep this almost 15 year old community going, please help out if you can. You can also make ad hoc donations via PayPal to info@fotozones.com. 

 

I pray that all of you are keeping safe during this time. 

 

Dallas

[Dallas]

Thank you Boris Zugic and Mike Gorman for your contributions. 🙏🏻

[DaddySS]

Thanks for the reminder Dallas and glad to help support the work.

[Dallas]

2 minutes ago, DaddySS said:

Thanks for the reminder Dallas and glad to help support the work.

 

Thank you so much, Richard. 

 

Also thanks to @waltonksm. 

 

I will do my utmost to ensure that this community remains active and alive. I will also be soon making some posts showing how I work as a photographer for those members who support and subscribe to FZ. These may be interesting to some as they will show my methods which are quite different to most other online teachers. Stay tuned! 

[Dallas]

Thank you Christoph Hoefer! 

[Dallas]

Thanks to @Walter Rowe and @Clactonian for joining the subscribers.  

[Dallas]

Thank you, @Anthony for your generous donation! Much appreciated.

 

I used to be able to reply to the donation emails directly when PayPal notified me, but I see that this is no longer possible, so I am just going to thank everybody who donates or who subscribes in this topic. At this point I now have enough to keep FZ going for at least 2 more months, which is great. I will reassess the situation in a month's time and hopefully by then the world will have been able to start the recovery process (i.e. we can go back to work again). 

 

A healthy number of subscribers is always good for any website, so I do encourage more of you to think about the cheap monthly option. I obviously have a lot more time on my hands now to create content so I will be doing so, starting tomorrow. A lot of that will be Lightroom driven, but I am also going to show how I have simplified my RE photography and processing to the point where I can be in and out of a large 4 bedroom house in under 30 minutes, as well as show you how I do pack shots for online sellers. 

 

If there are any topics that members would like to get my input on please feel free to ask me directly by PM. 

[Dallas]

Thanks to @CarreraS (Maurice) for joining the monthly subscribers.  And a big thank you to @BillM for your generous donation. 

 

I am truly humbled to be receiving all your support. I can't begin to thank you all enough. What an incredible bunch of people you all are. I hope that we can reignite the community spirit here and I hope to see more and more of you post photos from your world travels, or even just what you're getting up to while we are trying to keep ourselves sane during this pandemic. I think I will start a COVID humour thread. 

[Dallas]

More thanks to @rbsandor for donating to the site! Thanks Richard, I hope we will see you on another safari in the near future. 

[Dallas]

Thank you @atpaula for your contribution! 

[Dallas]

Many thanks to @WildClyde, @GB111, @Akira for your donations and @Mexecutioner for subscribing to Fotozones. FZ is now in a great position looking forward, thanks to the incredible generosity of this community. I have enough funding for several months hosting now, as well as the impending license renewals. I am also going to be adding a few new enhancements to the Zones area in the days ahead (there are some cool admin features I can now pay the Invision developer community for). This will allow me to move all the existing brand forums into Zones, essentially making them mini-forums in their own right. What's nice about this is that if you have no interest in a certain brand or format, you won't see those posts on your feed. It will go a long way towards negating any animosity between different brand users. I'm sure the Nikon family would like to stick to their own stuff without having to read about my Micro Four Thirds adventures, etc. 

 

It is my duty to make sure that everything here works the way it should and to encourage you all to make good use of this website to share your work, ideas and opinions on the things you are doing in photography. I am hopeful that the next few weeks will see a resurgence in participation. If you aren't getting email notices when following threads, please check your notifications settings as there are many different options there that will keep you abreast of posts being made on Fotozones. You can even get notified when members you follow make new posts. Basically, we have everything that Facebook has, only without the commercial surveillance.  Speaking of Facebook, I have a non-personal account there called Foto Zones which I will use to post links of great new material that I find on here, so if you still use that social network you can friend and follow the Foto Zones account (it's not a page). 

 

Now I have to go out and do some last minute provisioning before our country goes on a 21 day lock down. 

[Dallas]

Thanks @Chris Wahl for donating!  

[waltonksm]

Dallas:

I was happy to send something to help, but please do not stop by to visit!  We are trying to get all of you "outsiders" to stay home.  😊

 

My best wishes to all of us. And to all, please be safe.  Many locals (especially the teens and young adults) think this is all a joke. Yeh, I know, this is off topic

[Dallas]

Thank you to my man, @Brandonfor your contribution! Really looking forward to seeing you and @CarreraS in Durban this September. Or maybe a little bit later, depending on how things go... 🙄 

[Dallas]

Many thanks to @Murad Bino for your donation!