May / June Newsletter (In case you don't get it)

[Dallas]

From A Chilly South Africa - Dallas Dahms (Fujifilm X100)

 

Hey there, Fotozones! 

 

I hope you are all well wherever you are reading this from.

 

As you all know I have been running Fotozones and it’s original Nikongear community since mid-2006, so with it being the 17th anniversary of our founding I’d like to thank all those of you who have travelled this road with me. What a journey it’s been! Some of you joined right at the beginning and have not left, while many more of you have been around for at least 10 years when Fotozones was first established in 2012.

 

So many things have changed over the period of time that I started this community that it is quite sobering to note that in spite of all the changes in the landscape of the world wide web, we are still here. For some perspective here are some giants who are more or less the same age as us:

 

YouTube started in 2005.

Twitter started in 2006.

Facebook started in 2004.

Flickr was started in 2004.

Reddit was started in 2005.

Instagram was started in 2010.

 

While little old NG / FZ didn’t quite keep up with the pace at which those other online communities grew, we are still here. We’re still independent and still answerable only to ourselves. We continue to share our photography and opinions with our small but interested audience and you know what? I like it like that. Long may it continue.

 

The reality of any public online endeavour though is that if you want to remain independent you have to pay for the things that keep it all going. Dedicated servers cost money and these days, thanks to the advent of subscription based software the cost of keeping websites like this going is not insignificant. We’ve also been missing the primary revenue generator (photo safaris) for a few years, so the FZ kitty has unfortunately dwindled.

 

I’m hoping to get safaris going again in 2024 but for now while I am coping with the costs of FZ because of the other work I am doing, I would like to appeal to the community to help me out by either becoming a subscribing member, or contributing an ad hoc donation to help out. There will be a prompt for donations and subscriptions on the website for the months of June and July. If you already have a subscription that you have renewed, thank you very much!

[Dallas]

Folks, if you are able to afford an annual subscription of $25 to help me with the costs of Fotozones it would be immensely appreciated. You can find the page to purchase one here.