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Message # 21500.16

Subject: Re: Making more photos available

Date: Thu 30/03/06 06:52:57 GMT

Name: AnthonyX

Email: anthonyx@jowc.net

Website:

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An interesting idea, Stormy. Lots of interesting feedback too. Perhaps echoing some other replies, but here's mine:

Your idea sounds quite reasonable... certainly as good as any other.

It might be better to offer an annual membership rather than a lifetime one.

Unless you enlist the help of a webmaster/administrator, you will face adminstrative issues at some point. It's inevitable that your site will be subject to some form of abuse at some point - password sharing is just one example. You (or the site administrator) will either have to invest effort in building in a proactive defense or deal with the aftermath of abuse. I hope this won't discourage you, but this is reality.

Don't rely on the generosity of others (donations). This is not meant to be cynical, but let's face it, few people will "donate" money to what is sure to look like a commercial site.

Once you put your images up on the internet, you effectively lose control over their distribution. No matter what measures you implement to protect your work, you will ultimately have to trust all of your customers to not further redistribute the images. Given that, and your preference to avoid the administrative work associated with running a site, you might as well bite the bullet and partner up with someone who can do the site work for you.

Soggybottom exaggerates with his assessment of "a few hundred thousand people". It doesn't cost a million dollars to run a permanent site. I assume you've already spent a fair amount of money to build the collection you now have. Assuming there is no profit to be made, I think it's just a matter of deciding how much offset you are prepared to accept.

I wish you all the best with whatever you decide to do.

In reply to Message (21500)

Making more photos available

By Stormy Waters - Wed 29/03/06 16:42:16 GMT

Website:

The post below "Constructive Criticism of WL Producers" has inspired me to ask for feedback about a method for making more of my work available.

Many of you have requested to see many more photos than I have published so far, and indeed, I have about 30,000 fairly decent shots of 45 separate shoots with 20 models and about 300 different "sets". I am not enamoured of the typical "pay" site approach because I don't want to become a site manager rather than the guy who gets to actually take the photos. What an administrative burden that must be! But I do need to make some money to recoup my expenses and pay for more shoots.

What I'm thinking about is this. I create a password protected archive and charge a relatively modest fee to become a member for life, similar to Wet in Red's great site. I was thinking that $10 gets you in and that's all you would ever have to pay. I get things started with 3-5 sets (with 20-50 photos per set).

From there on out, I put sets up based on donations made by members. Say for every $100 donated (through on-line payment like Paypal), I put up another set--which would about cover my costs (actually, I'd post pictures once a week (or more often) based on how much was donated, no matter how many or how few that would be). Beyond the initial fee, nobody would have to donate and every member gets to benefit from the generosity of others. I think the costs would be pretty low for everyone, especially if the idea caught on.

I'd make the images easy to download, and offer both large and medium-sized high resolution files. The quality would be so much better than what gets posted on OMP--their compression algorithm wrecks the saturation and sharpness of my images--I can hardly stand to look at them there.

This idea might be a loser, but I've been struggling with how to get my work out there as people have requested. I have had offers by some site owners to buy my sets, but I've told my models I'll maintain control over the image distribution and anyway the offers have been too small to cover costs.

Let me know what you think. If you think it is stupid, say so. I won't be offended. My intent isn't to turn this into a career but to fund more work and make it super-easy for all.

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