Two years in the past, underneath the rising backdrop of AI and more and more aggressive on-line adverts, our crew at Images Life determined to have a name with each other. We talked about many issues, together with our worries for the longer term and what pictures training would appear like within the subsequent few years. That day, we determined as a substitute of continuous to depend on ads to maintain our website, we’d eradicate our adverts and begin providing unique paid content material on a member web page as a substitute.
I’m blissful to say that we’ve grown fairly a big neighborhood, with about 800 paying members. For individuals who have joined, we thanks immensely since you stored this website alive throughout considered one of our darkest occasions. With out you, Images Life wouldn’t nonetheless be round.
For individuals who haven’t joined, I’m writing at present to ask you to think about a subscription. Images Life isn’t a corporate-owned website run by some large media conglomerate. We’re a gaggle of photographers who love taking photos and sharing what we study with different photographers on the market.
Along with the articles you already get on photographylife.com, you’ll get many further articles, weekly inspirational suggestions, early entry to our lens assessments, and entry to Images Life’s two eBooks. And also you’ll be a part of a neighborhood of likeminded photographers who reject AI-generated content material and the aggressive ads discovered on at present’s net.
Personally, I feel that one of many most important advantages is, in the event you be a part of our gold membership, you get to take part in our picture critique session held on the final Saturday of each month. I feel critique is without doubt one of the finest methods to enhance your pictures. And, it’s exhausting to get good recommendation lately simply by posting your picture on Fb or some discussion board.
I feel it’s honest to say that our picture critique session is considered one of our extra common occasions. We get dozens of photographs submitted every month, and after serving to Spencer host over 20 critique periods, I can say that you just’ll get some superb recommendation on any picture you ship in. Spencer has a pointy eye and is kind of good at analysing photographs and determining methods to give light recommendation to enhance them, though he’d most likely by no means say so himself. Plus, you’ll not solely get good recommendation by yourself picture, you’ll hear critiques of all the opposite photographs too.
There’s one different profit to becoming a member of our Patreon member web page: it helps fund the principle website. Moreover being one of many solely impartial pictures web sites left on the web, photographylife.com has acquired numerous distinctive options not discovered elsewhere. Our lens assessments are probably the most rigorous within the enterprise, and we’ve executed cautious calibration to ensure all our sharpness assessments are comparable throughout manufacturers.
We even have the posh of not being pushed by a father or mother company to slant our evaluations. All of our articles are written by people who find themselves very obsessed with pictures, not simply gear. It’s most unlikely that you just’ll discover articles like Photographing the Fierce Habits of a Hummingbird, When the Photographer Does Not Shoot, or The Refined Artwork of Blocking in Panorama Images on bigger web sites.
However I’m unhappy to say that pictures is declining as a market, and an increasing number of persons are turning to ChatGPT and AI to reply their pictures questions, bypassing conventional web sites altogether. Images Life is just not in bother at present, however we could possibly be in a 12 months or two. If AI continues to switch conventional serps, and bigger firms turn into much more aggressive of their domination of the web, impartial web sites like ours are in grave hazard of vanishing ceaselessly. And if that occurs, then possibly in the future sooner or later, the one place you’ll be capable of flip to for evaluations is the AI bot on Amazon.com.
In the event you respect having a smaller, extra private neighborhood of devoted photographers bringing you evaluations and articles, I’ll make a request at present: think about becoming a member of both the silver or gold tiers of our Patreon member web page. Photographylife.com will get thousands and thousands of tourists per 12 months, and if solely a pair hundred extra photographers joined our member web page neighborhood, we’d be supported for a very long time.
Even in the event you can’t be a part of as a result of poor state of the economic system proper now, the subsequent time you purchase some pictures gear, attempt to bear in mind to click on on our sidebar hyperlink first. It received’t price you something further, and it additionally actually helps us out.
Though I’m writing this text, I feel I communicate for all the crew at Images Life in saying thanks to everybody who has supported our web site. We actually get pleasure from writing for you and speaking about pictures, and we hope to carry you a lot extra goodies sooner or later!