| Joined: | Thu Apr 12th, 2012 |
| Location: | Flint, North Wales, United Kingdom |
| Posts: | 1245 |
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heres just one letter from a member that i think puts the feeling across properly
Trell Burton | http://www.trellburton.co.uk says:
Photographers suffer accusations of paedophilia and terrorism when they are in fact just being creative. We get pushed from pillar to post and threatened with new laws and lawsuits. Police officers are happy to tell you in the street you cannot take photos without their permission when they understand little of the laws.
We've had equipment confiscated, and memory cards wiped. We've suffered arrest, then release, then apology and compensation. We've been thrown out of buildings and spat at in the street. Where would the world be without photography? Who would know what had happened in Rwanda, in South Africa – during the civil rights struggle of the US that has moved the world forward? Who would stand up for the little people and show what really happened at Hillsborough and the recent Boston bombings – how does all that get across to the world? Through photography.
And what about the happier times? Your wedding, your kids, your 21st birthday? What about the need for a cool passport photo? What about seeing two kids playing in a street and lifting your camera to capture a moment in time? What about following in the footsteps of Henri Cartier-Bresson?
Well now photographers the world over have been overlooked, insulted, and denounced by Yahoo. The very people who made Flickr famous have been stabbed in the back and told they do not exist by Marissa Mayar. Their needs are not appropriate in the modern world of capitalism not when there's the 13 to 25 year old age group who enjoy messing around on their mobile phones, taking photos of their food and their endless nights out. And what's wrong with that? Nothing, of course. That's why that demographic is firmly embedded with Facebook and Instagram and Tumblr and Pinterest. They are comfortable with those platforms just as we were with flickr. It's way too late in the day for Flickr to become a social network run mainly from mobile phones. To that end Yahoo, and Marissa Mayar have shot themselves in the foot. This new site will never take off with serious photographers, people who lug about heavy cameras and bags and diligently work through post production techniques. Yahoo you have told your customer base to go forth. Many, many of your customers will happily take your advice.
Let me not forget to mention the sneaky way it was done. Without warning. Without choice.
Let's not forget anyone with an ounce of sense can see this was designed by someone with much youth and not much experience at life. Clearly someone with no understanding of photography.
Let's not forget the deafening silence from Yahoo and Flickr and Mayar during the first 24 hours of their new site while they sit hiding reading all the feedback while 15,000 photographers at least panic about who shit on their work. Where are you Marissa? Are you afraid to speak to your customers? Or where there just so many pleas for help that you decided to disable Flickr help support until you can figure out what to do or wait for it all to blow over? This will not blow over for me. And Marrisa, with 12 photos on your Flickr account, and having been a member since December 2012 – what exactly is it you think you understand about Flickr? Not as much as us, clearly.
You have cut off the majority of UK users as we simply don't have the bandwidth the site requires to operate. I'm guessing you knew this already. Not only that, many of us cannot even download the photos we paid and trusted you to look after. The first response I got form your help team told me it was my fault. It was my browser, it was my firewall, I need a faster connection. Grow up! It's because you have changed the site, I changed nothing on my computer. The second response was deafening silence and that silence continues.
I, along with many others, have invested almost a decade on my Flickr account – uploading the millions of pictures you are so fond of quoting to speak of your site's success and we never deserted you despite alterations and rumours of site obscurity. We've adapted to all your changes and embraced the good ones. None have been as diabolical as this one. All the others were little add ons to make the experience better and the site more functional – for photography.
Well, good luck with stealing the market from under the feet of Facebook and Instagram, you may well need it. Success is always an arc. From the mid 2000's you were locked in obscurity and each picture we uploaded took you a little further up the arc, then a little more as the years knocked on. This resulted in you achieving fame and being the site most associated with photography (in case you don't realise, mobile uploads are a bit of fun and cannot really be classed as photography) and photographers – though many associated with this site protest this. 'Flickr was never built for professional photographers'. Who cares? That's what happened - serious amateurs to those earning a living from newspaper photography have made this place their home, and you just evicted us without warning or any chance to take our things to a new home. We're homeless now and are scrambling around in the dirt to find a new abode. You reached the top of your arc Flickr, and now you're on the way down