Pages: 1 [2] 3 4   Go Down

Author Topic: Kevin Raber?  (Read 10092 times)

Rob C

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 24074
Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #20 on: January 08, 2019, 01:32:00 pm »

We are perilously close to trespassing upon forbidden (political) territory, chaps, and we're certainly way off topic.

Jeremy

Oh come on, Jeremy! This wasn't anywhere near a political argument, simply an explication of my personal situation. Nothing more. It's a far cry from opposing views coming into play, in which case, right, I'd agree with the idea of nipping it in the bud.

Off topic? This entire section of LuLa has no real topical direction either, having split into three main camps: those favouring the departed/ousted? goverment of LuLa; those critical of the new régime; those thinking the new hierarchy will bring a gale of fesh air, much frankincense and myrrh and similarly typically topically festive goodies...

Anyway.

Ciao -


mcbroomf

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1534
    • Mike Broomfield
Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #21 on: January 08, 2019, 02:17:31 pm »

Oh well, off to post some photos then ....  :)
Logged

Jeremy Roussak

  • Administrator
  • Sr. Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8961
    • site
Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #22 on: January 08, 2019, 02:51:54 pm »

Oh come on, Jeremy! This wasn't anywhere near a political argument, simply an explication of my personal situation. Nothing more. It's a far cry from opposing views coming into play, in which case, right, I'd agree with the idea of nipping it in the bud.

It was your reference to lies which seemed likely to me to lead in that direction, Rob.

Off topic? This entire section of LuLa has no real topical direction either, having split into three main camps: those favouring the departed/ousted? goverment of LuLa; those critical of the new régime; those thinking the new hierarchy will bring a gale of fesh air, much frankincense and myrrh and similarly typically topically festive goodies...

Now there you have a point. Time will tell, eh?

Jeremy
Logged

Two23

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 827
Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #23 on: January 08, 2019, 04:10:59 pm »

This entire section of LuLa has no real topical direction either, having split into three main camps: those favouring the departed/ousted? government of LuLa; those critical of the new régime; those thinking the new hierarchy will bring a gale of fresh air, much frankincense and myrrh and similarly typically topically festive goodies...



Dang, once again I'm on the fringe between groups, not in one.  Looks like I'm in a tent all on my own--I'm not really critical of any one, have yet to see what the "new hierarchy" will bring, and am simply keeping an open mind. 


Kent in SD,
A lesser forum member
Logged
Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris,
miserere nobis.

Slobodan Blagojevic

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18090
  • When everyone thinks the same, nobody thinks
    • My website
Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #24 on: January 08, 2019, 06:11:09 pm »

... simply keeping an open mind.

Ah, the eternal American optimism:

 ;)

Eric Myrvaagnes

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 22814
  • http://myrvaagnes.com
    • http://myrvaagnes.com
Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #25 on: January 08, 2019, 06:37:01 pm »

That's an awesome set of graphs, Slobodan. Even so...
Logged
-Eric Myrvaagnes (visit my website: http://myrvaagnes.com)

James Clark

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2347
Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #26 on: January 08, 2019, 09:05:03 pm »


Dang, once again I'm on the fringe between groups, not in one.  Looks like I'm in a tent all on my own--I'm not really critical of any one, have yet to see what the "new hierarchy" will bring, and am simply keeping an open mind. 


Kent in SD,
A lesser forum member

Nah - I'm right there with ya.  From whatever seen so far I think the new ownership needs to find a consistent voice, but that can take time, especially if one is not a writer.   If Josh is a proficient filmmaker he should already understand how to tell a story, he just needs to nail down the technical aspects of the written format.  It's a buck a month...  I'm happy to give the guy some rope and let him run :)
Logged

mcbroomf

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1534
    • Mike Broomfield
Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #27 on: January 09, 2019, 05:04:04 am »

Nah - I'm right there with ya.  From whatever seen so far I think the new ownership needs to find a consistent voice, but that can take time, especially if one is not a writer.   If Josh is a proficient filmmaker he should already understand how to tell a story, he just needs to nail down the technical aspects of the written format.  It's a buck a month...  I'm happy to give the guy some rope and let him run :)

+1 (or 2)
Logged

jeremyrh

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2511
Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #28 on: January 09, 2019, 05:19:02 am »

Who?
Logged

KLaban

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2451
    • Keith Laban Photography
Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #29 on: January 09, 2019, 06:06:43 am »

I believe Slobodan's Eastern European graph could also apply to those in the UK, except perhaps the Scots for whom the whole graph would likely turn purple.

;-)

Robert-Peter Westphal

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 402
    • Nature-Photography Westphal
Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #30 on: January 09, 2019, 07:59:53 am »

Hello,

I don't understand that all !

If I don't like the bartender, I change to a different bar and do not spit into the beer of all other guests.

To be honest, I was not that lucky with the way Lula was going through for the last years, and I'm looking forward to the coming changes announced by Josh.
Logged
'visit my completly renewed gallery at http://www.naturfotografie-westphal.com '

Slobodan Blagojevic

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18090
  • When everyone thinks the same, nobody thinks
    • My website
Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #31 on: January 09, 2019, 11:18:34 am »

... If I don't like the bartender, I change to a different bar and do not spit into the beer of all other guests...

Imagine you've been frequenting a bikers bar for years. It is in your neighborhood, with no other similar bar miles around. You know the barman, the crowd, and they all know you. Fights occasionally break out, but soon settle at the bar with a round of beer. One day you walk in and see that Hare Krishna guys took it over. Annoyed, you'd like to spit into their beer, but no, only Himalayan tea is available.

Disclaimer: the above is only for illustration and dramatization purposes. Any similarity with real characters and/or real events is unintentional and circumstantial

;)

Manoli

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2296
Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #32 on: January 09, 2019, 12:32:02 pm »

... One day you walk in and see that Hare Krishna guys took it over. Annoyed, you'd like to spit into their beer, but no, only Himalayan tea is available.

(a) It was good up until the Hare Krishna part.
(b) I wouldn't spit in or at anyone, however were I to be so inclined, Himalayan tea wouldn't put me off, though
(c) somewhat futile, 'cos many of 'the crowd' are long gone.
Logged

Manoli

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2296
Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #33 on: January 09, 2019, 12:33:42 pm »

Time will tell, eh?

In the words of Samuel Johnson, the second coming of the 'new' LuLa appears to be very much "the triumph of hope over experience".

The end result of the recent policy decisions is that so many of those at the forefront of photography no longer post here. I'd list some of them but it'd take too long. The stats, though, paint a clear enough picture.

Quote
> In the 5 years preceding the change over, LuLa added an average of just over 3,000 members a year
> In 2016, 221
> Last year, just 47 and the year before that, 26.
> Average monthly page hits in the first 6 months of 2018 6.6m , 6 months later 3.6m. A decline of almost 40%

In light of recent events, I suspect that the economics of the subscription side are equally paltry,
Don’t need no PhD to work out what happens next ... but I guess Josh knew that when he wrote

... this was the time when it was both inevitable and desirable that I step to the plate.


Logged

Dan Wells

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1044
Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #34 on: January 09, 2019, 01:46:13 pm »

When did the paid membership come in? Paywalls always cause huge declines in memberships and page views... Not sure what the alternative is - intrusive, tracking advertisements are, in the end, worse.  One possibility is some sort of unified subscription service where one payment covers a large number of sites...

Other than very expensive sites (~$15-20 per month and up), I suspect the barrier to paid memberships is mostly yet another request for money, not the actual amount. Some major newspapers are expensive enough that the amount matters, and a lot of financial sites certainly are. Another category of expensive sites I find annoying is the moderately expensive ones that have a bunch of memberships that collectively get very expensive. There is one photography site that offers SEVEN separate memberships, and is broken up in such a way that many people will want at least a couple. They do offer a nearly 50% off discount for all seven, but that ends up being more expensive than either the Washington Post or the New York Times...

For modestly-priced sites like LuLa, though, it probably isn't the $1 per month (many of us spend more than that on coffee every day)... It's the "one more recurring charge", "one more thing that stores my credit card info", and "one more decision to make".

 I pay four subscriptions - the expensive Times and Post, plus LuLa and The Athletic (I'm a huge Red Sox fan - hope that isn't a political statement to all the Yankee fans out there 😁). What keeps me from subscribing to other photography sites (apart from the very expensive one) or other baseball sites isn't the cost, it's not wanting more recurring charges.

If someone could offer a "photography bundle" that offered good value for something like $50 or even $100 per year, and removed the vast majority of paywalls and intrusive (audio, motion and tracking) ads from the photographic web, I suspect a lot of photographers might pay it. If a site or two declined to participate, I suspect they'd see their readership plummet.

I'd love to see a "newspaper bundle" headlined by theTimes, the Post and the Wall Street Journal plus a whole bunch of regional papers. Yes, each individual paper would see their revenue per subscriber go down, because they couldn't charge anything close to the aggregate price - but they'd all get revenue from a much wider subscriber base (and people who love newspapers wouldn't be paywalled when they wanted to see a few articles from an out-of-town daily that get linked by their hometown paper or a national paper).
Logged

drralph

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 197
    • Ralph's Instagram
Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #35 on: January 09, 2019, 01:52:17 pm »

I last checked this thread 24 hours ago, and updating now has made me laugh out loud 7 times!  This thread presents the essential value of the LuLa community: creative, smart, accomplished, generous.  I have not detected a single post with a hint of trollism. 

I wish all the best to the new management.  I have been a teacher for a long time, and know that it requires tact, patience, and time to mentor and nurture the next generation of talent.  I encourage the veteran poster community to be generous and supportive as we help shape this next chapter.

drralph

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 197
    • Ralph's Instagram
Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #36 on: January 09, 2019, 02:01:21 pm »

While I was writing my last post, 2 well thought out and serious posts were uploaded.  My intention was not to take anything away from the gravity of the concerns in those posts.  But I stand by my appeal for mentoring and support for the next generation.

LesPalenik

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5339
    • advantica blog
Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #37 on: January 09, 2019, 02:03:18 pm »




And I would add that half of the 2018 and 2017 posts could be attributed to the political and climate related threads.
Logged

Slobodan Blagojevic

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 18090
  • When everyone thinks the same, nobody thinks
    • My website
Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #38 on: January 09, 2019, 02:09:42 pm »

Third sleeves are rolled up again.

Rob C

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 24074
Re: Kevin Raber?
« Reply #39 on: January 09, 2019, 03:59:25 pm »

Was LuLa doing a lot before the advent of the digital explosion?

Digital (photography) must have given rise to an enormous amount of Internet traffic in the photography website world - so much to learn and so much that was new.

Once the mystery is gone, then it must be difficult to keep the momentum going at the same rate. Also, with more and more images ending up on websites rather than on walls, is the amateur photographer the same animal that he once was?

Not only that, but was a time lots of people dreamed of turning pro, and that provided much incentive for photo education out of magazines and so forth, with heaps of technical articles on the processes - developers alone had a huge mystique built up around them and people spent money trying everything out when, instead, they'd have been better off sticking with one of the standards such as D76 and actually discovering how the thing reacted with different films, though even there, film standardisation made a lot of sense. I doubt that many people still feel as drawn to the idea of the pro life; they must be aware of how that business has been cut at the knees compared with the wide range of different exponents it once nourished.

Take those things out of the equation, and for how long do people feel inclined to keep on immersing themselves in photo websites? I hang on in because there's not much else to do; younger people living in cities have vastly different choices open to them for passing the time - if they have any to spare.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the cellphone phenomenon not only turns into the standard - if it has not already - but dedicated cameras in a shrinking marketplace will just become too expensive to make to sell. That may mean the Leica paradigm will, unexpectedly, end up being the only sustainable one left: alpha and omega.

Rob
« Last Edit: January 09, 2019, 04:04:13 pm by Rob C »
Logged
Pages: 1 [2] 3 4   Go Up