if you are unhappy about SmugMug's recent price increase here is a suggestion.

The best way to get any company to reconsider and retract such a bad and greedy decision is not to whine on a message board like this one. The heartless SmugMug owners couldn't care less about us.

But... they will listen to their people they sponsor to promote them. If their sponsors start to dry up, they will start to lose sales, and let's face it... money talks louder than we can.

So I suggest you write a brief, but direct email to all the photographers / websites / photo festivals that SmugMug sponsors and let them know how you feel. If they start to hear from their fans that one of their sponsors is "mistreating" (for lack of a better term) their own fans they may drop that sponsor.

SmugMug currently sponsors people like Scott Bourne, Trey Ratcliff, Rick Sammon, California Photo Festival, Vincent Laforet, http://resourcetelevision.com and others. Send them each an email. Let others know about others you find by replying to this email.

I've already done this and the more of us that do, the more pressure these people can put on SM. And their voice is going to be louder than all of ours put together.

I will worn you, you'll need to be prepared for some very harsh responses from a couple of these guys. Scott Bourne will accuse you of working for one of SmuMug's competitors. And Trey Ratcliff will send you a scathing reply in which he'll tell you to "Shut up" and stop being a "whiny child" (exact words in the email reply he sent me).

Rick Sammon, on the other hand, will send you a very nice reply asking for more information. Rick has to be the nicest photographer I've ever met and one of the nicest human beings on the planet. I don't know what, if anything, he'll do with the information but at least he seemed interested.

If we can add the voices of these guys to our own perhaps SM will reconsider this absurd decision.

In response: I can't really say at this point weather the decision to raise prices is a good one or not. I simply don't have all the information necessary. Nor do I expect to have inside financial data necessary for that decision. I can say I very much doubt that it's an absurd decision.

I can say with confidence the owners are not greedy heartless people. Smugmug is a family owned and run business, and the family has always demonstrated morality and ethics in running their business.

The price increase seems to be in line with what other businesses are charging for similar services.

So, am I happy about a price increase, no, am I going to wine about it, no.

Go out in the market place and see what services are available at what price points, then decide which company offers the features that best meets your needs and go with that company. Don't be surprised if that turns out to be SmugMug.

Sam