It is no secret I put a lot of confidence in Photrade.com, BUT their demise has made one thing apparent….it has turned my blog into the land of broken images!

One of the things I liked about the site was that it was a great place to host images, images that I might nor normally upload to my main web site, www.timsdigitaldarkroom.com

Now I have the painstaking task of going back and either deleting post with photrade images, of which there are a lot! OR trying to figure out what images I posted and re-host them.

Either way I am not looking forward to it, which is why I have put it off for so long. BUT, it has to be done.

So please bear with me while I re-tool :)

The next item up for bid (just an expression, it’s not for sale!) is my macro lens…and if you know anything about me and what I shoot, you’ll know this is a very often used lens!

This is a true macro lens of course. Allowing you to achieve 1:1 magnification ratios. Whereas for instance a lot of zoom lens also have a macro function @ the highest mm value, like 200 or 300mm but the BIG difference being that the macro magnification is only 1:3 or even 1:4.

Sell photos on photrade | By timsdigitaldarkroom Sell photos on photrade | By timsdigitaldarkroom

Sell photos on photrade | By timsdigitaldarkroom Sell photos on photrade | By timsdigitaldarkroom

Due to the uncertainty of the future of Photrade these are likely the last images I post from and upload to that site.

As it is, it’s not probably that we’ll get paid anymore for ad rev. That is unless of course it’s just one of hundreds of things that is on Andrew’s to-do list and he hasn’t gotten to it yet.

Here is my last macro, it is the blade portion of a man’s electric razor (the part that vibrates).

Sell photos on photrade | By timsdigitaldarkroom Sell photos on photrade | By timsdigitaldarkroom

Sell photos on photrade | By timsdigitaldarkroom Sell photos on photrade | By timsdigitaldarkroom

Sell photos on photrade | By timsdigitaldarkroom Sell photos on photrade | By timsdigitaldarkroom

Changes at Photrade

Dear Photraders,

As I am sure everyone is aware, many companies have been laying off employees to conserve their resources as the economy appears to be going into a recession. Particularly notable startups from Zappos to Zivity to Mahalo have laid off large portions of their staff.

I wanted to personally let you know that Photrade has recently had to go through the same kind of downsizing. We decided internally that it makes more sense to make cuts now so we can maintain the overall service going forward. As you may or may not know, we are a venture-backed company and fund raising timeframes have lengthened.

Thus with our reduced staff, we have been overwhelmed trying to keep up the former level of customer service as well as to continue to roll out new releases for the site. We will continue to run the service and do our best to get back to your questions in a timely manner.

We deeply appreciate all that you, our loyal users, have done to evangelize Photrade and are very sorry to have to make this announcement about our service. We’re working as hard as possible to try to raise more capital so we can expand the service offering again and get back on the “fast growth” track.

If you like the service and would like to get involved in helping Photrade move forward, please email me personally at andy@photrade.com.

We will keep you informed of any changes (especially positive ones!).

Yours,

Andrew Paradies (CEO and Founder)

Hmmmmm. Well this is almost exactly what Andrew told me yesterday in response to my post, Photrade: Strike 2! What is going on???

From what he told me I wrote this Photrade Issues Update: Site not DOA!

BUT

We have no way of knowing what that all means. Do the cuts of the staff truly help? Hurt? Buy them time? Did the staff get the shaft? Why can’t they talk about the site? If they don’t get funding and get it quick will the server have a sheriff’s eviction noticed pasted to it?

We have no way of knowing and honestly my faith being restored yesterday was mostly due to the fact that it was the first communication from anyone @ the site in over a month.

Maybe my faith isn’t restored. Though, it is nice to at least to get an official “update” as to why the customer served tanked.

Meanwhile however, my friend who ordered some merch from me….”Photrade never bothered to reply to yesterday’s email and they haven’t responded to my PayPal dispute, that place is pretty damn pathetic.”

SO there again, at this point I certainly would not have ANY faith regarding placing new orders! She placed a order about a month ago, probably when the fit hit the shan who knows….

I still hope for a “to be continued” (in a good light)