Sean Ross Owner/Operator of Photocentric Ltd. Hello! Thanks for taking a moment to read about APUG's subscription service. Before parting with your hard earned money you should know a little about the history of APUG and what your contribution can do for yourself and our community.

A brief history of APUG:

In September 2002, I was in the market for some camera and darkroom equipment. I decided to search the Internet for information, and was quickly disheartened. I found every photographic site I browsed had become a hybrid mix of digital and traditional topics. I use traditional methods, so why weed through endless digital subjects, or at every turn be told I should just "go digital". The concept of a traditional community was born and has grown into the site you see now. Although working in the field of Information Technology I had no experience with web related applications and was given some help installing basic forum software in 2002. Initially APUG was nothing more than a tiny forum running on a free-shared server. My initial goal was to have 25-50 traditional photographers forming an online oasis away from the digital onslaught, taking over other photography sites. Since then, I have learned web based applications and have rebuilt APUG from scratch 4 times. The current build is our final and best framework yet and is still being improved. The site has grown beyond my wildest expectations. What began as a few forum members on a small free hosting package has become 23,000+ registered photographers and a dual processor dedicated server, and many new applications available to the membership. We now register as many as 1000 new members per month, yet only about 7-10% of those subscribe. Also keep in mind not all subscribers diligently renew their subscriptions each year so this leaves us with aquiring new subscriptions to keep our subscriber base healthy.

Why Subscribe?

As someone passionate about traditional photography, I want this art form to survive and flourish. The thousands of photographers on APUG have shown that our medium of choice is alive and well. I need your support to keep this community running.

*UPDATE* April 7th 2006

APUG was once a casual after-hours side project for me until it became more difficult to manage with every passing month. I was working a non-APUG related full time job, which accounted for 45-60hrs of my week. I also had family obligations to my wife and kids, and I have my photography as well. APUG takes a tremendous amount of time and effort to maintain. Practically all of my spare time was spent managing the site. I finally reached a point where I decided to give up a 12yr high level I.T. career to manage APUG full time. An announcement was made in the forums discussing my decision (click here to view the announcement and responses). The community has come too far to close the doors so I am making every effort to continue its success for years to come. Yearly operating costs can top $10,000US and if we need to upgrade to another larger server this could increase significantly. So far I have taken on partnerships, advertisers, created a subscription service, and some other bits and pieces in hopes of keeping revenue stable enough that I can work for the website full time and give it the attention it needs. This mainly includes but is not limited to: Server maintenance, being personally on call 24x7 (I am paged by a monitoring service if the site encounters any problems), APUG application software upgrades/patches/license management, application software enhancement, member technical support of 21,000+ registered members, moderation of forums/galleries/classifieds/etc.

There are two main reasons you should consider subscribing:

1) You have a love of traditional photography and you believe a passionate community like APUG can help keep our craft flourishing.

2) Subscribers receive added features such as:

-Your site designation changes from "Member" to "Subscriber" so others can be aware of your support
-Full access to our galleries so you can post scans of your work and discuss with others, or view what others are posting.
-Access to post APUG classified ads or auctions, a great way to sell equipment, this area is quite active.
-Sponsor discounts, several of our advertisers provide valuable discounts to APUG subscribers.
-Access to create your own online portfolio APUG Portfolios, a fully functional portfolio system.
-Full access to the APUG chat room, which is very active.
-Access to our mobile forums, APUG's WAP capable forums give you full wireless access to our forums
-Eligible to be considered for our Featured Member page.
-Much more is in development.