Booooo

When I first started this blog, I wanted it to have photos.  I liked reading blogs that had photos from time to time as it added something to the experience.  So, I signed up with flickr and started uploading my photos there to share them here.  I didn't have a photo every post, I'd try to alternate every second day.  

When I got back from my first Burning Man in 2013, I wanted to put myself out there and I wanted to do that with something that wasn't attached to this (fairly anonymous... or at least attempting to be so) blog, so I stopped uploading to that flickr account and started a new one.  I let my pro (paid) account lapse and was happy enough with the free account.

I noticed a year or so ago that I was running out of photos I hadn't already used in a blog post and so started to work my way more carefully through the stream to find unused photos... which meant the photos were pretty random and not usually anything much to do with the post.  But that was still ok with me.

Well, Flickr was recently acquired by SmugMug, (another photo sharing site that is built for sales, as far as I can tell).  Now I've been with Flickr since 2006, so I've seen all the changes and sales/purchases over the years, so I didn't think too much about this recent change.  Until last week.

Last week Flickr/Smug Mug announced changes to their accounts.  I see what they're doing and why they're doing it but it is putting me in a blah situation.  They are limiting free accounts to 1000 photos.  Which is a pretty large number.  Except that I have 2000 photos on my account, and neither the funds or the desire to pay a yearly fee (even if it is reasonable... or not) for what is essentially a dead account.  (As in, I don't add photos to it anymore, but I do use the photos here.)

I have a month or so to delete nearly a thousand photos myself, or else Flickr/Smug Mug will delete the oldest 1000, leaving me with the allowed 1000, but broken photo links on this site. 

It's a frustration, and while I can't complain too much about a free service (even though over the years they've had money from me, at least a decade's worth) I feel I can complain about the deletion.  I think I used the site differently than most folks... it wasn't a photo storage site for me, it really was to upload photos so I could share them here.  Then I got involved in the community and I started 365 projects and I really enjoyed my time on the site.  It got weird a few years ago, and I believe this is part of what they're trying to fix and clean up now, but I am still, unfortunately, getting stuck in the middle. 

Because I have to check each photo before deletion (to make sure it is not linked to a blog page) I can't just do a mass deletion.  I have a few solid hours of pretty tedious work ahead of me to delete nine hundred and ninety something photos.  I'll probably be doing a combination of deleting any non-linked photos and uploading (and then deleting) linked photos (that makes sense to me) But unfortunately right now it means there will probably not be new photos on the blog going forward.  Until, of course, I figure something out.  Which, I'm hoping I will.  It's just been a couple of days and I've been dealing with other things rather than *just* this. 

But still... I'm sad and disappointed and kind of frustrated.  But I understand that SmugMug doesn't want to uphold the promises whatever previous owner of Flickr made.  And just because I understand their reasoning, doesn't mean I have to like it or be happy about it or find it joyful to have to do some random, mind numbing work because of it.

So boo.  Boo to having to deal with this particular thing at this particular time. 

Le sigh.