Official World Photographers Organization annoucement to all members

To all World Photographers Organization Members:

A lot has happened with WPO in the last year and a lot of new plans are in place for a start date of June 1, 2010.
I warn you that this is a long message, but it is well worth reading.
Many of you have followed the happenings in the WPO Press Room. I am not going to take time here to go into lengthy details of what has happened. What is going to happen is far more important.
Rather than write this as a letter, I am simply going to list key items that I feel you deserve to know about WPO now that it is about one year old.
The organization has been a massive failure financially. It seems that a lot of people want privileged professional information for free. Well, it just doesn’t work that way unless we all join together.
I envisioned an organization that was accessible to all serious photographers at a price they could afford. Apparently, most digital camera users these days, not necessarily photographers, want free services and places to post their photos among the general public and friends for conversational purposes. There is certainly nothing wrong with this, but it is not what WPO was meant to be and it is not what WPO will be.
The financial failure of WPO is all on me. I paid for a pro site. I paid for pro marketing to the tune of $3,500 that did not work. Long story short, I put up more than $10K of my personal money and countless hours of my time to make the WPO successful. I failed, and I failed miserably. This is not something I am accustomed to. I am used to being a winner. But there is no one to blame other than me.
I honestly thought amateur photographers would flock to a Worldwide Organization (that part is working) to learn from working pros who are both part-time and full-time. Maybe I am too old to read the room any longer when it comes to photography. It clearly is not what it once was.
The up side of WPO is that we have a very strong fundamental foundation of serious people who are willing to make commitments and to improve photography in the digital age so that it doesn’t have to be heard at every event, “Oh, it will be okay. I will fix it when I get it on the computer.” Real photographers get it right in the field and touch it up in the darkroom, digital darkroom or physical darkroom.
Don’t get me wrong. I fought off digital for a long time, but now that I have been in it for a few years, I love it. It is like comparing writing a book on a typewriter to writing one with the aid of a computer.
The WPO has some Major Players in it for members. Few of them engage in public forums and such, but they are here. We also have a host of part-timers and pros who work diligently to produce some top-quality photos and to make a few bucks, or a lot of them, along the way. Some serious amateurs are among us, but I find that it is mostly the people who want to get published or what to sell their work who are joining, and this is a key factor in some of my decisions for the future.
I am not closing WPO to amateurs, although that might be a future change if there is not satisfactory interest for me from them.
I have stopped paying consultants and marketing experts for WPO. Right or wrong, I am going to make the decisions. Ideally, I hope that all WPO members will guide me in making favorable decisions for the membership.
I plan to step up the commercial element of WPO. We will get away from basic photography and get into what it takes to create great, or at least good, photos. I will also focus on the ways to get published and to make sales of prints. Then I will address how to do business on the local level.
Let me give you an example of something I discovered today.
One of our members here in Maine charges less than $200 for a senior portrait. He has a nice, commercial studio with all the overhead and is an excellent photographer as well as a friend of mine. His photos have been published in books and magazines, and he is becoming a decent writer, which helps to sell photos. Now keep this number is your head--$200. (That is two hundred dollars.).
I was reading the member magazine from PPA today. It has an article in it for setting up studio space in your home. I want to commend the PPA for reaching out more than they used to. It seemed like they were locked into wedding work for a long time, but now they are mixing it up, and it is good. Now, follow this example.
A couple in a southern state that is not known for high incomes set up an impressive, in-home studio. They had never done portrait work before. Their first sale of a senior portrait went for $5,000. Now they have a regular clientele with an average price for a senior portrait going for $2,000 dollars. That is 10 times what our member in Maine is getting, and they don’t have the commercial overhead. This is a good example of what I want to bring to WPO.
I think we can create online courses and workshops for our members. This takes a lot of time and they will not be free. However, some mini courses could be offered for free from me and photographers willing to donate some of their time. But, keep in mind that many of us are full-time pros and can’t give our time away but so freely.

World Images Today is going to change. It will still exist as it does today with some modifications. The version open to the public will not have “Member Only Info” in it. You can get that by logging in on the WPO site. Contributions of photos and articles by members are welcome and needed. These can be for public consumption of private use among members.
The Press Room is going to shut down. One of our members brought to my attention what is in the works with Ning. It is unacceptable to me and I will be closing the Ning site before the first of June.
Some of our members are adapt at FaceBook®. I am working with them now to create ONE OFFICIAL page there for WPO that might work. Just one of the photographers I am working with has nearly 600 fans.
WPO could use a Twitter® expert if anyone is willing to take it on.
I welcome anyone who would like to be a monthly contributor to WIT for the exposure. While the membership at WPO is small, the people who see WIT are high-level decision makers in multiple industries and if we allow the public to see the magazine with enough promotion behind it, this could be a good thing.
WPO will not conduct photo contests—unless members contribute suitable suggestions for something that might work. That was a disaster when I tried it. You can submit photos for cover selections if you like. Please send only low res photos.
I am hearing from numerous members how well the Press Pass is working for everything from car shows to sporting events, to musical functions, and so forth. This is good. WIT is being taken very seriously.
Our Worldwide base is broad, dedicated, and very helpful to me.
I need you, our members, to tell me what you want from WPO. In all of this change and my offer to refund dues, only one member has exercised that right. This says a lot about the loyalty of the members.
I am not stupid, well maybe sometimes I do stupid things. But, I know full well that I have not done much with WPO for awhile now. It is difficult to stay motivated when people don’t care and when there is no income for operating costs. I want to change this! I have never been a quitter and I have no intention of quitting now if the membership drops to 50 people, then so be it. I would like to have 50,000, but I always wanted Santa to bring me and pony and that didn’t happen.
I have heard from a lot of members and I know who is onboard for the long haul. There are some that might be iffy, but they are few in number.
I talked with the WPO website guy today. He is going to get me a price for setting up something along the lines of the Press Room on the WPO site. We are also working on a way to make accessing new information or finding older information easier for members. It is not that any of this is difficult for him, but it can be cost prohibitive at this point. But, I am on it.

During this year I have been in an evaluation mode and have not released the full power of what the WPO can do. I wanted to see what the heart of the membership would be. I do plan on turning loose more sensitive information to the members-only section in the coming months.

I plan to add press releases, like one I saw today where Getty ate up another stock agency, to the site.

I plan to add RSS feed articles for what they are worth. Sometimes they have a glimmer of a nugget in them.

I am going to invest the time to seek out and interview many more successful photographers of all types for the Featured Photographers section of the site and may put them in WIT, or at least part of the interview in WIT.

WPO members who want to publish bound books or e-books will get discounted pricing by Lone Wolf Enterprises, Ltd. and Creative Consulting, Inc.

Creative Consulting, Inc.(CCI) will consider paying developers of online photo courses and workshops that CCI will have all rights to. Or, a royalty arrangement could be made.

I have now suspended the refund on membership dues offer that has been in place for the last many weeks. As of 4-28-10, there are no refunds on membership dues.

Press Credentials and Model Consulting Credentials will remain available to WPO members.

WPO will be happy to list Member Links to their web sites at no cost.

Photo Critiques: I will offer pro photo with the form that can be reviewed on the WPO site for a fee of only $10 per photo for our members. Other pro members are willing to do critiques, but I do not know what their fees will be. I would suspect they will be closer to $15 to $20 a photo. I can’t speak for them. If you want a pro in a specific field of photography to give you a critique, ask me and I will put you in touch with the pro. WPO and I are not trying to mark up the cost of the service.

I plan to review articles, services, sites, and products to increase the number of No-Bull Reviews.

I plan to add more Pro Pointers. It would be nice if other members would submit their own pro pointer for the site and for WIT.

In closing, I am going to continue to add to WPO when I can. Since there is no real income from the site, it will limit my time. I have to make a living. I invite all members to coordinate programs through me. I will delegate out certain duties to certain people, but I will control most of the organization for the foreseeable future.

At the moment, I do not have a viable plan for increasing membership. Nothing I have tried as worked in volume. If any of you have ideas, I am more than willing to listen.

I will be posting this letter on the Press Room and on the WPO Blog. I will also email it to each member, but some members may get it before others. I am not sure I can get it out to all members at the same time.

Please email me at publisher@wpomembers.com with your thoughts, desires, and if you are willing to assume any of the time-consuming elements of the organization. WPO may die with me, but not before, and I have no intention of rolling over anytime soon. But, it can be a much greater force if we do this as a team. I am not much of a team player based on history, but I can compromise for the greater good.

Let’s make this happen. It is our organization!
Dodge