Hasta La Creative!

I don’t know about your inbox, but mine usually nets around 200 emails a day. A majority of those are work-related, some are from friends and a few here and there are from businesses (newsletters, notices, etc.). With [approximately] 200 emails sailing in, I rarely have time to read/respond to the ones that I REALLY want to.

These days, there’s a new beast adding to that volume — emails promoting the new shot from so-and-so. I knew that I was going to get an email, since I signed up at a few of our friends’ book showings. When the emails arrived, it was good to take a quick glance at work from friends I may haven’t seen yet.

Then, the emails kept coming. And then, even more arrived. So much so that I’m receiving about 15 emails a day from photographers from around the United States (maybe beyond). A majority of them are from people I don’t know and/or have never heard of. Either way, I KNOW I didn’t sign up for these emails — which I’m now calling spam.

I’ve recently chatted with a local photographer and have heard their recent troubles of connecting with today’s creatives. In a world where iStockPhoto and Shutterstock exist, our photographer friends are probably feeling the squeeze some.

I feel your pain. Really, I do. But we’ve got to stop sharing email addresses. It’s not okay. What makes it worse is that I’ve "unsubscribed" to about 20 of them already.

Maybe we should come up with a large web site, much like Flickr, that photographers are able to upload their shots and tag them, group them, etc. Also included on this site could be an RSS feed, maybe a featured artist section, too. Then when anyone is looking for a particular style of photograph, or a certain person’s work, they could go there. It could be the end-all, be-all spot.

Who’s in?