Response to the Fine Art Supply thread.

I didn't want this to get lost at the bottom of a thread and no one

see it, so I posted another thread to inform you all of what I know

of this company only thru what I have read and noticed.

 

First, Vicki posted a notice either in the classifieds section of

Photonet or this forum quite some time ago about his new LF

startup and what he was trying to do, which is to offer equipment

and supplies, find supplies, "AND EVEN BRING TO MARKET" LF

items. I responded to his question if I was interested in receiving

his catalog and said yes. His first mailing addressed their

interest and what they were trying to do as well as to catalog a

few items for sale. He has posted questions here on creating a

new LF camera which received many responses, one of them

mine.

 

They, Vicki and is wife, never came off to me in their postings or

thru their literature as being inconsiderate. In fact just the

opposite. If you are receiving noticies from them I could believe

that they would remove your name from their list if you so

wished. Why not just ask to have the catalog sent?

 

It may just be that they now have a advertising agent or have

allowed someone to market their business such that they can

concentrate their time at something else. Unfortunetly, this

person may be sending the spam. I'm sure that Vicki monitors

this site and will read your replies and make note.

 

To note, I'm am not affilated with them, nor do I know them

outside their postings and mailings. I only see them as trying to

make a living at something "we" all love. I wish I could do the

same.

After reading the thread where Bob, and others, were outraged about being spammed by Fine Art Photo Supply, I drank a cup of coffee, and thought about how I want to respond to their remarks. I also received the E-mail notification from Fine Art this morning, and I actually took the time to look at their on-line catalogue. Not bad. Keep up the good work. Anthony and Vicki Guidice are a husband and wife team who are avid large format enthusiasts. They are, simply, attempting to continue where Fred Picker's Zone VI left off, after Calumet dropped the ball. They seem to be innovative and imaginative people. They are not attempting to compete with the "big boys". They have a small, specialized group of potential customers for their products, you, and me, and they are trying to target us as effectively as they can. This way, they can save on advertizing expenses and pass the savings along to us, their customers. What is wrong with that concept? The least the members of this forum can do is give them a chance to succeed. I'm going downstairs for my second cup of coffee, now.

There is good spam and bad spam!

 

Most garbage that I receive in my email box seems to be about investing in great Nigerian money making schemes, or shady Wall Street investments.

I too received stuff from Fine Art Photo Supply. In my opinion these email contain useful information that may improve my work as a photographer. At times it is difficult for me to get quality materials and ingredients from local camera stores. It is also at times difficult to find rational alternatives to expensive equipment.

 

Years ago when Fred Picker ran Zone VI workshop I looked forward to every issue of his newsletter. Fred had an uncanny ability to cut through the mush and come up with creative ideas and products that most of the time served photographers far better that what the "regular" stores were trying to peddle.

 

It looks to me like the Fine Art Photo Supply people are trying to follow in Fred's footsteps and continue a tradition of decent products that work as promised, making creative photography easier for serious "addicts" like me.

 

I do a lot of Pyro processing. Up to now the only place that sold a decent fixer (in my mind) was Photographer's Formulary up in Montana. Fine Art Photo Supply have now a similar great fixer which I now use instead of the other brand.

 

Therefore I am happy that I received the good spam from them. Otherwise I would not have known about their products.

I dont understand what all the hoopla is all about. Considering all the other crap I get (the reason why I only use my personal e mail for friends and family and have the hotmail account for forums is this!)I like getting mail from Anthony. He is a nice guy trying to make a go of his business. HAs any body e mailed him or asked him for the free records as well as news letter? All these people complaining for somehting so trivial seems to me a bit paranoid.

I agree with a previous posting here: there's good spam and bad spam and to me, Fine Art Photo Supply is good spam. Yes, it's unsolicited but not all unsolicited e-mail is bad. Crap in which I have no interest whatsoever is bad spam; new information on topics I am interested in is good spam. I look at it this way: if the only acceptable communication to me is what I expect, how will I learn anything new? Thus, I do not object to Fine Art Photo Supply harvesting my e-mail address and sending me occasional information.<P>

On the other hand, this forum pretty explicitly bans harvesting of e-mail addresses. If they did that then they should be subject to whatever penalties are currently defined.<P>

Mike

I welcome their postings. Their's are refreshing, compared to most of the crap I'm seeing. More power to them.

We all hate spam, but occassionally you find something worthy of it. I haven't received anything from them, but thanks to you all I've checked their web site out and I liked what I saw. thanks

"We all hate spam, but occassionally you find something worthy of it. I haven't received anything from them, but thanks to you all I've checked their web site out and I liked what I saw. thanks"

 

Like they say - there's no such thing as bad publicity....

I recieved it. I read it. I'll look forward to any future information they send also. It's not like anybody is doing something bad here.

This is a small scale operation, and I don't think they're harvesting email addresses by some faceless mechanical process, but probably gathering them by hand from the forum, and I'm sure if you ask to be taken off the list, they'll take you off. Anthony is opinionated, but that's fine. They're trying to do something positive for the LF user community. I don't have to agree with his opinions, though sometimes I might. Even if he might strongly advocate for his own tripods as opposed to others in the market, he's been quite honest with me when I've asked about how certain FAPS products might compare to other specific products, even when that honesty wouldn't necessarily make the sale, and that generates some confidence on my part.

Well I'm certainly relieved to see the responses on this portion of the Spam threads. I was feeling a bit lonely on "Part I".

My objection to the spam was not so much the content of the spam, but the fact that the forum has been used as a source of email addresses. I think many others on the other thread felt the same way, but did not express it.

 

Fine Art Supply should have posted a thread informing people that there is a newsletter available and the people wanting it should contact them. I don't appreciate unsolicited contact from companies trying to sell me something. Their advertising goes straight in the bin and a mental "black mark" is put against their name.

 

The point remains, though, that our email addresses are being retrieved (probably manually) from the data that we post here, and there is little that we or photo.net can do about it if we want to retain the freedom to contact each other.

 

Regards,

 

Graeme

<P>From the Photo.net "Terms of Use" page...</P>

 

<P>* * * * * * *</P>

 

<P>No Spamming/Email address harvesting</P>

 

<P>From time to time, users post their email addresses in our chatrooms, forums, and other public posting areas, and the site makes available the email addresses of members to other logged-in members. You agree not to gather these email addresses for purposes of spamming or for any non-personal or commercial purposes.</P>

 

<P>* * * * * * *</P>

 

<P>Personally, I didn't mind receiving the newsletter but rules are rules and letting the matter slide this time will set a precedent that will inevitably lead to photo.net visitors receiving yet more spam (however well intentioned or appropriately targeted) from others down the road. As such, I feel the only alternative, to quote the great Barney Fife, is for us to <I> "Nip it. Nip it in the bud..."</I></P>

Hey, you just gave away your age with that Barney Fife quote.

 

Anyways, how are you goiing to prevent anyone from doing it

again? And how many time has it happened to you off this

forum? Are you going to track this person down and have them

arrested or something? Anyone can join this forum under any

name and harvest email addresses and you can't do anything

about it except to put a block in your email program, which I have

done on occasion. It would simply be best to open up a Hotmail

account and use that for your everday stuff, and keep your

service provider account clean. That's what I, and one other I

note have done. Your second option, and what I suggest others

do who are so inclined, is write Vicki and ask him not to send

you any more emails. Boy that was simple.

 

Now if you have ever had a Yahoo account and closed it, you

would really know what spam is. I get at least a 100 every couple

of weeks.

In my role as the main moderator of this forum, I've contacted Fine Art Supply and I hope that they will explain how they collected the email-addresses and why they misused them.<br>

I will report back to the forum as soon as my discussion with them have concluded.