Over the past few years I’ve uploaded a huge number of concert and railway pictures to the photo-sharing site Fotopic.net. I originally joined this site because it was the site of choice for railway photographers, at a time when competitors such as flickr were largely aimed at low-res photos from cameraphones.
The site has been a bit flaky for a while, and compared with newer sites it’s functionality has been looking increasingly dated and creaky. But a week ago, it just disappeared, with no explanation. There have been rumours that they’ve gone into receivership, but nothing’s been confirmed. From the owners of the site, nothing but silence.
While nobody knows for sure that it’s gone for good, every passing day it’s looking more and more likely that the site’s not coming back.
Unlike some people, I haven’t lost any photos; everything is backed-up. But the sorting, uploading and captioning still represents a lot of time and effort into something that’s probably gone to the great server in the sky.