I have been very busy the last two days working, so it has been hard for me to process fully what is going on with ipernity. I feel sadness, anger, and yes, even disgust with the decision made by the IP team to shut down this site.

As some of you know, Sami Serola, LutzP and I began the group, "Win a Club Membership !", working diligently to recruit members who were willing to donate a club membership to new or old members of ipernity who were not club members. This was both for the purpose of raising money in the short term for ipernity and for hopefully cultivating a larger paying membership base to keep the site afloat. A large number of members volunteered their time and money to make the group a success. We feel betrayed and disillusioned by the IP team's decision to end ipernity.

That being said, Ipernity was a godsend to me because it is here that I discovered my love for photography almost three years ago. I have learned a lot and made many good friends on this site. I do not want to lose touch with anyone, but, unfortunately, not all of us will go to the same site to recongregate. I learned this when I first left Flickr to come here. I lost touch with many contacts purely because it was hard for me to keep up with more than one circle of friends. Now it will happen again. Such is life.

The one thing I didn't do was give up my Flickr membership, so it will be easy for me to relocate there. I know many of you are there as well, so if you are going back to Flickr and wish keep me as a contact, here my address:

www.flickr.com/photos/mychildandtoys/


My deepest thanks and love to all I have had the pleasure to meet and interact with these past three years! May everyone find a new place to "live" and continue to enjoy one another's work and love for photography!

Val