Kosmo Foto was one of the first blogs to review the new Pentax 17 camera on its release (Pic: Stephen Dowling)
I've been running the Kosmo Foto blog since 2011. It's not overstating it to say that it has completely changed my life.
Back then, I was a devoted film shooter who had amassed a collection of mostly cheap cameras (a fair few of them soviet) and learned bit-by-bit to take better photographs.
After more than a decade shooting on film cameras I still had bags of enthusiasm and thought I'd gained enough useful knowledge that it made sense to jot some of these thoughts into a blog. That blog was first called Zorki Photo because, you guessed it, my camera collection did indeed contain a fair number of Zorki rangefinders from the Soviet Union.
Fast forward to now, and the blog (now called Kosmo Foto) has published more than 1,200 articles on every aspect of film photography – reviews, interviews, posts from other photographers, photography history, tips and travel stories.
Over that time, we've also built up a reputation for covering news, new products and trend in the analogue photography world.
I do all this around a full-time job and also all the other related things that have come from the blog – the Kosmo Foto film brand, the online camera shop Cameraburo and Kosmo Foto Clothing (feature the knockout graphic designs from My Mate Does Art). Like I said earlier, it's kind of taken over my life.
The Kosmo Foto blog has always been at the heart of this, and I hope always will be. But it's fair to say that over the last 18 months running the blog has become more difficult.
Last year., Kosmo Foto ran a hugely successful Compact Cup photowalk we’ll be talking about on the newsletter soon (Pic: Stephen Dowling)
The rise of AI-powered search has had a huge effect on blogs like Kosmo Foto. To put it simply, AI bots first scrape content from blogs like mine to build up "knowledge" about a certain subject – in Kosmo Foto's case, film photography. They do so without permission and without paying me for the privilege. Even if you restrict content behind a paywall, some of them ignore it.
It gets worse.
Sites like Google and ChatGPT then create AI-powered answers to people's Search queries. In the case of Google, the smaller AI Overviews appear above the links to blogs and other sites that have created the content they've sifted though (and they sometimes link to credible sources for you to dive further into. In the case of AI Mode, these answers can be up to 1,000 words long, much more detailed and nuanced – and they often don't link back to the sites they took this information from. Their effect has been dramatic.
This has meant that over the last year, the amount of traffic Kosmo Foto gets from search results has collapsed. These companies have stolen my work, and then made it more difficult for people to find it.
It means fewer people come to the blog and see the ads that have been the most practical way of earning the not inconsiderable amount of money it takes to keep the site running. Like many blogs in the last 18 months, I've seen this ad income dwindle. That makes it harder for Kosmo Foto to pay its bills.
That’s the bad news out of the way. Happily, there is a solution.
I've had a mailing list for several years, and made the decision last year to move it to Beehiiv where I could more easily make a community out of the 3,000+ wonderful people who have supported the site so far.
This newsletter community will be central to helping Kosmo Foto thrive over the coming months and years.
If you're continuing to find Kosmo Foto, interesting, helpful or just a relaxing diversion from the current state of the world with some articles about cool old cameras, then please consider helping the blog by supporting it with an upgrade to paid.
The monthly tier is only $5 a month, and the annual is $48, saving 20%. (Those wonderful people who have already signed up this month have already helped pay for Kosmo Foto's hosting for the next year – thank you.)
What you get: I started the paid tiers this month, kicking off access to a new series called Roll Reports, where I share images from a roll of film. These posts don't appear on the Kosmo Foto blog.
I'll also be sharing sneak peeks at forthcoming Kosmo Foto posts, including reviews. (The next review to be published will be on Lomography's LOMO MC-A compact, probably the most anticipated new camera of the last few years. Paid subscribers will get a better look at example photos taken on this camera before the review is published on the blog.)
(But I'm also up for hearing from people about what they would want as part of paid tiers. So please let me know.)
I realise that times are tough for many people, and we can't always financially support the websites we regularly follow.
So instead, please tell other film photographers about 'Advance/Rewind' so they too can subscribe.
Here's the link you can pop in an email or message:
If you've read this far, thank you. It's not easy to be so blunt and ask for this kind of help, but it's good to be honest. I love producing Kosmo Foto and this newsletter, and I'm deeply grateful for those who support it with their attention and kind words.
Thanks for reading
Stephen Dowling
Kosmo Foto