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1x was started in 2007 by Ralf and Jacob, two photo enthusiasts from Uppsala, Sweden. Back then, we were using many different photo sites, but we were not satisfied with the quality level of those sites and the lack of useful feedback on our photos. These were the two main reasons we started 1x.
Our vision is to create a gallery with the best photography of the internet, reaching for the sublime. An important way to achieve this goal is to help photographers develop their skills and take their craft to the next level. We already have the critique forum, with expert senior critics, and the feedback in members' curation, but now we are taking it one step further. In just one week, November 3, we will make the most important release so far in the history of 1x. A brand new learning platform.
We belive that you are not born an artist, but that you become an artist thanks to a strong passion and dedication and the right ideas, inspiration and instruction. Many of the great masters of photography became famous by learning from other masters. You can learn by yourself but with a guide helping you to navigate the field of photography you can avoid the pitfalls and develop your skills much more rapidly.
We believe that everyone has an inner artist just waiting to be unlocked. And we will provide the tools needed to discover the artist in you. Stay tuned!
**The new learning platform will be available for Pro members. At the same time we are going to raise the membership prices so this is the last week to upgrade or extend your membership for the current lower prices.
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 | piXXelpark What will be the main speaking language, english? Is it possible to get german speaking guide? |
 | Ralf Stelander FOUNDER Hi Pixxelpark, unfortunately it's in English because it's the language that most people speak on the internet, but you can always try Google Translate, sometimes it works quite well. |
 | Bobby Kostadinov It's so easy to point fingers and accuse someone of being greedy, commercial, unfair, etc. It's not so easy to write a tutorial following all of these requirements:
http://1x.com/instructions/writing_tutorials.html
Especially when you want the result to be as good as the tutorials you would want to read from others.
I wrote two tutorials and found it exhausting. I didn't get paid money to do so yet I still feel 6 months of pro membership is more than worth my effort, especially considering how talented some of the other photographers here are. There is a lot of value in all of the content that these tutorials comprise, as well as a lot of cost in organizing everyone and everything, assuring a high quality of content and finally presenting it in a proper way to the users.
Someone who can't appreciate the effort put into this from all sides should just stick to the free resources on the net, some of which are great and others are well...misguiding to say the least. |
| Ralf Stelander FOUNDER Thanks for your support Bobby! Like you point out all contributing photographers get 3 months of Pro membership for each tutorial written. The alternative to having a paid service is of course to use ads and I don't think anyone would appreciate that. |
 | David Bergstrom Hi there, just a quick note about your pay to play system.
First of all, I'd like to say I have really been enjoying 1X, the concept is really great, especially for beginning photographers. And I totally support your motivation for this site: "Learning is one of our most important values and one of the reasons we started this site". I'd like to congratulate you on that.
I'd like to express that I am quite saddened that you are now putting monetary restrictions on your learning platform. This creates, as with a lot of things today, a restriction for the less fortunate ones, who are in fact the ones that benefit the most from your services. I thought that a site, based on community like this one, would keep the community as its main priority
It is one thing to limit the amount of uploads, however, I can still participate. With this new restriction I feel excluded from the community. I'd love to hear your main motivations (unless it is all about the money). |
| Ralf Stelander FOUNDER Hi David, thanks for raising these valid points. The community and the people here is the number one important thing for us. We have had very big costs for developing this new service, making and quality proofing all the material. We have had several persons and consultants working full time with this, and unfortunately we can not release it for free because we need to cover the costs. The more people who are interested in contributing by upgrading their membership, the more material we can afford to make and the better and faster we can make this new service. However if you contribute by writing tutorials you get 3 months of free Pro membership for each one and there is no restrictions on how many you can write. Hope that helps. |
 | Marcin Wuu This is interesting. A learning platform only accessible for professionals, who are by definition not ones in need of a learning platform? |
 | JAE I hope I never stop learning :-) |
| Ralf Stelander FOUNDER Hi Marcin, you have a valid point there =) However you don't have to be a professional photographer in order to upgrade to the Pro membership, it has great value for amateurs as well. Even as a professional you can always learn new things or find inspiration for new images. |
 | Greg Forcey Professionals always have something to learn. Plus plenty of non-professionals have pro accounts. |
 | Thomas Herren Ho much will a Pro Membership be after raising prices? |
| Ralf Stelander FOUNDER Hi Thomas, the Pro membership will be 8.99 eur or usd after the price raise. At the same time you will gain access to the new learning platform and the new magazine so a lot of extra value is added. |
 | Robert Wheeler PRO Ralf, I really appreciate seeing the new Pro price in your response. Not knowing the new pricing was a concern for me, and I suspect for many others. This is only a 9% increase and is associated with some sort of new features
Having a founder give some of the information deep in the blog comment response area is a small step in the right direction, but will miss much of the intended audience. In the interest of helping customers with their decisions, it would make sense to post the new prices (Pro and Plus) in a main blog entry and send another email announcement to current members including this information. Ideally the new communications would also include a little more information about the new features (and whether Plus will have extra functionality too). If some new features are still in development, explaining expectations for timing of additional enhancements could be helpful. I hope you can make time to distribute the information in these few days before the change.
I suspect the membership extension response might be smaller than desired due to omitting the new prices. There is still time to correct that. Fewer off-cycle renewals than possible may not be a big deal, but perceived lack of openness that makes customers wonder what motivates the business to withhold such basic information can be a big deal. Transparency in dealings and efforts to make decisions easy for customers can pay off in good feelings and better long term relationships as well as in better short term financial results.
Apologies if my comments sound like a lecture. I take the time to write only because I think it may help 1X.
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