Hey photographers and journalists,
My father worked weekend shifts as a photographer and later chief photographer in a large Norwegian newspaper. I often joined him on the weekends as a small kid. I'm slightly addicted to the smell of fixatives (this was the 1980's), and can still remember the feeling of holding a Leica for the first time. I spent countless hours behind the lens of a Nikon FE2 with a 50mm (those lenses were often left behind in the shared kits), started my own newspaper with a total circulation of 22, and worked as a videographer for the local television channel producing some totally irrelevant content. I then went on to become an engineer, but I still love taking photos. I'm just better at software. And I love building stuff.
Access to quality photography is important to me. I love visiting exhibitions, skimming magazines, buying the occassional coffee table book - and can easily waste my entire life on photography feeds on Instagram. Good photography - from journalism to art - gives me immense joy.
I have spent my career in tech, and as my own kids have grown up and are now on their way to college, I reflect on my history and how I can use the time that is now being freed up. I decided I want to use my expertise and see if I can give something back to the community that give me so much - and have an increasingly important role in a world where authentic and trustworthy storytelling will be more important than ever.
I'm therefore building ZenTransfer - a free open-source app with some useful tools for photographers. There's a bunch of great photography software out there - from free to paid - and I'm not trying to replace them but rather patch some holes.
ZenTransfer can already help you import from your camera, organize, and secure your work with low-cost storage in the cloud. Users are asking for European and self-hosted cloud alternatives, and I'm building that as I write this. The next phase of ZenTransfer will be supporting content authenticity through the C2PA initiative.
Sharing your work shouldn't eat too much into your budget, so ZenTransfer will get tools to host and distribute your portfolio efficiently on basic cloud infrastructure, keeping your costs minimal and access maximal.
I fund ZenTransfer personally, both financially and with my own time. ZenTransfer.io, a global, cloud-based FTP service to move your photos straight from camera to cloud, is designed both to help photographers cover events live – and help me cover some of the infrastructure cost (and the coffee that fuels my early mornings). If you want to support my work, sign up for a subscription - it costs less than a fancy coffee in the western world per month. If I get to 250 subscribers then all infrastructure, certificates, and developer program fees will be covered and will help me keep ZenTransfer going strong.
Not everyone can support financially, and that is fine. ZenTransfer is released under the AGPLv3 license, which ensures it will stay free open source. You can also support by forking on GitHub or mirroring the repository. This ensures the software stays free and in the wild even if my accounts should disappear one day. Share the files, spread the word.
My goal is simple: give back to the photography and journalism communities, fight misinformation, and let you spend less time on admin — and more time capturing the shots that matter.
Happy shooting,
Chris
Creator of ZenTransfer
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