ViewBug

When I first joined the site, I was surprised and encouraged by the attention my material was receiving. In fact, I almost purchased a monthly membership based on that. Then, I received a "very special" invitation to be a "curator" and "welcome new members" (only offered to 15%!) by liking and awarding their uploads! This site clearly feeds and financially exploits creative insecurity and social media's dopamine effect and has probably lured countless memberships from people who turned out to be highly disappointed once the little welcoming committee has moved on to fresher meat.

This site is wonderful for sharing photos with others, but the problem is within the contests. There are all these amazing prizes that I used to get excited about but now I've realised an amateur like me with a Canon 100D could ever win them. The photos that people post to these contests are exceptional but clearly taken with very expensive cameras. So they'll probably get the prize and sell it off or give it to someone else. I really think that this voids the point of the contests. Also people who win resubmit their photo for the next contest and could still win. Us people who haven't got £3,000 to spare are getting buried under the professionals.

Ok I just joined this week and started entering contest and challenges. Then I started voting. WOW this is big time amateur hour! I swear if I have to sit and look at another person poorly taken shot of their kid or their pet or vacation I'm going to poke myself in the eye with a fork! Look I'm not being too picky and I know there was a point 30 years ago that my images looked no better, but back then we had the common sense to know what was good and what wasn't and would have never thought of entering it in a contest. Now days everyone thinks they are good just because someone told them so. I know I am not the best photographer out there. There is always someone better but I sell my work regularly at art shows and festivals and make pretty good money doing it. With all the amateurs on viewbug I'm really curious if my work will be noticed or just passed over in the millions of poorly taken photographs.

I have enjoyed putting my photos on viewbug but its such a frustrating site, 1 when it comes to voting I can only see a few photos before going to next page (there could be 20 pages). 2 there should be some form of forum. 3 Its definately biased this is not sour grapes at all, but I have come to realise that its more who you know not what you know, seen some terrible shots win in some cases that it beggars belief. What I do now is use viewbug as a sort of link for other to see my photos. As I said frustrating because it could be a great site with a few tweeks here and there like feedback on photos etc.

As an amateur photographer, I value everything I learn from the Viewbug community. I try join contests and challenges as much as possible and check out my competitors' work when I can and learn from them. I see some people wrote "don't waste your money - unless you pay you don't win anything etc.", I don't believe these people are being fair. If your main goal is to win something then you should just buy a lottery ticket, why waste your time with photography. Anyway, I don't mean to offend anyone and I respect everyone's opinion but if you are in this community just because of prizes then maybe you are in the wrong place so please don't blame the website because you didn't win anything.

I tried viewbug because a few months back a friend won a brand new camera bag by being the most voted photo is a contest. Then I joined and slowly but surely started getting more into it. The members are very welcoming and all of a sudden... my photo is featured on the homepage and viewbug's facebook page. Made my day, week, month! So many positive comments I was overwhelmed. I hope I get another feature soon, it lifted my spirits so much and it was an instant push to go get more shots.

There are a lot of photo contests to chose from even for free members and some of the prizes are pretty cool. I have a friend who is an amazing photographer and he won a Canon camera body last month so he was very happy about it. I'm not a profassional photographer but I'm also not in this community to win prizes really. I enjoy sharing my photos with the community and am getting a lot of constructive feedback from my followers. As a result, I've learned a lot since I've joined to viewbug. The website is user-friendly and very helpful for amateur photographers like myself.

Very friendly and welcoming Photographers community. I saw an ad for photo contests and joined. Right away I upgraded to get the additional perks and so far I'm addicted to it. The site keeps releasing new cool stuff and since I'm a mid level photographer I'm getting the best of both worlds: teaching and learning. I have not yet won a contest but I've been in touch with a couple of winners and apparently they did get their prize and have been on the site for a while. The contests makes me go out there and try different subjects and techniques. I highly recommend it with a free and a paid membership.

I'm a new user of the ViewBug site and noticed that a few of my photos had indicators that they had been shared to FaceBook.

I was curious as to who had done that, as well as concerned because one of the shots was of a friend who allowed me to post to ViewBug.

I sent an email to the customer support folks asking what I'm sure has been asked of them more than once :) "Who is sharing my photos?"

I received a response within a very short time explaining that FB terms do not permit visibility to the profiles that are sharing content from a third-party site, which VB is.

A few more back and forth emails and I am content with the explanations given and by the promptness of the responses. I have decided to just remove the photos that I was worried about and to create my own watermark for anything I post going forward.

So far, so good with ViewBug. I have rediscovered my passion for photography and am digging out and dusting off all the old gear!

I have been on this site for several years now, thinking I will give it a chance! Well, I've wasted too much time already! If you choose to stay here for free and never upgrade to any of the paid memberships ( there is a very aggressive sales pitch for you to upgrade), you will get no exposure at all! I'm no fool! I have some pretty decent photos, and hardly anyone looked at them! I'm told that there are a large number of photographers on this site, yet when I enter any of the challenges or competitions in order to gain exposure, I noticed that in the end a very small number of people had a chance to view my photos (50 the most if I'm lucky)! I realized that half the time, my photos are not even shown! Another thing that bothers me are the winning photos! I have seen some amazing inspiring photos on this site, and yet, half the time the winning photos are a joke! I'm through! Time to move on. Out with the old, in with the new!

I joined Viewbug a year ago and i, and those that have watched my progress, can honestly say that Viewbug has had a huge influence on my photography! There are all skill levels from serious proffesionals who display some fantastic art, to complete novices that have some of the best snapshots on life and the world around us.
Viewbug has helped me to push myself as a keen amature photographer and viewing such a wide range of styles, my skill level has come on in leaps and bounds! Thanks Viewbug!

Be cautious and don't be fooled by fake rewards. Your picture won the xxxxx award! Funny after I quit I got rewards almost everyday with harassing mailing that you can't spam away. Sorry I ever joined!

While I appreciate Viewbugs enthusiasm, which is wonderful and is an enjoyable photo exposure platform, However, something about is not transparent, and doesn't add up. After entering a competition, It doesn't show number of views but reveals rank after a while. I clicked on 'where my photo ranked', each seperate time the numbers of each image were distinctly different by thousands to the first click. The ranking and awards don't make sense. Am I really in the top 18,000 submissions and then it may change to 12,000, on clicking the same photo again. I would like to know how? As I am busy I don't enter enough but suddenly am notified I am a curator or am now silver level, and people send messages saying the same thing. I don't know how I got to silver level or what it means. I am quite new. I bought the pro but can't find how it all works, also who to ask about building a website from their platform.

The main reason it is impossible to get an answer, I had a problem with two of my contests, I searched for answers and found none. I sent in requests for help, all I got was the automated answers which didn't help my situation. Also if I pay for something I would like to be able to download my photos if I should loose them. I can find no way to download them and find no answer on the automated answers. I am sure this question has been asked. I have enjoyed my time there but it seems there are much fewer photos being uploaded, most contests are the same pictures. Also there needs to be a way of deleting photos that I want to remove as having over 1,000 photos is hard to find something. So, you have to go to edit and delete and then start over again, very slow especially if you internet isn't working well.

Viewbug is a lot of fun and provides inspiration and education. This site exhibits amazing talent, and I enjoy getting ideas from the other amazing photographers on this site. Every week, I look forward to seeing how my photos are doing in the contests. Great fun while learning how to improve my photography. Great combination!

I have been a member of Viewbug for quite a few years, I have had the pleasure of winning one of the contests with my image. I had a few problems but I have since had incredible service from their team which has helped me greatly. They have been very kind and considerate and have put any concerns I have had to rest.

Its a great way to get inspired by other photographers, and while amateurs can also participate there are plenty of professional and talented photographers to locate.

Man, what can I say? I read some of the good comments and some of the negative ones, and it seems sitejabber is a troll dream come true. Strangely enough negative commentators have only one review, seems to me someone is after viewbug's reputation. Most of the people I do photowalks are also viewbug members and we are more than content with this site, as anywhere else you get what you give. Submit your best shots, follow photographers you like and you'll have a great experience. You can launch your own challenge for free and get participants to vote, you can have a non-paid membership and enjoy what you want from viewbug so how can it be bad? Trolls need to get a life, photographers need to jump on viewbug. Sitejabber should have moderators test products to further validate if it is a scam or not. First and last review for me on sitejabber and thank you viewbug for being such an inspiration