Overgaard Academy, email pressure, and relying more on my own photo instincts

[F456]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

First I must apologize if this post is not in the appropriate forum — it's not an obvious one to find a home for.

Recently I unsubscribed to various and frequent emails from Thorsten Overgaard. Over the last few years I have found some of his musings and tips quite useful, sometimes amusing, and sometimes  a bit too in love with himself-with-a-Leica (I speak as someone who has himself been a happy fan of the brand for over 30 years).

Anyway, today I received two emails from purportedly the same general business, this time to do with the Overgaard Academy. Having had a long day of tiresome calls and attempts to reach entities such as utility companies that have no telephone contact other than unmanned recorded options I became a robot myself and without thinking clicked an unsubscribe button.  Now I am wondering if this academy email contact is in fact a scam and if as a result I have opened my computer to hackers. Or is the unsubscribe I did to Thorsten Overgaard's publications previously merely encouraging his wider system to continue contacting me via a slightly different site?

In any event I dislike this, because I do photography — film photography — with Leica to get away from digital saturation in life, not to facilitate yet more digital attention and distraction.  Currently I start each day in the early morning light with an unmetered M3 (silver chrome) or M4 (black chrome) and whichever one Leica lens I feel like using, and go out to take some quiet shots before town gets busy. My photographic education has turned to relying on my own tastes and likes and limited skill to try and produce something worthwhile and to learn from and be content with that. I have learnt a lot from others too along the way, and still no doubt could continue to do so, but what I don't need is the hard sell that intrudes and doesn't take no for an answer.

 

Edited August 5, 2024 by F456

[Anbaric]

On 8/5/2024 at 5:25 PM, F456 said:

Anyway, today I received two emails from purportedly the same general business, this time to do with the Overgaard Academy. Having had a long day of tiresome calls and attempts to reach entities such as utility companies that have no telephone contact other than unmanned recorded options I became a robot myself and without thinking clicked an unsubscribe button.  Now I am wondering if this academy email contact is in fact a scam and if as a result I have opened my computer to hackers. Or is the unsubscribe I did to Thorsten Overgaard's publications previously merely encouraging his wider system to continue contacting me via a slightly different site?

His main site links to an 'academy' site so I would guess this is just ordinary spam:

https://www.overgaard.dk/Thorsten-von-Overgaard-Academy-login-page.html

Run a malware scan if you are concerned - it's a good idea to do this periodically anyway, in addition to the security software you are probably already using. One secondary scanner I use is Malwarebytes:

https://www.malwarebytes.com/

[F456]

I actually have and use Malwarebytes and it has given me the all-clear. Not being all thar IT-savvy I stlll wanted to ask just in case. I feel happy with your response -- thank you.

Edited August 6, 2024 by F456

[Overgaard]

On 8/5/2024 at 12:25 PM, F456 said:

First I must apologize if this post is not in the appropriate forum — it's not an obvious one to find a home for.

Recently I unsubscribed to various and frequent emails from Thorsten Overgaard. Over the last few years I have found some of his musings and tips quite useful, sometimes amusing, and sometimes  a bit too in love with himself-with-a-Leica (I speak as someone who has himself been a happy fan of the brand for over 30 years).

Anyway, today I received two emails from purportedly the same general business, this time to do with the Overgaard Academy. Having had a long day of tiresome calls and attempts to reach entities such as utility companies that have no telephone contact other than unmanned recorded options I became a robot myself and without thinking clicked an unsubscribe button.  Now I am wondering if this academy email contact is in fact a scam and if as a result I have opened my computer to hackers. Or is the unsubscribe I did to Thorsten Overgaard's publications previously merely encouraging his wider system to continue contacting me via a slightly different site?

In any event I dislike this, because I do photography — film photography — with Leica to get away from digital saturation in life, not to facilitate yet more digital attention and distraction.  Currently I start each day in the early morning light with an unmetered M3 (silver chrome) or M4 (black chrome) and whichever one Leica lens I feel like using, and go out to take some quiet shots before town gets busy. My photographic education has turned to relying on my own tastes and likes and limited skill to try and produce something worthwhile and to learn from and be content with that. I have learnt a lot from others too along the way, and still no doubt could continue to do so, but what I don't need is the hard sell that intrudes and doesn't take no for an answer.

 

Dear F456,

The new overgaard-academy.com is the online library for products bought in the past.

It is a new platform that offer any product for view, download, print. This way, if one bought a Leica M10 Video Masterclass, it can be viewed in any browser, or can be downloaded to view offline. 

All the alerts being sent out these days are updates that products are now available that you bought in the past. 

Any other mails in the future that may come with offers to buy other products on the side always have unsubscribe in the bottom of the mail. And if you unsubscribe, you cannot be resubscribed unless you do it yourself.

It has been a big undertaking making all this material available over the last six months. Responses go from "fuck off" to "thank you, this is really honorable". 

Feel free to email me personally at thorsten@overgaard.dk for any concerns or requests. 

🙂

[F456]

Good morning, Thorsten,

Thank you for your explanation about the Overgaard Academy. I appreciate your responding on the thread and while I probably shan't be using the library it is good to hear from you about it. I have sent you an email this morning.

Best wishes.