I was hoping to spend Jan-Feb-March in Southern France and Spain, but I could not find affordable lodging, and still do shoots with new talent.

The other side of factory porn studios and mega sites loading up on cheap labor, and buying up independent sites for 10% to roll up into their "networks", is that we independent studios have less cash to hire more unique, and less exposed, talent from the west.

Last year, there was a studio here from Spain and one from France, but contact with them has fizzled out. Our Russian friend has gone silent since coming on strong a year or more ago.

I'm not sure if we've ever had a content shooter from the Scandinavian countries here. I would like to add some of that! When I was in Berlin a year and a half ago, I contacted some models up north, including Denmark, but between language and slow response time, wasn't able to put a trip together.

I do miss Maxpixels wider range of model talent, the Maxpixels before the mysterious hard drive crash, and Ounique was a few minutes before my time as an infrequent content buyer.