It's August (and my vacation time is finally here) we are travelling once again to another part of the dA world to bring you the amazing images of yet another fantastic artist!

This time, we are going to South Africa to feature the incredible landscapes of another photographer I just got the pleasure of discovering!

It's my pleasure to introduce Hougaard Malan a.k.a. *hougaard as the featured artist for August 2009!

With the arrival of July (and let's hope, the start of summer weather) we are travelling once again to another part of the dA world to bring you the amazing images of yet another fantastic artist!

This time, we are going to Ukraine to feature the work of a photographer I just got the pleasure of discovering!

It's my pleasure to introduce Vladimir Konovalov a.k.a. =soulofautumn87 as the featured artist for July 2009!

So... What's new... Well I've been spending so much on my computer for my job that I've kind of not been online as much and, when I was here, I've pretty much only had time to basically respond to the messages that were sent to me (and most of the time it took a little while to do even that... I apologize for that!) I currently have litterally thousands of images in my devwatch that I haven't had time to go through but I'm still hoping I will find the time!

Besides all that boring everyday life stuff what have I been up to...

Well you might have noticed (at least I hope some of you have) that I've been trying a lot of different things photographically and trying different lighting setups and generally working very hard to improve myself with what I do... I've also been really busy looking at how people approach lighting and learning as much as I can by reading, watching DVD's and old videos about lighting, composing and stuff like that, TV shows and webtutorials...

Why?

I felt I was at a stand still in my photos for too long a time (2007 and most of 2008)... During that time I think I pretty much did not evolve at all... I became very comfortable with the style I was going for and stopped exploring. Besides I felt "safe" in doing what I was doing, people seemed to like my images, the models were happy with the results and when you try things there is always a possibility that it won't work and I was "afraid" of disapointing the wonderful people I was taking photos of...

Well that time has passed.

Besides, seeing the results of all these trials have given me new faith in my habilities as a photographer! Of course I make sure to make "safer" photos of all the people I work with as well as photos that are more experimental! I would never volontarily risk a model leaving and not be happy with the results!

Guess that's what I've been up to... Besides that, after about 11 years, my faithfull Viewsonic Professional CRT monitor died a few months ago... So I had to finally resign myself to buying an LCD screen... Well after making that transition, I noticed that going from a 19" CRT screen to a 25.5" LCD widescreen allows you to see a lot more annoying details on the photos... I say annoying because I now notice that I've really outgrown my camera... Noise in the shadow areas at ISO 100... It's driving me nuts!

I want a Canon 5D Mark II and a new lense!

Anyone have 5000$ that you don't need?

Well that's it for now! Hope I didn't bore you all with that long journal!

Once again, THANK YOU to everyone who added my work to their favorites! I really appreciate it a lot!




I've received quite a few requests to use my photos for a variety of purposes and I always give the following answer... The answer is "No, my photos are not stock, they can't be used, referenced, modified, copied or whatever..."

Here is the reason why...

1. The agreement I have with my models (a lot of whom are also close friends) is that the photos will not be used or modified by someone other than myself or the model. I value the trust they have put in me to make sure that the portrayal of them or the concept we created together will remain under our control. If I gave permission to use the photos I lose part of that control and in a sense I violate the trust of my friends and creation partners and I will never accept doing that.

2. I feel that the images I create with the models are very personal... I and the model put a lot of ourselves in the work and I can't stand to see it modified, copied or used... When that happens I feel it is no longer as much mine and that I lose the part of myself I've put in the project and in the photo.

So that being said, all unauthorised uses are prohibited. No permission to manipulate/reference will be given for any of my work displayed here or on any other sites I use, unless you have commissioned me to create some photos for you or you have licensed one or more of my photos... For more information on the subject, please consult the following journal

June is upon us and this month I decided to travel (virtually) to Europe to feature the work of an amazing model from Germany.

It's my pleasure to introduce ~blackfantastix as the featured artist for June 2009!

It's been a while since I've had a chance to update my journal but then again I didn't have much to say!

Now I have a couple of things that I wanted to talk about... For the first thing, I will start in French followed by the English translation...

Pour ceux qui ne sont pas encore au courant, il y a un Devmeet qui est présentement en train de s'organiser à Montréal. Celui-ci aura lieu le samedi 9 mai et nous nous rencontrons à midi au métro Mont-Royal!

Les détails sont disponible dans le journal de *cursedbycharm qui est l'organisatrice à l'adresse suivante: [link]

J'espère vous y voir en grand nombre!

Now in English... For those of you who haven't heard yet, there is a Devmeet being organized in Montreal which will take place on Saturday May 9th... The meeting will take place at noon at the Mont-Royal Metro.

For all the details please consult the journal of *cursedbycharm who is the organizer at the following address: [link]

I hope to see a lot of people there!

Now for the second thing, I really wanted to say thanks to everyone of you who added my work to your s. I really appreciate the support and I'm really happy that you continue to enjoy the images that I create.

For those of you who've been watching me for a while, you probably know that I tried my best to thank everyone that added one or many of my photos to their favorites but sadly I can no longer keep up with the amount of "activity" messages that I'm getting. Just to illustrate what I mean, at the moment I have several thousand activity messages for favorites alone in my inbox. Therefore, I'm sorry that I won't be able to keep thanking everyone individually for favs but be assured that I really do appreciate them and that I will continue to respond to all comments!

Thank you very much for your support and for your understanding!




I've received quite a few requests to use my photos for a variety of purposes and I always give the following answer... The answer is "No, my photos are not stock, they can't be used, referenced, modified, copied or whatever..."

Here is the reason why...

1. The agreement I have with my models (a lot of whom are also close friends) is that the photos will not be used or modified by someone other than myself or the model. I value the trust they have put in me to make sure that the portrayal of them or the concept we created together will remain under our control. If I gave permission to use the photos I lose part of that control and in a sense I violate the trust of my friends and creation partners and I will never accept doing that.

2. I feel that the images I create with the models are very personal... I and the model put a lot of ourselves in the work and I can't stand to see it modified, copied or used... When that happens I feel it is no longer as much mine and that I lose the part of myself I've put in the project and in the photo.

So that being said, all unauthorised uses are prohibited. No permission to manipulate/reference will be given for any of my work displayed here or on any other sites I use, unless you have commissioned me to create some photos for you or you have licensed one or more of my photos... For more information on the subject, please consult the following journal