Saturday, January 4, 2014

2013 and Beyond

At the beginning of every year, I like to go back through the photography I produced during the previous year, and pick out a handful of the best of my nude and erotic shots, to showcase in the gallery on my personal website. But it occurs to me that this year is the first in which some of those shots have not been posted anywhere else before now. So, if you've been curious what I've been up to in the past several months, you can find out at my gallery. You know you want to take a look.

2013 was a significant year for me, because it marked my departure from the photo sharing website flickr. As I explained this past May, flickr played an integral role in my development as an erotic photographer, and it has been a large part of my life ever since 2008, when its community inspired me to participate in the 365 project, which sparked my passion for erotic photography. But recent changes have made the website pretty much unusable for me, so I took advantage of that opportunity to shake things up in my photo sharing routine.

Since then, I've been spending a lot of time on two very different websites. The first is deviantART, where I'm taking the time to post a bunch of my old photos from flickr, in the hopes of expanding my fanbase and garnering new attention to my photography. Their rules prohibit any kind of explicitly sexual imagery, which puts a significant clamp on the photos I can upload there, but they do allow non-sexual nudity, and it features (at least ostensibly) a community that respects art.

The other website I've been frequenting is XTube. As I mentioned here, I followed up my Daily Nudes photography project with a similar video project (that I actually completed!) but I've held off on posting any of those videos, because they're basically porn. But XTube is the perfect site for that, and what's even better, it gives me an opportunity to monetize my work, which is something I've sorely needed to do for a while. So do go and check that out if you want to see my hot, naked body in motion.

In the meantime, I've continued shooting photography - how could I stop? Some of it I've posted right here on this blog, and as I told you above, a bunch of it just went on my website. So if you're a fan of my work on flickr (or anywhere else), and you miss my posts on that website and are curious what I'm up to these days, definitely bookmark this blog, and check my website every so often for updates. And in the meantime, I invite you to keep an eye on my XTube profile - new material is being added daily!

5 comments:

  1. I will surely follow your work on DeviantArt. I have an account there just to look at the photos of some friends. Because, I've been looking for alternatives for the retarded Picasa, too, but I don't want to go from one site with censorship to another one!
    So far, the only thing I found where you can post whatever you want (but for child porn and a couple of other exceptions) is... The Blogger blogs!
    On top of that, I think blogs have the most beautiful interface for photos. As I always say: The difference between other photo- pages and the blogs is like the difference between photos thrown in an old shoebox and framed photos on the wall!
    And it's easy to look at the work on a blog, with all the photos on one long page.
    And you can put videos on them as well!
    So...why don't you show your work on a blog??? :-))
    Glad to see you're back, Sexy!
    XXX!


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  2. Oh, I forgot to mention another and for me big advantage of the blogs: People don't need any account to watch blogs!
    And so, no signing in to watch nudes either!
    You can share it with friends who aren't bloggers as well.

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  3. I will be happy to see you on deviantART!

    You make a lot of good arguments for showing photos on blogs. I guess I haven't given it too much thought - I just figure blogs are better for writing. But then it's not like that stopped me from putting a lot of writing on flickr!

    One thing I prefer about using photo sharing sites is that they practically have a built-in community. When I post a photo on flickr or deviantART, people see it, and respond, and give me feedback. I've hardly ever gotten feedback on my blogs - it makes me feel invisible. Maybe that's because I'm not using it right, or not doing enough advertising, I don't know. I will give it some thought.

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  4. Yes, that's the biggest downside of the blogs, I guess, you don't automatically have an audience. But for me the fact that a blog is 'your own space' with your own 'rules' is much more important. That and the fact that people don't need an account to visit my blog. My visitors come from everywhere, people that I give my "business card" in real life, people I meet online on other sites, my models, and so on.
    I've built up an audience very slowly, and after three years it's still not that big. I have 55 followers now and probably somewhere between 150 and 200 other people that visit very regularly. My photos get viewed about 1500 times, sometimes between 2000 and 3000 times in the long run.
    But, I never made much effort to get more followers.
    I've seen people starting blogs and getting over 500 followers in a couple of months. They follow all the blogs they can find, I think, and many people follow them back. A few more months and they sometimes have over a thousand followers...
    Needless to say, people who follow your blog for this reason, you hardly ever see them back, in most cases.
    But, it seems to work for them.
    I'm still in doubt if I will ever use deviantART, if I do, it's probably mostly to lure more people to my blog. Because... photos look better on a blog, and because... I'm the dictator there! :-))

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  5. I do like being my own dictator! ;-)

    In any case, I think I'm happy to have access to both worlds. I've been trying to lure people to my blog from other sites, and will continue to do so, but it happens slowly if at all. And with my departure from flickr, I was hoping that the promise of exclusive pictures on this blog would attract some more followers (if it has, they've been silent) - since I've posted some photos here since I left flickr that I haven't posted anywhere else.

    But I doubt I'll cease pursuing either avenue. The way I see it, the more places I have a presence, the more people have a chance to discover me!

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