Jim52-Photoworks

I've done a number of new shoots since Covid loosened its grip on things; I just don't know where to post any of it. Flickr had been a good environment because you could control who could see and who could comment on any post. But Flickr has now started charging photographers to post mature work (while the wankers get to see it for free), so it's out. The overall environment here has declined so precipitously (trolls, wankers, IP theft, self-appointed morality police, along with Eclipse foibles), that I wouldn't even consider posting uncensored nudes on DA. I feel like my vision, skills and my editing (as well as my equipment) have all improved significantly. My work is also much edgier than it used to be. Perhaps Model Society is a place where I can display some select works.

A recent post by phydeau about editing led me to explore some additional approaches (and steps) in my editing. I think it's a big improvement. Thanks Eric, you helped more than you know!

Once again there is a tragic death in the world of art models. This was a model I hadn't actually connected with for a shoot, but had had some correspondence with. I was utterly saddened to hear of her passing, so much so that I felt stunned for a period of time before I was able to collect myself enough to comment. The total tragedy of it all is overwhelming.

R. I. P.

Life is so short - live it while you can.

Note: Please no "who was she?" or speculative commentary on the circumstances. Be respectful. I don't want this to be an opportunity for idle chatter about a sad event.

I'm sure others have commented on this before, but views counts on images posted here on DA seem to be so clearly inflated compared to what they were five years ago when I was posting work here regularly. Back then, one of my implied images would get maybe 400 views, topless 600 to 700, a full-frontal nude would get maybe a thousand. I think my most-viewed image back then had a little over 4,000 views.

Of the batch of images I've posted relatively recently, all have over 10,000 views, with the highest being 14.7k views. And none of them are nudes. I don't have significantly more watchers than I had in years past - it seems to run somewhere in the 3,300 range, so it's not that. It makes no sense. Clearly as a currency, view counts are so inflated as to be meaningless/worthless.

PS - The person who feels compelled to jump on and stridently comment that "view counts are meaningless and that it's all about art yadda, yadda, yadda" will have their comment deleted and and be blocked. That's not what this post is about - I just find this whole DA-gone-off-the-rails thing off-putting, and the view count thing seems to be another clear manifestation of it.

I'd like to be able to offer prints for sale, but selling prints through DA is untenable. I've noodled a whole bunch of approaches, but it seems like I'd need to have a store apparatus set up somehow - it seems too risky to try to do it on my own with PayPal payments. Perhaps I could make it work if I offered prints through eBay and use their payment engine - seems like there would be less exposure to fraud that way.

I may start posting occasionally here again, but I will no longer publish uncensored nudes on DA. Too many trolls, IP thieves and self-appointed morality police here.