Solo Operation

I am a solo operation.

Selfies the old school way, through the years..

Backstory
I started out as an artist.. as far back as when I was a wee lad of summer camp age.. I gravitated towards the creative activities over things like archery and riflery. I fancied myself a Lover, not a Fighter and creative methods of expression were definitely my passion. As I grew up, specific disciplines grew with importance.. writing being, always, Job One for me.. but I also realized that it would be many years before I realized the dream of being a published author and so, I started exploring sketching.. painting.. and sculpting. 

And then.. one day, a friend of mine handed me his old Nikon F2 and said “have at ‘er..” and did I ever. Before long, I swapped out that F2 for a Canon A1 and, when I was working for the University Newspaper.. I learned the Darkroom thing quite impressively (so much so that I’ve recently built, by mine own two hands, my own darkroom.. the UniDark.. or Tiny Dark.. a small 100sq. ft. darkroom for processing and printing). So much so that I came up with a print “aesthetic” all mine own.. which I’ll get in to at a later date. 

As the online world exploded with new ideas and new ways of making money.. I was always shut out, so to speak. I wasn’t interested in digital gear.. I wasn’t interested in sexualized content (tho, I did go to a few “industry” parties.. by invite only) and I wasn’t interested in the “ambulance chaser” style of photography either (shooting weddings, events, and things like that). I wanted to create.. and being a creator.. a creative mind.. I wasn’t too much appreciated. 

So, at a time when people like Peter Hegre were skyrocketing to stardom and websites like DOMAI were eating through people’s savings.. I wasn’t ever able to get a site up and running.. while they may have started as solo operators, they had teams behind them propping them up and making sure that all they needed to do was deal with.. giving the public what they wanted. And I didn’t want to just give the public what they wanted.. I didn’t want to proffer or pander to the general public’s baser instincts.. their prurient interests.

In fact, Eolake Stobblehouse (the original owner of DOMAI) said that my work was “Too Artistic” for his website.. that, at a time when I felt like I could sort of make a kind- of income with my work. At first, the email reply was heartbreaking.. I was a bike courier and tired of it. I was a good photographer.. but only seldomly shown. I wanted more exhibitions.. more online exposure.. and then I’m told that. But, it was only briefly experienced because I realized that my work was.. more artistic than a style of photography that was called “Simple Nude Photography.” I was more complex.. his audience wouldn’t appreciate that complexity.

So… Today… nearly 30 years after I started shooting nudes.. about 20 years after I started tinkering with website “Content Management Systems” .. I’m using a new system. For most of my webmastering days, I used a system called “XOOPS” which is a modular system. I really liked it- plug in a module and then address it’s presence in menu and on the front page and any time that module had a new element.. it showed it. But.. it suffered from two things.. First, their community and paid membership features were lacking and second.. over the years, people have fallen away from using it. So, I’m forced to explore other CMS options.

All this to say- I am one person. As that one person, I work as webmaster, videographer, video editor, camera operator, and content creator but.. I am~ also~ launching an EcoPUNK project that will see me pilot a pedal powered boat around the world.. AND (as if that wasn’t enough…) I am one half of a growing commercial entity known as “The General Bean.” A lot of work for one person.. 

In closing.. I mention this not seeking sympathy.. but as an explanation as to the sporadicness of content posts and site upgrades. That’s, also, why the cost of being a member here at The Atelier is less than most sites.