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Submitted by Piner 01/31/06 1:46 AM GMT
It is time once again to present to you all the latest Artist Spotlight nominee, the votes have been tallied and the person in the limelight this time is none other then our long-time member and talented image-meister, the one and only Samatar. Be sure to checkout his gallery and give him some feedback on his works. Sam has kindly provided us with the following biographical info.
Here 'tis: First of all, thanks to everyone who nominated little old me to be the featured artist this time around. You put a smile on my face. Hopefully I can give you a little more info here without boring the pants off you all.
To begin with, I live in Brisbane, Australia, in an old "Queenslander" as they are called, which I am in the process of renovating. It's the first time I've really done anything like this and am hoping to be able to make a living out of it, by selling after a year and then moving onto another one. So far it's going pretty well, although as I think is probably always the case in projects like this my initial budget was a little conservative... if you want to see photos there are some posted at www.rescope.com.au/renovation. I live here with my partner of nearly 11 years and my oh-so-precious (and spoiled) beagle Jasmine.
I have been taking photographs since I was about 10 or 11 years old I guess. I was lucky enough to find a camera that someone had lost (and didn't claim after we handed it in to the police)... I had that one for a few years until it broke, and then would you believe I found another one while on holidays! When that one kicked the bucket, my parents bought me one for christmas. I can recall that after returning from one particular school trip away for a few weeks, I was dubbed "Trigger happy Triglone" by my teacher; much to my parents dismay I was unaware of the price of film processing, but I still have an album full of shots from that trip (even though it is only about a third of what I actually took). I bought my first digital camera, a Canon Ixus IV, just before a trip to Thailand; you can still see some of the shots I took there in my gallery. All the cameras I ever had were fully automatic, just "point and click", but I finally took the plunge back in mid '04 and purchased a Nikon D70 digital SLR equipped with two Nikkor lenses, a 70-300 mm zoom and an 18-70 mm. On my last birthday my partner also got me a Tamron 90 mm Macro (probably after some none too subtle hinting) which has quickly become my favorite. I still have a great deal to learn about this camera and it's unbeleivable number of features, but I'm getting there.
As far as CGI goes, I really only got into that after I became a member of this fine website. I heard about photoshop, and just had to try it out, and later decided to give Terragen, and then Bryce a shot. I have performed many, many experiments with these three applications, and a small portion of what I consider to be successful I uploaded to caedes. It is largely thanks to the encouragement of this community that I have persisted in this area, and also gone as far as I have in photography, so I want to thank everyone who has ever given me feedback and suggestions for that. The caedes artists who have inspired me are really too numerous to list here; however the early encouragement and criticism from fantastic photographers like Pierre, Darryl (Mayne) and Samarn was certainly flattering. To think that people I considered to be equal to professional photographers would take the time to comment on my work was very inspiring. I have also always admired to work of TracyJTZ, Cain, Mythica and Mum42.
I must admit, I felt a little guilty to discover that I had been nominated as featured artist, given that I have recently been spending less time here. Perhaps now that there is a chance I might actually make a bit of money out of my hobby, I can justify my addiction! In any case I am just glad that there are others who are dedicated to keeping caedes a great place for artists, new and old, and making it even better as it grows and develops. Before I sign off I should say thanks to Piner for taking over the running of the featured artist scheme while I am being lazy. And finally, of course, a big thanks to the eye in the sky who made it all happen and continues to put up with all of us and our artistic whims. Thanks Geri!
