Going back to the
beginning of GGB web, there had to be some confusion as to what format and
appearance this web should have. The current web appearance did not just
popped out from the sky. There was no one out there who came and put down
on the table the matrix of how things will end up looking. The appearance
of Girls-Gone-Bare.com (GGB) has already changed four times since the
beginning in January 2006, and currently (January of 2007) undergoes another
transformation. But in all of this the main idea remained unchanged. The
only reason why we are still changing and improving the web appearance is
because we did not figured out yet how to best present that vision to the
visitor.
The principals of
GGB have been defined long before the first image was even created. The
principals were established based on influence of two webs – Domai.com and
Gallery-Carre.com.
Each
of these two webs offered innovative elements
that GGB aims to combine in one display.
Domai.com resigned from dry and frankly
meaningless to me promotional statements and
instead engaged in a forum of articles,
discussions and opinions while at the same time
displaying great images of nude models. Our
first principal was to generate a happy marriage
between the spoken word and artistic images.
In that we want to relay mainly on the spoken
word as the images would provide pleasant
background for that discussion. Although at
this time the quantity of images outnumber the
volume of articles, this will change in the
future.
From multitude of many great webs
that display images of nude female models, Gallery-Carre.com
images appealed to me the most. This was due to the fact that
the ratio between mediocre images to great images was almost
zero to one hundred. This was unprecedented to find over
ninety percent of images worth to stop and look at. Not only
that the images were vivid and artistic but the simplicity and
selection of colors was interesting. I wanted to create the
web that would do the same on a greater scale. The second main
principal of GGB web would be to publish only the meaningful
images and discard the rest. I am trying to stick tight to
that principal. For example you can find maybe fifty images of
Julia inside our webs, however, we have made over one thousand
images during three photography sessions with Julia.
As I was
developing GGB, additional influence and ideas were provided by observing our
other partners like MET-ART.com, MPL Studios, Hegre-Art.com, FEMJOY.com,
MoreyStudio.com and Harris-Archives.com. With time I have realized that
each of them has a very specific taste and style. That prompted me to write
an article called
“Competition”. I also realized that as hard as I may try
to mimic others I have my own style and sense of taste. The more I work
the clearer it comes to me that not only I have my own style, but no matter
how hard I try to part myself from it, the style is impossible to hide or
camouflage.
I
heard it in the news from other artists where they refer to “finding
themselves” or “discovering themselves” and now I understand what that may
mean. It is not until one tries to express himself artistically and only
then he /she can first notice and explore their point of artistic view.
As
I create my images I have difficulty to subside
the specific style that I need to obtain in
order to be satisfied and at the end when I am
done I see that the new creation is a sibling to
other that I have already created in the past.
I have my own style and there is no escape from
that. Instead of fighting it why don’t I just
jump in and create what I like while forgetting
what others do. That is what exactly I have
decided to do – be myself.
In
secrecy I have to admit that for a long time and
even today Eolake was kind of a model and an
inspiration to me. I have built in my head an
image of a man who was relaxed, confident, and
successful in his web art and photography. The
more I was examining the man and his webs, the
more I was realizing that he already achieved
what I was striving to achieve or at least it
seamed to be. He was a writer, photographer,
artist, and a publisher of his own webs. If he
was optimizing his web himself then he had to be
an awesome webmaster since his web was on top of
just about any search criteria that one could
imagine. Domai.com was the most consistently
seen web in most searches as it was immune to
any combinations of web challenges. How cool
it must be to have a web that not only provides
entertainment to scores of visitors but it is
also a podium from which one can pontificate and
express his points of view.
I did contact Eolake under the
pretext of business relation as my web is an affiliate to his
program. The response from Eolake to my letter came back one
hour after I send it. The response was short in words and
inviting to discussion. Eolake challenged me to explain why I
was expecting my web traffic to increase logarithmically. He
also disagreed with me about switching to Nikon equipment from
Canon. In all I have sensed that he wanted to talk and at the
same time it was obvious to see that he was learning about me.
I did not prevent him from doing that because I wanted to take a
chance to establish not really a business partnership but rather
a personal friendship. Using first opportunity I attached my
photograph to the e-mail to enable him to see the man he was
communicating with. I saw Eolake’s photographs on his web and
now we both were aware how we looked like. Because we both
were about the same age and European descent, I was hoping that
the partnership had a chance to begin. At the end I had to
retrieve and wait for the next opportunity for further
contact.
Before I would communicate again with
Eolake, I
decided to bring my web to a higher intellectual
standard to have some leverage to rely on.
For a
moment I have put beavers aside and enjoyed a
different cup of tea – images of the fireworks
(KINGDOM) show that I shot in Florida on 23
December of 2006
See
additional set of fireworks images – called
“CELEBRATION”
