Click the button and go have a read if you have not seen insaneone's community focuses news article yet... This time he is suspiciously, uncharacteristically eloquent and philosophical in his writing Hmm, who does that remind me of...

"You couldn't ghostwrite if your invisible-ink pen died!"
- Sage Francis

Anyhow, read it, think about it, take it to heart.

Lisa has been there for me this last year whenever I needed a shoulder to lean on, she always gives more then her fair share of support to any stray that she finds who needs it. She is having an unbelievably hard time now, keep her in your thoughts and beam some loving energy her way she deserves some.

I said last week I'd talk about Resurgere some, I better do it this week before I forget.

I get asked from time to time by people why I work at Resurgere, because I'm a photographer not a manipulator so they don't get the motivation. The general rule is serious photographers don't understand the needs of manipulators and how important good resources are to their medium, and a serious photographer is more attached to their work then someone who is not serious and it's harder to give their work up. Well, I was not always a photographer, when I got my first camera and started shooting I did so to get my own stock, because I was a devoted manipulator at the time.

I think it is an advantage to shot as much of your own stock as you can. I started with a tiny camera and no training, so my photography was not very remarkable, but I decided to start a new dA account to share my photography as stock. resurgere. [Fortunately I did not call it shawns-stock or the like]...

I saw room to improve the way I distributed my stock, if I was going to put time and energy into it I wanted the process to be as efficient as it could be. I started paying attention to branding, packaging, and most importantly decided the account could do more as a collective effort then I could ever make it do alone. A lucky set of changes without which that account would not be anything special today. But it is special, I could quote stats at you to try and explain how big the thing is now, but the only metric that matters is use: our resources have contributed to tens of thousands of pieces of artwork. We have inspired, supported, put in hours of unpaid labor for, and shared our own art with so many artists over the years. I see our stock at almost every art community site I go on the internet now.

I don't want to sit here and give a history class, or brag about what the team has accomplished together. And I certainly don't want to take too much credit for it all, because the team work aspect which I don't have space to get into here is impossible to overemphasize. I am going to talk about why I do it then exactly what I've done, because that's more important for people to think about.

Initially I think it started from a desire to give back for all the resources I had been given access too when I needed them and had no way to produce my own. I understood the need for good textures/stock etc because those were my needs too, and thought I could help others by sharing. That transcends any particulars and can apply to a lot of other areas besides resources, you see a need and you work to help. Even when I stopped doing digital composite as much and focused more on my photography, I did not forget how helpful it had been to receive completely free usable resources from people. You could say perhaps, those that helped me, inspired me to help others, and credit is due to them for what good I've done. I hope Our example at Resurgere inspires others in turn [indeed I've had people come up and say that We have inspired them to start stocking]. It goes back the Become The Change thing in a way, working on an individual level trying to reach our potential we can have a ripple effect that'll help change the wider community for the better.

I think now more then just a desire to 'give back' is a deeper sentiment, appreciating how good it feels to receive and wanting to share that feeling with everyone else. Empathy, caring, etc. All to fucking rare on the internet, and in real life.

I'm not at dA to hit on all the hot chicks we have running around here, you know. I'm here to hit on one of them in particular, and besides her I hang around here for the art. And the artists. Otherwise I'd be wasting my time at myspace or *gasp* real life. And my greatest sense of empathy comes for those kids/people now, who remind me of myself back in the day. People really serious about their photoshopping/painting/whatever, that it means a lot to them, it has a meaning. They don't have to be experts in art history, or technical masters of their medium, but their work has to be watered by their sweat and their tears and their blood. The work can be a subpar manip because they might not have had the time or experience to learn every trick yet, of some cliché subject they choose because that's the work they've seen by others that they responded and they want people to respond to their work too, but it's still beautiful to me when I see some kid trying to express how he or she sees the world, see them making artwork. That is really who I hope to help most, people less serious about their photoshopping are most welcome to taste of the fruit of my work but the fruit is grown for artists. For young and new artists learning most of all, because they are most at risk of struggling and quitting if they don't receive the support they need, resources are a part of that. Appreciation and respect is a part of that support too, and we should all keep that in mind and spread that out liberally.

In that sense I guess I am more 'looking after my own' and only taking the easy leap of empathy to people like myself, but it is not that I don't care about other sorts of people [ie, those using the stock for their horse rpg sigs] I just care about them a little less then the ones I perceive as serious artists. But it's an example of supporting what I feel is important in a hope that that side of the community will flourish

I'd like to have more time to shoot more photos just for stock, as time has gone on I need less stock myself and most of what I shoot for art is not very useful as stock. I still share everything that might be useful, I think one of my recent landscapes is my top 10 most pop art photos and i have a copy of it sitting in folder which will be uploaded as my next Nature Pkg. Have no problem sharing freely for artist and academic use, commercial use is a more complex matter but I won't get into that atm. Even though my own art is so important to me, I'm willing to let anyone chop it up and do who knows what if that will help them learn or make their art... I'd like to get The Legion ramped up to many more people then we have had time to recruit, there are a lot of good little stock producers we need to bring to our everyones attention and there are a hell of a lot of great artists from the art parts of dA that could be sharing their stock - Legion is aimed at helping with that... I'd like to get Tutorials running we have exciting designs in place but not the time to build them up - it's important and it's coming asap. Legion Tutorials could be great. I'd like to clear out the have 700+ comments & like 80+ notes to look at that have piled up recently, we look at every picture we are linked to, takes a lot of time and there is a lot of ' paper work '.

There is a lot more I'd like to do but don't find the time easily, I still make a lot of time for this and a lot of other stuff like it that does not benefit me directly - but which more importantly lets me live up the expectations and responsibility I place on myself to work to improve the communities I choose to be a part of [the wider art community in general, and in this case dA as well]. Which does not make me a saint or special, but shows I am someone that takes this sort of thing very seriously, anyone like that can plant the seed of something much bigger then themselves like I did for Resurgere. It started one upload, one usage, at a time and snowballed from there- there are a lot of great things waiting to grow in the world they just need a start, I wrote at length here hoping to encourage other people to think seriously about their role in the communities they choose to be a part of. Never know where that thinking might take you, you might be surprised how far it leads.



... Damn, I am such a windbag No wonder I like Joe Biden so much! Btw don't forget to vote it's coming up soon, and I say vote early if you can. Unless you are voting for Mc, then you can forget I don't mind.