DeviantART Logo by $liquisoft

3^years

Reflecting on my deviantART existance ...

Today marks three years on deviantART for me, and what a wonderful three years it has been. I've come from uploading horrible eyesores to halfway-decent images:

I know plenty of people that go through their galleries and delete older images because they don't show the artist's current skill level, which is fair enough; I, however, like to keep mine there because they show my progress and challenge me to continue to do better.

Plenty of friends have been made along the way, too. ~Danny-Nitestrider was my first watcher (almost a full month after I joined ), and without the support of him and all that followed I could never have improved my photography as I believe I have. Here's a list of all the awesome people I associated with in the beginning:

• ~NightsHorror
• ~Ackriff
• ~CherrySunshine
• ~kimi-is-so
• ~random-nothings
• ~WestFullMoon
• ~Patricia-Alexandra
• ~kataryna81

Then came the deviantMEET headed up by *DevMeetSyd (~SnipePhotography and =p0isonphotography) on the 23^rd of February, 2008.

Oh my dog, look at that horrible hair!

I met very many awesome people at the meet, including my girlfriend, =Julijaaa. They are (but not limited to): ~XSI-Apprentice, =lil-delicate-angel, ~TaSh-C, ~profaine and ~osirisunnefer. During future meets and miniMEETs I met ~maxisoft, ~afraid-to-fly, `gimmyfood, *AB-Photography, =danielsun and a host of others who I've forgotten (sorry!).

In November 2008, with *DevMeetSyd long dead, #SydneySyders launched. It was headed up but the aforementioned `gimmyfood and *AB-Photography and was a big success, holding meets every month with good attendance numbers.

And then came the world tour. On May 5^th of last year I received a note from $Heidi divulging her and $spyed's plans to be in Sydney as the starting point for their tour. This was big, and #SydneySyders went nuts. Eight days later was the meet, and numbers were HUGE! I met many more wonderful people there.

A few of us also had the chance to meet and get to know $spyed and $Heidi later in the week without the big crowds.

Two months after the world tour, with $spyed and $Heidi back in their natural habitat of LA, #SydneySyders was converted from a regular club account into a group - the second public group to exist behind only #hq, and the first non-admin group. Since then the majority of my deviantART activity has been alpha-testing the groups system initially with `gimmyfood, and then with all the awesome people from #devBUG. My deviations have slowed and I haven't taken many photos at all in the last year compared to 2007 and 2008. Groups soft-launched in December so work with them has increased a hundredfold as the thousands of questions and bug reports roll in.

I'll end this journal with a selection of the deviations I have marked as favourites in the last three years!

The 26th Dimension  by Nicole Terry                            Hello! And welcome to the 26th Dimension. Careful, you will encounter many unusual attractions. Please mind where you step, the floor in the 10th dimension can get a bit runny, and the walls in the 17th dimension disintegrate altogether. Of course, by the 20th dimension, the telescopic ceiling will evaporate for your mental safety, but you’ll not be able to forget the pregnant pull of event horizons on your body I promise you that. No, please

And those are just a few.