BLUR magazine | ISSUE 34 | December 2013
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photo: Mark Osterman
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http://www.fojo.me/
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A WORD FROM THE EDITOR
photo: Borut Peterlin
Although we are at the end of the year, my thoughts have long been focused on the year 2014. Some might think that this year was easy, but that’s far from the truth. Besides the fact that the team was working hard this whole year on our new website, we have also put in some new content. We’ve increased our pace from quarterly to a bi-monthly release, and the biggest challenge was certainly the launch of our billing system, which required a lot of effort to make work perfectly. But now that’s all behind us, and I look forward to finding the ideal balance of content that will make us much more than just a platform for downloading our magazine. I say ideal balance because it’s important not to overdo it in anything that might affect the quality of the journal our readers are accustomed to. Therefore, we are carefully working on new ideas that will close the circle by creating a format that should be the foundation of BLUR for the long run. I believe we are on the right track, but I will share the details with you in the year ahead. Let’s see this one out in a holiday spirit :) . Happy New Year! Your BLUR team
Robert Gojević, founder and editor in chief
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impressum Robert Gojević
founder | chief editor | design | art director | desktop publishing
Michael McAllister
proofreading
e-mail: robert.gojevic@blur-magazine.com
Ivan Pekarik
acting executive editor | PR
Dario Devčić
programmer | web developer
e-mail: ivan.pekarik@blur-magazine.com
Denis Pleić
columnist | translator
Želimir Koščević
expert associate
e-mail: denis.pleic@blur-magazine.com
Maurício Sapata
editor of Pinhole & Playstick
Zsolt Scheffer
Blur collaborator and Japanese translator
e-mail: mauricio.sapata@blur-magazine.com
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JOSE MANUEL MADRONA
PLAYSTICK
KATJA SONNEWEND
INSTANTION
PAWEL ŚMIALEK
WET PLATE
STEPHAN OPITZ
PROJECT
EVGENY KOLESNIK
CLOSE UP
INGETJE TADROS
GALLERY 36
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MICHAEL ALCANTARA DE GUZMAN
PROEYECT
JULIETA BENOIT
OPEN
SREĆKO JUBIĆ
WIDE
LAURENT MIAILLE
TETRA
DIANE MARTIN PETERSON
PINHOLE
FOJO
PLAYSTICK
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JOIN THE BEST! GALLERY 24 by Robert Gojević
Submit up to two of your best photos through our form below to enter our editorial review process that selects a total of 24 photos for publication in the upcoming issue of BLUR. If the magic number of 24 is already full, don’t despair—your photos will also enter a BLUR community voting round, where our readers will select an additional 12 photos that will complement our editorial selection and constitute the final 36 photos that will be showcased in the Gallery 36 section of the next issue of BLUR magazine.
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VOTING Every day photos from all over the wold end up in our mailbox. The most interesting ones go the the folder “Editor’s Choice”, and the other photos which we like, but which didn’t make it into the 24 best go into the folder “People’s Voice”, where our readers vote for the 12 best. The most voted photo becomes “Photo of the Month: People’s Voice”, and gets published together with the remaining 11 in the next issue of BLUR magazine.
GALLERY 12 by BLUR readers
These 12 photos are the result of readers’ votes on our web site in the period from September to November 2013. BLUR magazine | ISSUE 34 | December 2013
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Boundless Felicia Simion https://www.facebook.com/felicia.simion.photography Romania
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Tais Yuri Iluhin www.fotoatelie.by Belarus
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Glamour Room Alessandro www.alecastelli.it Italy
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Lucija Krunoslav Perasović Croatia
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My solitude Arina Borodina http://www.arinabphotography.com USA
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The Truth Paulina Manterys http://paulinamanterys.blogspot.com/ Poland
Close-up | brings readers closer to a photographer by providing extensive insight into his work. The photographer is presented through a wide selection of photographs, a detailed interview, and by highlighting important biographical information. Imagine talking with a photographer whom you admire over a cup of coffee. This is exactly what BLUR’s editor-in-chief does in this section—virtually, of course.
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by Robert Gojević
EVGENY KOLESNIK I like challenges
http://www.ekolesnik.com Ukraine
“I like challenges, and I think that facing them gives a photographer an opportunity to approach the reality of creating work. Of course, I am ambitious and want to move forward and never stop developing. I don’t have an image that in my opinion is better. They are all different; each and every portrait tells its own story..”
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1 | Tell us something about yourself from the time before you became a photographer. I was born in the small town of Sumy. From early childhood I was fond of sports. That’s why I decided to go into gymnastics and ended up being seriously involved in dance (break dancing). This passion of mine took me abroad where I bought my first camera, a Canon 20D, which completely changed my thinking.
2 | Is there a particular photo tradition you work in? And, in general, what can you tell us about the photo scene in Ukraine? Ukraine is rich in natural scenery. And probably the most impressive are the vast fields. The scenery is reflected in the national flag of Ukraine: it consists of two parts, blue for the sky and yellow for a wheat field. And, of course, the modeling profession is hightly developed in Ukraine too.
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Project | is a section that presents a photographer through a series of photos united by a particular theme that works as a cohesive whole and is elaborated on by an artist statement.
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by Robert Gojević
STEPHAN OPITZ Tibetan people
http://www.opitz-photographie.de/ Germany
“However, I love to travel, and because of my scientific work, I’ve had the chance to visit exciting
places all over the world with my camera. Some pictures in my portfolio are the result of scientific fieldwork or exhibitions. My most impressive discovery of all were the Tibetan people. ”
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Photography of Stephan Opitz
I started photography six years ago, inspired by the great artworks of Robert Capa, Josef Hoflehner, and Michael Kenna. However, I think it is important for photographers to find their own style, and I don’t want to copy somebody else. For me color easily distracts. Without color, the picture is reduced to contrast, composition, light, structure, and shape. Therefore, I prefer black and white photography. It offers me a wide range of creative possibilities to express my views on subjects. Taking pictures is exciting and relaxing at the same time—it offers a way to hold on to unique moments in nature and our environment. My motivation is to express something. I take pictures for me primarily. I am pleased to hear when others like my pictures or concepts, however, it is not my motivation. For me the camera is just a tool to capture a moment. From my point of view, the most important factor for a good picture is the photograph behind the camera. Therefore I think it is completely secondary which camera the picture is taken with. At the moment, I use a DSLR and a variety of lenses and, in most cases, a tripod. I started to photograph architecture because I like clear shapes and structures. During that time I learned a lot about composition, light, and to be patient. In my opinion, it is important to visit photographic sites several times at various times of the day to get the perfect picture. But often when I a travel, I don’t have the opportunity to explore a site more than once. In these cases, I improvise. However, I love to travel, and because of my scientific work, I’ve had the chance to visit exciting places all over the world with my camera. Some pictures in my portfolio are the result of scientific fieldwork or exhibitions. My most impressive discovery of all were the Tibetan people. They make such an intense impression on me. They are very proud. During my time on the Tibetan Plateau, I took the opportunity to take pictures of people who live under extreme conditions. The entire series can be seen on my website: www.opitzphotographie.de. Perhaps in the future I will have the opportunity to visit them again. For me, it is important to give something back. Therefore some of my pictures are available for purchase at www.photocircle.net. This unique picture agency, based in Berlin, has a socially conscious concept; with each purchase you have the opportunity to support a humanitarian project in the region the photo was taken. At the moment, I work using photographic series because they offer a great opportunity to tell stories and to present concepts in books. I am now working on various projects, and I hope that some of them with be ready to publish within a few months. Two current major projects are the city of Paris and a series about geological relics. Several pictures included in my portfolio received awards in national and international photographic contests, and I have had the chance to present some of my works in exhibitions. BLUR magazine | ISSUE 34 | December 2013
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WET PLATE is a section dedicated to an antique photographic process discovered in the mid 19th century, which was also a primary photographic method used until the 1880s. It refers to a process of pouring a solution collodion onto a plate of thin iron or glass, then placing the plate into a camera and exposing it to the light and, at the end, developing that plate while it is still wet, which is the reason of naming the process (and our section) “wet plate�. The images resulting from this process can be ambrotypes, glass negatives or tintypes. Although quite a demanding, expensive and lengthy process, wet plate collodion technique is gaining back its popularity among many contemporary photographers.
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PAWEL ŚMIALEK My obsession
http://ambrotypy.blogspot.com/ Poland
“I stare at people all the time: in the subway, on the bus, on the street. Collodion captures the look, emphasizes their power. I steal a piece, and I put it on glass. I stare long and without embarrassment. This is my private ritual. Satisfying my curiosity. My obsession.
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FRIEND OF INSTANTION section
INSTANTION is a section dedicated to instant analog photography. The name of this section combines the words instant and station, or as we call it, a place for instant photography. Instant photography refers to any photographic process that allows photo development without the darkroom. Instant photography was developed in the 1930s by Edwin Land, founder of the Polaroid Corporation. Because of its popularity, most of the photographers in this section use Polaroid film, but artists using Impossible or Fuji instant film are certainly welcome.
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by Robert Gojević
KATJA SONNEWEND Cross-legged
http://www.sonnewend.com/ Germany “This editorial was produced for Swiss KINKI magazine in collaboration with New Yorkbased stylist Travis Steele Sisk. We worked in a hotel room on the Lower East Side Manhattan. My work is always inspired by the absurdity of beauty and the fantastic magic of the human body. I love to create new unsettled but aesthetic creatures acting in the farcical situations of daily life.”
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Katja Sonnewend is a photographer from Berlin. After studying Fine Arts in the Netherlands, she is catching the eye of an impressive selection of publications, such as GQ magazine, Vogue and Sleek magazine as well as many websites. Her soft and sensitive photographs are surprisingly detached and almost painterly in their chilling tranquility, and all the more alluring when in Polaroid form. Katja is someone who definitely takes the time to consider and celebrate the color she will capture. Her style makes sense in light of the artists who have influenced her, and it is clear that she is a considerate and eloquent artist. Her images are evocative of eras passed and telling of the here and now. She is a master craftsman of human feeling.
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FRIEND OF PLAYSTICK section
PLAYSTICK is a section dedicated to “toy camera� photography. The name Playstick comes from a well known simplified male figure illustration called Play Stick. The name also contains the word plastic as an association to plastic (or toy) cameras like Diana, Holga, Lomo LC-A, Lubitel, and others.
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by Maurício Sapata
JOSE MANUEL MADRONA Little framed dreams
www.blurrystuff.com Spain “We glide smoothly through the language of dreams and we found ourselves. We recognize within the pact with the dreamed image, desired or revealed. Find a dream and hunt it. Frame it so that we can look in the mirror in which we have already seen ourselves. Although we do not remember.”
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My work is oriented toward photography with plastic lens cameras, lenses imperfect and not always clear, as well as towards experimentation with film and alternative photographic processes.
I also fabricate my own cameras and lenses with the purpose of finding artistic expression connected to onirism, the automatic creation, the simplicity of forms, and all that is fertile to live by within itself, with its own identity and personality.
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- About the project
“We glide smoothly through the language of dreams and we found ourselves. We recognize within the pact with the dreamed image, desired or revealed. Find a dream and hunt it. Frame it so that we can look in the mirror in which we have already seen ourselves. Although we do not remember.”
The set of images that make “Little Framed Dreams” are a walk around the world of the dreams through the vision of analog photography with toy cameras and plastic lenses.
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FOJO
complete photo app
www.fojo.me/ Croatia “We wouldn’t say that it is the most powerful photo app, there are a lot of apps out there ruling specific fields. We like to think that Fojo is a complete photo app, giving you loads of options to manipulate your photos before and after you have shot them, giving you a lot of creative freedom. What is unique to Fojo is our Film Factory that allows to users to create their own effect presets aka films, save them, share them and edit them some more. Entire workflow is similar to real camera use: you can choose a film, set the format and a lens, plus a lot of manual controls and options which appear when you hit the Advanced mode. Fojo is perfectly integrated with Enfojer, our smartphone enlarger for photo printing the old way, so it prepares negatives for printing, sets the exposure time and controls every step of the enlarging process by voice control. Voice control because you have your hands full in the dark :)”
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1) Hello. You are known as the makers of smartphone photo enlarger that takes people back to the darkroom and prints b&w straight from their phones. How did you come by this idea?
2) You often say that you started this thing “to preserve artistic beauty of the photographic process”. Can you explain this love for old school technology?
Well, the idea for Enfojer was a consequence that has it’s roots in Ilija’s vision to create a mighty and cool photo app. He was well into the developement of the app, thinking up more and more features every day, along with Vanda, Leo and Daniel as a occasional advisor on the technical aspects of the app. But soon we realized that we „need“ a piece of hardware, something that conects the photography that it used to be with photograph that it is now. Also, we were sad with fact that darkrooms all over the world are disappearing and decided to do something about that. We strongly belive that process so beautiful must be preserved for future generations, so we worekd hard, made four protoyps of it and now we have perfect little home enlarger, Enfojer.
There is no other way to get rich and deep blacks on your photos than using silver halides emulsions. No inkjet printer in the world can do this. Secondly, the moment of magic where a photo appears on white paper out of nowhere. We developed thousands of photos and it still brings a smile to our face. Old school photo printing opens many creative possibilities; you can start playing with exposures, then types of paper and a lot of other things. Whatever you do and even if you do everything exactly the same, every print is unique, due to the chemical imperfections. We just think that a photo does not really “live” until it has been printed on paper.
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3)But you’re not stopping there. This month you launched a photo app that has already been described more powerful than any of existing. What’s the idea behind the app and what makes it so powerful? We wouldn’t say that it is the most powerful photo app, there are a lot of apps out there ruling specific fields. We like to think that Fojo is a complete photo app, giving you loads of options to manipulate your photos before and after you have shot them, giving you a lot of creative freedom. What is unique to Fojo is our Film Factory that allows to users to create their own effect presets aka films, save them, share them and edit them some more. Entire workflow is similar to real camera use: you can choose a film, set the format and a lens, plus a lot of manual controls and options which appear when you hit the Advanced mode. Fojo is perfectly integrated with Enfojer, our smartphone enlarger for photo printing the old way, so it prepares negatives for printing, sets the exposure time and controls every step of the enlarging process by voice control. Voice control because you have your hands full in the dark :)
4) How do people react on this app, did first users get back to you with first feedback? Since we first came out with the Enfojer, our users were great. They constantly come up with ideas on how to improve Fojo and Enfojer, they send words of support, congratulations and, this is most important, they are willing to try our app and let us know how it works for them. If you go to our app store page, there is this one guy saying that he just uninstalled all other camera apps, since this one has everything. We love our users :)
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PINHOLE | is a section, as its name says, dedicated to pinhole photography. This type of photography is created with a pinhole camera, a camera that uses a small aperture, usually the size of a pinhole, instead of a lens. Basically, the smaller the hole, the sharper the resulting image. Because of their simplicity, pinhole cameras are often handmade. The concept behind the pinhole camera—the camera obscura—dates back to the time of the ancient Greeks and Chinese. It was even mentioned by great thinkers like Aristotle, Euclid, and Mo Jing. However, the first photograph created with a pinhole camera was by a Scottish scientist, Sir David Brewster in the 1850s.
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by Maurício Sapata
DIANE MARTIN PETERSON Making Pictures
http://www.dianemartinpeterson.com/ USA
“My imagination fuels how I interpret what I see through the lens.” The pinhole images I make are shot with self-built cameras. Many of these pinhole cameras are less than glamorous creations, usually the result of trips to the local secondhand store or thrift shop, starting out as tins or boxes.”
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TETRA | is a section dedicated to a specific type of photography: black and white, square-format images that are recognizable for their minimalism and high aesthetic value, often making use of long exposures. The section name comes from the Greek word for the number four, which symbolizes the four equal sides of the format.
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by Robert Gojević
LAURENT MIAILLE Time Shift
http://www.laurentmiaille.com France
“My work focuses on the passage of time and the transformation of reality through the use of long exposures. Landscapes become purified and sublimated, dreamlike. This transformation captures the beauty of the elements; a new world offers itself to us that is conducive to contemplation and meditation.“
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I was born in 1970 and live near Toulouse in the south of France. I started traditional photography about 15 years ago and got into digital photography five years ago. I discovered a new world with long exposures, and it suits me very well. I try to capture the magic of light and time with minimal or simple compositions.
WORK: My work focuses on the passage of time and the transformation of reality through the use of long exposures. Landscapes become purified and sublimated, dreamlike. This transformation captures the beauty of the elements; a new world offers itself to us that is conducive to contemplation and meditation. Through these pictures I also attempt to show how man has tried, and is trying, to capture or tame nature— how it leaves its marks on nature, and how nature transforms and shapes, in turn, man’s buildings and other structures.
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WIDE | section devoted to promoting landscape photography. This section strives to expand our presentation of these kind of photos, which have been somewhat underrepresented in BLUR magazine in their classical form. Sometimes it seems that landscape photography isn’t very creative because it relies mostly on Nature’s beauty and is, therefore, more technical than artistic. In this section we want to prove that human creativity, indeed, plays a major role in capturing the beauty of Nature in its full glory. Since “landscape photography” is a rather general term, we will try to present various approaches to this genre in this section, regardless of techniques used.
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by Robert Gojević
SREĆKO JUBIĆ I enjoy
http://luckysphotobook.blogspot.com/ Croatia
“In the beginning, I was interested in HDR photography, but now I use mostly digital blending for post processing my images. I can’t say much about my photos except that I enjoy myself when I’m taking them and in post processing them.”
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OPEN | section in which we try to widen our horizons by crossing the boundaries of themes we’ve emphasized in BLUR during the past few years. This section will host street, documentary, concert, experimental, and other types of photography, and even photo manipulation. The creative approach is still the most important aspect in choosing photographers, but we will show preference for those who could be described as “different.”
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by Robert Gojević
JULIETA BENOIT Tietê—Someday I’ll Drink You!
http://julietabenoit.com/ Brazil “Through the wings of images, I propose to give a voice to waters, bringing through the real and concrete space of the polluted reality of the world’s rivers the delirious Tietê, a river that laughs and cries death, life, and dreams. “
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PROEYECT | is a little brother to the PROJECT section. Its purpose is to present mini projects, i.e. sets of photos, which are too few to included under PROJECT, but by their quality, unified theme, and story, deserve collective publication. Photographers often tell a kind of story through several photos, and this is the place for such stories. The number of photos is not a primary concern, so in this section, we may publish several unrelated stories.
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by Robert Gojević
MICHAEL ALCANTARA DE GUZMAN The Lotus Peak
http://www.mdeguzman.com/ Philippines “Mt. Fuji – Fuyō-hō (the Lotus Peak) a perfectly symmetrical cone that reflects beauty and is one of Japan’s holy mountains. It is a majestic creation of nature that has inspired artists and poets journeying to discover and understand its beauty. What makes Mt. Fuji even more interesting is that it is actually a three-layer volcanic mountain surrounded by many lakes.”
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Michael De Guzman is a Filipino-born fine art photographer known for his black and white landscapes. He is also known as MDG among his photography friends. MDG strives to create images as food for the soul. He sees himself as a chef, collecting raw materials when shooting in the field and preparing them during post-processing and ready to be consumed by anyone who wants landscapes beyond black and white. MDG discovered his love for taking pictures in June 2011, when he joined a landscape photography workshop. He started shooting color and near infrared, but he always had a different feeling for black and white. In August 2012, he took another workshop specializing in fine art black and white landscape, and he was taken by the process. MDG is a black and white landscape specialist using tools such as digital cameras and Photoshop with other software for post processing. He also uses Piezography for his prints. His images have been in numerous local and international publications, both online and in print. He has also won awards, including PX3 Prix De La Photographie Paris and IPA Lucie Award. MDG is now a regular contributor to the landscape section of a local photography magazine. He also assists and conducts workshops for landscape and fine art photography.
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Mt. Fuji – FuyŌ-hŌ (the Lotus Peak) a perfectly symmetrical cone that reflects beauty and is one of Japan’s holy mountains. It is a majestic creation of nature that has inspired artists and poets journeying to discover and understand its beauty. What makes Mt. Fuji even more interesting is that it is actually a three-layer volcanic mountain surrounded by many lakes. Though it is an active stratovolcano, last erupting in 1707-08, Mt. Fuji has been recognized for its cultural value as a holy mountain, worshiped by people since ancient times and now being acknowledged for its cultural contribution to the art and spirit of Japan. As challenging as it may seem, people desire to reach the summit of Mt. Fuji. Since Japan is “The Land of the Rising Sun,” to experience and see the ‘’arrival of the light’’ (goraikō), makes it more special—like a kiss of the sun. We may find ourselves wandering what place could be more peaceful than watching the peak covered with glaciers or witness it dancing with the wind and making its waltz beyond the clouds. Too many possible insights to describe the mountain and too vivid to see its beauty, we desire to discover something more. For a glimpse to the other side, we may find something unusual and special—yet to be found.
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AL art limited BE CREATIVE, BE IMAGINATIVE BE YOURSELF! photography
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www.artlimited.net is an elegant high-featured community for creative artists, art lovers and critics. It features personal and original creative works that are well recognized and appreciated. If you wish to only comment on the art and take advantage of the message center and forums to engage in dialog with the artists (art dealer, gallery director, curator, artist agent, publisher, gallery representative, image researcher, collector, press, communication),you can do so through an "observer" account. If the quality of your work is recognized and original, join us now
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