My deviantART Story

I've subscribed to DA in its early years, probably around 2002, at first it was the place where I went looking for desktop wallpapers for my always evolving Slackware Linux KDE customizations. I did not use my account for anything more than that, or maybe I posted some "spray art" paintings, like this (that's not mine, that's one of the first results I got looking for the same kind of paintings I used to do).



DA went slowly into oblivion until 2006-2007, when I picked up my first digital camera and started to take some pictures. Back in those days, I used a Sony DSC-F828, and processed my photos with Picasa and Aperture on my first Mac. I used to play World of Warcraft, and one of my guild mates happened to be , or Delphina. She kind of vaguely kept me in touch with DA: I realized the website was still going strong, active and in good health. Not so common, for a web community, to live for this long and thrive with new content every day. Every hour.
I posted some photos, mostly travel ones, but I didn't have much to show.



In late 2008 I started taking my photography hobby more seriously, and I explored more and more communities and possible portfolios. Flickr, 1x, Picasa, name whatever comes to your mind, I've probably checked their sign up page. My interests were in sport photography, mostly ice hockey. In the need of a place where I could upload massive galleries, and protect the download, I went for Zenfolio. Each time I switched to or from some photography genre, DA was a sort of a point of reference: "what are those on DA doing about this or that genre?".

In 2010 I went to a comic convention in my town, to see if I could take some photos of cosplayers. I happened to be very well geared to shoot the cosplay acts, and took photos along the competition. I posted them on Facebook, and linked the album on the event page. In less than one month, I almost tripled my contact list, had four conventions planned and started shooting on-location photo sets. When I got back to DA, I discovered that its cosplay community is extremely active and interesting. DA is probably one the best places to look for inspiration, keep track of what others are doing, and see new things. I decided to create a new account (I don't exactly remember the reason, probably some old limit on name change?) and I started posting my photographs, but, most of all, I lurked in the shadows, watching every single move of hundreds of cosplayers and photographers