Please excuse us while our journal is plain and simple and it may take us a little longer to respond to messages, our subscription has run out. However, if there is anyone kind enough to sponsor the club for a few months, we would be incredibly thankful.

As part of a new ~Respect-Us feature, we are interviewing nude/fetish models and photographers. If you would like to take part, send us a note

Interview with

Is there a story behind your dA username?

I use "groundling" or "groundlingchild" just about everywhere I am on the internet, and have for the last four or five years. Since I was about thirteen I've hated the idea of not having an original name. Having to put numbers after a name because someone else has already claimed it is in no way ok with me. Even MMORPG characters (that I'll inevitably get bored with in two weeks and delete) have their own, original names. I'll occasionally use the same names over again in different places (AliceinCyberland and DancesWithRats have both shown up a number of times in different games or sites), but I will never be angelfirenumbersix22four8seven12. Clearly it's been done. Having a non-numeric username also makes it easier for others to remember.

Groundling itself is a historic reference - it's an Elizabethan slang term for impoverished theatre-goers. They would spend the very little money they had to see plays, standing in dust and mud and human excrement (no bathrooms in medieval theatres) for five and six hours with no intermission, for the passion of entertainment. They were also known to shout things at the actors when they displeased, and would often pelt bad actors and even well-played villains with vegetables, lead cups, and whatever they had around. That really speaks to my character. I'm willing to put up with a lot, especially for creative purposes, and I do tend to throw things at people.

What do you do?

I'm a photographer and occasional model.

What are your hobbies?

My #1 hobby is the SCA, or Society for Creative Anachronism. For those who don't know, this mainly involves camping, wearing proper clothing, "riding" into battle with the other three Horsepersons of the Apocalypse, and being a pirate under the dreaded and incredibly cool flag of Darksail and the La Villa a Broka. There are some pictures of this behaviour in my gallery.

On "weekends" (Monday through Friday) I dress up in my respectable citizen costume and do "normal" things.

Other than photography I engage in a number of other artistic pursuits, at which I am not at all talented. Among these are fairly bad drawing, slightly less bad painting, terrible sculpting, and lamentable song writing. I do also sew, but I do that quite well.

What music do you like?

While being rather open-minded and outside-the-box about nearly everything else, my music tastes tend to be fairly stagnant. I like a number of bands and artists from nearly every genre, each added to the collection when someone I knew dragged me to a concert, compelled me to listen to an unfamiliar CD, or otherwise force-fed me new sounds. I suppose it's possible that I like all music, but no one has gotten me to listen to it all yet.

There are however some sounds that show up most. When I'm processing photos I like to listen to fairly mellow or even depressing music. Dave Mathew's solo album "Some Devil" is a recurring favorite. The first time I was ever in a darkroom someone played Madonna's "Beautiful Stranger" at me, and that's a song I still play fairly often while working with photos.

What are your best qualities?

I'm highly creative and intuitive, and I have lots and lots of really good ideas.

What are your worst qualities?

No one can tell me otherwise.

My strength and weakness is intertwined. The passion and drive that makes me ambitious and effective also makes me stubborn. I tend to get very strong mental image or idea or inspiration that I want to create and I get very attached to it. I figure out in my head how and where to do something, and I can engineer every detail of the production of it, but I run into problems like, "Ok, I have a model and I can build the set and I know where to do it and what the weather has to be like but... um... how do I make the model all glowy and porcelain?"

This is the point at which my mentor, =UniqueNudes says something like, "you mean high key?" Being fairly new to portrait photography there are a lot of places where I just don't have the technical skill with camera, lighting, or photoshop to make an image in my head translate digitally. I know what it's supposed to look like and I know it can be done, but there are some details like how that happens that get lost sometimes. I've had a couple things that I've gone back and reshot, or wanted to and couldn't, and other things that are still just concept sketches, waiting until I have the skill to do them justice.

Do you have any pets?

Not right now. I had a wonderful cat who died a few years ago, and another who was taken by an ex when we broke up. Since then I've been resigned to just playing with the pets of my friends and roommates for a while.

Where do you live? Tell us about the town/city that you live in.

Well, there's the pyramid, the statue of liberty, and of course, the eiffel tower. But that's all downtown, and I spend most of my time in the more suburban parts of Las Vegas, except when I'm shooting on the Strip.

What do you love most about where you live?

Not...much. I'm not attached to Las Vegas at all. Of course, it is where I'm going to have my photography shown in a gallery for the first time, so I suppose it's not all bad. At least they've got taste.

And what do you dislike about where you live?

We have two seasons: HOT. and COLD. HOT is actually so inhospitable to humans that people are advised that they should stay indoors or perish. COLD has biting wind. The intermediate period is very short, but involves a lot of rain.

How did you find deviantART and how long have you been a member?

I joined dA in the winter of 2006, and how I found it was actually a mystery to me. I thought for the longest time I'd been recommended by a long-time photographer friend of mine, but it turns out that she'd never heard of the site until I said something about it to her. Someone told me about it.

What is it about nude photography for you?

The portraiture I have done is mostly--but not exclusively--nude. I find that in many concepts, nudity better or more thoroughly expresses the point of the photo. With noir photography especially, clothing tends to interrupt the line of the photo, which is distracting, but it also damages the emotional integrity of the image. Where clothing compliments an image, clothing is used. I don't photograph nudity for the sake of nudity, but for the sake of an idea. My very first nude project includes a photo entitled "Loneliness" ([link])--this is an implied nude, but the model's nudity heightens and highlights the sensation that she is uncomfortable, vulnerable. If she'd been in jeans and a t-shirt, she'd probably look like she was just hanging out. Inversely, the bridal series I did with ~greenbirdgirl would lose its meaning if it were nude. Nudity is a powerful costume choice, but like any wardrobe choice, it has to make sense in emotional context.

I do a number of different genres of photography as well as nudes, but I find that nude shoots are the most emotional for me. Even if I do two shoots in a day which I am equally looking forward to (as happened last month), I am more eager to review the nudes to see how they turned out. I want to spend more time processing them. I can't wait to post them and get the world's response. The bare rawness of portraying even someone else's revealed form is far more personal for me than any other kind of photography.

How did you get into it?

When I first started working with =UniqueNudes about a year ago it was as model rather than protégé. I was interested in photography, but I hadn't done or considered doing nudes. Richard invited me to model for him, and I had fun with it. Eventually I started doing some assisting work for him as well, and borrowed his extra camera from time to time. In June I bought my own 10 mega pixel DSLR, the first decent camera I've owned myself and the most money I'd spent at one time. In the four months since then I've had seven of my own independent nude shoots (five released on dA as of this post), not to mention five clothed shoots, a wedding, a number of sporting events... I suppose how I "got into it" was quickly, and with both feet.

What are your tools of the trade?

I use a Canon 400D. Until its recent and tragic demise I was editing photos on my laptop using Photoshop CS3, but now I've been stuck stealing precious time on my mentor's computer (he also uses CS3). I've also got a few favorite lenses. I most often use my 18-55mm zoom, which is really an under-appreciated lens, and an ultra-wide-angle (Canon's 10-22mm with no distortion). I also have a 50mm prime lens that stops to 1.8, which I bought to photograph boxing ringside but has served me well in a lot of conditions.

What are your top 5 favourites on deviantART?


This caught my eye immediately and I often go back and look at it.


This is probably my favorite of =UniqueNudes's pieces, of all ten years of his work. I really like the series, but the playful elegance of this shot captivates me. I'm a big fan and recently friend of the model anyway, which helps.


I found this only a few days ago... I adore the lighting and composition, but especially the texture. Fullview this piece.


I love the tension and implication of this piece, as if we're the ones who have caught our own unfaithful bride.

Last but not least...

This is the only cartoon I have even considered favoriting. It makes me laugh every time.

Show us 5 personal favourites from your own gallery.


I love this entire series. It's the heaviest work I've done emotionally and was very experimental.








This picture loses something at anything less than full view, but it's one of my favorites, at least at the moment.

Choose 3 artists who you admire on deviantART.

Ok...in no particular order...

~Gwendelin-Artanis first, just because I was thinking about her a moment ago. Among other things, she is a phenomenal model who contributed to some of my favorite work by =UniqueNudes, :devdoomsdaydawn:, and *dmGremlin. All three are awesome photographers, but people (especially artists) sometimes forget that the model is equally important in making a shot successful. Having done both, I can appreciate the dichotomy.

*wynnesome/~greenbirdgirl--I name both, because it is the combination of her photography and modelling that is special about her. Wynnesome and I have agreed that we're at a comparable level of development as far as photography, but she's miles ahead of me in terms of modelling. She's modelled for me four times, twice each clothed and nude, and each time she was great--she was really creative, working with me to bring out some new ideas and get the most out of our work together. Her photography is alternately classic and contemporary, portraying the tenderness of humanity or the objectivity that is a body without emotion. The dynamic femininity of her silhouetted series with :devneveahlleh: is especially pleasing.

One cannot forget my mentor =UniqueNudes. I've worked very closely with him for a year, and the thing about him that I most admire is how he treats his models and clients. Time and again the people he's worked with have been shocked and thrilled at his dedication to his practice of cross-promotion--sharing print profit, recommending models to photographers he respects and vice versa, and even something as simple as putting a clause in his release forms that negates the release if he misuses the images. The energy he puts into his professional conduct may not be apparent in his work, but I hear constantly from models how surprised and pleased they are at the way he runs the business side of things.

What other genres of photography interest you?

I have only once discovered a type of photography I didn't like. That was, oddly, photographing fire spinners. I'm not sure what about it I had such a problem with, but it's the only thing so far I haven't enjoyed immensely. I've done some still life, some fashion, a bit of photojournalism, sports photography (great fun), and of course my artistic nude work.

What do your friends and family think of your photography?

My family doesn't really understand it, but to their credit, they're trying. They attended a gallery show a few months ago where I was featured as a model, and responded very well.

Most of my friends are photographers or models, and for the most part they like my work. People outside the industry are either vaguely in favour of it or only vaguely aware of it to begin with. To my knowledge none of my friends are particularly against my work.

What does RESPECT mean to you?

Most often in daily life, respect means looking outside one's own high opinion of himself when dealing with other humans. Respect means maintaining a level of polite civility at worst toward all people, regardless of any social, economic, or professional pecking order. It means acknowledging that other people's time and resources are as valuable as our own.

In art, and especially on dA, respect means keeping in mind that whatever your opinion on a piece, other humans poured their hearts and souls into its creation. On dA it means surrendering the anonymity of the internet and treating art and artists as you would in person. It means posting comments you'd comfortably say face-to-face to an artist who knows you by name. Respect is observing and recognizing the difference between erotic and nonerotic art in its intention rather than in one's personal experience of it, and remembering that the way a person addresses a nude art model should reflect that s/he is a real person, not a character dreamed up by the artist as with other media.

I suppose the heart of respect is mindfulness of others.