Shane Willis BIOGRAPHY

Welcome to the “About” page. This page will include my bio, thoughts and comments, as well as my writings and thoughts as Radioactive Photography grows beyond the bounds that I ever thought it could go. Enjoy.

Shane

Hello,

I am Shane... Photographer, artist,graphic artist, editor, creative writer and all'round renaissance guy

Born in 1969, in the old north state...North Carolina, and stayed here on the beautiful Crystal Coast of Easter North Carolina. Why would anyone leave the beach???

When I picked up my first digital camera back in 2002, my intent was to only use digital photography for my artwork.

What I would do mainly, is take shots of a girl or subject, and use the shots exclusively to make fantasy fantastical artistic creation, such as Angles, or Mermaids , Fairies and Trolls, or some other type of surreal, and unreal photographical art. The same for a tree or a landscape or anything that I shot. The intent was only just to bring back the image, and use it as elements of a larger creation, or to manipulate the photo so drastically that it had only the slightest resemblance to the actual shot. I thought I was creating ART. I was creating art, and that is a good thing, and the art was good and entertaining and provocative and people loved it, hated it, and thought about it. However, something else was underneath all of that, and it slowly began to surface.

As time passed, I began to see the photograph itself for the artistic beauty that it actually was. I began to see light and shadow in different ways. I began to look at the smallest details and think… “That would make a great photo”. I began to see things as if they where black and white. I began to look at the smallest details and think… “That would make a great photo”. I began to see things as if they where black and white. I could look at a color photo and in my mind see the tonal ranges as if it was black and white. I claimed it was the years I spent doing pen and ink drawing that was the cause of this. I claimed it was my years of drawing and painting in traditional art forms that was only being enhanced by photography.

You see.. I never put much stock in photography as a “great” art form. Yes, I have seen many of the great photographical works of the masters, but again… I just thought… “Well… it’s just a photograph” Sure they evoked emotion and feeling and though just as any other art form would. But I never realized its power, it beauty, its inherent vision, and its overall scope and reach.

Doctors say that we remember things as still images in our brain. Perhaps that is the power that photography wields over us. When we see a photograph for the first time, it is a memory that we have never had, or even more powerful, it I someone else’s memory that they have shared with us. Even if it is manipulated, color corrected, black and white, and tonally balanced or darkened or lightened… it is still a memory we have never had, and it is somewhat of a connective, and spiritual experience.

Now, after doing photography as an art form for the past 5 to 7 years, I have come full circle. It has been an amazing transformation with in my self and an amazing transformation in my artistic style and vision. It was a slow rebirth into this world of photography, but I am so very glad, and grateful that this path has laid itself open to me, and I am pleased that I have accepted it and embraced it. If anyone of you was to know my stubborn character when it comes to my art and my artistic ways, you might even say it was a miracle.

Most of us have heard the old saying that every cell in the body is changed over a period of seven years. I guess it has taken 7 years for me to cycle through. It has been more than worth it.

Shane

CONTACAT INFO

EMail - radioactive107@gmail.com

Other Websites and Galleries that Feature Shane Willis – Radioactive Photography

DEVIANT ART - http://radioactive107.deviantart.com/

MYSPACE - http://www.myspace.com/radioactive107

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