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If you had it your way what sort of changes would you make to deviantART?

If I had my way...I would try to stabilize the current features before offering new ones. I would also make some minor tweaks to the site layout and, specifically, the front page. And also, I would change some policies to a more tolerant direction. But yeah, these are just my very personal views and since I’m not in charge, and being an authority obedient Finn, I’ll support the current agenda and direction fully.

I'm on the other side of the globe but still I can mention you at parties and people know who I'm talking about. How has all this popularity affected your life?

Wow...that sounds cool, the party thing. The popularity...I have to keep in mind, it's only on the internet, it's not like I’m a celebrity or anything. But anyway, how it's affected is that I spend more and more time, and steadily too, by the computer, because there are so many things for me happening on the internet. Answering the emails and all other communication take a huge amount if my time, but I’m wiling to give that because I like what I’m doing. The popularity itself has interesting affects...people act different around me on the internet, there are those who judge me without knowing and those who kiss my ass. I never had a lot of trust for others and now even less but I’m not really complaining, I’m an attention whore in the end. If we think of popularity as the general interest towards my work and such, having an audience has of course motivated me a lot, to try harder and more and so forth. All in all photography has become a big part of my life and being or becoming popular because of my work is an honor.

In one of your journal entries you described your audience as a sort of collective "hive mind". Would you mind going into detail about this hive mind's likes and dislikes?

Well, it was partly a joke but there was a seed of truth as well. To brutally stereotype: my audience seems to like material that shocks them, but in a good way, mind twisters if you will. I presume a great deal of my audience is Goths or into dark themes, whether it is teenage phase or something more permanent varies. I think many of them are mass consumers of media, movies and such, hence they understand the similarities and hints in that direction but at the same time that is why they might want 'more' than the average flower picture. By more I don't mean that the flower picture is actually less, I’m not saying that this 'numbness' is good at all, but it's like the eyes really need something flashy and drastic to keep the attention. The attention span is generally short. I would say they also enjoy violence and sex or sexual connotations when presented in a visually pleasing manner, like many movies these days do... they have a slightly more open minded attitude than the average citizen but not that much. To be honest I don't think all that many people who like my work actually get it the way I would like it to be understood. But never mind. Woops, I spoke in a slightly degrading manner (almost) of my audience, but that is hard to avoid when talking about stereotypes usually... I do appreciate my audience a lot.

How has your photography changed since you first started and what sort of changes are you experimenting with recently?

I think that as I’ve learned the technical side more I’ve been able to do more things, but it's not like my mind has changed, I used to draw similar things, now I’m able to better express my ideas. But to compare with my very first photos I have more morbid themes now, as well as more intelligent, occasionally. By intelligent I mean witty, deep. But all in all I would say I’ve just become more able to express the ideas and visions I had in the first place. I am constantly trying to experiment with different styles that I see in magazines for example, but I usually fail, I’m very stuck in the visual style that I do, clean and focused color photos. I would like to experiment more with fashion photography kind of style (not content) and to generally explore a bit but it is just very hard as learning new things always is. Also I think I’m constantly learning technique. Oh and, I think I’m more and more going into nudity and sexual themes, don’t know why. Also men are finally starting to seem like more interesting subjects but in very neutral ideas only.

Any predictions?

Wow that's vague. For myself? I think it's obnoxious to predict getting better but I think if I try and want to, it's hard to avoid. I don't expect any major changes, growth in sales of my prints and work in general although I still don't plan to actively market anything. I will just keep shooting and hopefully try new things and expand artistically.

jen