Blog page 14

Thoughts, Musings, News About The Site And My Photography

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, please email me on artcore-cafe (at) outlook.com and I will try to answer.



Happy Birthday

1st November 2022 13:35

I've just noticed that the sites are 8 year sold today. Time flies!

We've had a few recent issues, and still the email system on the site doesn't work for some reason. I'm not going to spend my entire time fixing things like this, so it might take a little while to sort :) Also, some sites dropped my adverts when we were down for a few days, so I'm having to chase them.


That Was A Fun Few Days

20th October 2022 20:33

As you may have noticed, the websites were down for 5 days. Not good enough. There was a major power problem at the data centre, and it blew up the power supply on my server, and on the backup. It also fried the datacentre's website, and the owner was in hospital for an operation. So, I saw everything down and got no response for 3 days! I assumed they had shut down! Anyway, it is back now. It should have been back quicker, and we are going to have a talk about that.

I will extend all members by a couple of weeks to make up for it. Unfortunately I am in Berlin at the moment (at the Venus Berlin show), and the wifi at the hotel is terrible, so that will have to wait until I get home next Tuesday,


About To Leave Lima

5th September 2022 08:20

Not that I'm going home for a while... Plenty of material to edit. No new models this time, I had a couple of plans but they fell through. It is winter here, we only saw sun for 3 hours, exactly the time that Kim came to visit! I hope to return in January, but the economic situation might preclude it :(


Drives You Up The Wall

23rd July 2022 17:48

This business is full of models complaining about photographers cancelling shoots, and photographers complaining about models cancelling shoots. It kind of goes with the territory, particularly if, like me, you never cancel. If you wonder why I often shoot the same model several times, it's because when I find one who is reliable I stick with her!

Anyway, over the last 2 weeks, all my planned shoots were cancelled, rearranged, and cancelled again! That's 6 cancellations for the last 3 shoots! I'm off to see Emerald on Thursday, I know I can trust her :)


Patricia

14th July 2022 07:49

Patricia finally made it to the UK. We ended up shooting for 3 days, so you can imagine how much stuff I have to process! There is enough to publish every month for more than 5 years! And she's coming back for more!


dunce

Scheduling Conflicts

30th May 2022 12:42

I was really excited to see that Eros Porto is on this year. I haven't been to a show since Porto in 2020. It was advertised as being the first weekend in March as usual, so I booked flights & airbnb. Then, about 3 weeks before, I was idly checking a few things, and I saw that they had moved it to June 16th-19th. Oh well, due to Covid rules on airlines I was able to rebook the flights. The airbnb was easy to change, and I arranged to go with Jeannie this time to do a bit of photography too :)

I just found that they have moved it again! This time to June 2nd-5th, which I can't do as I have a different trip that weekend. They've done it because the Barcelona show has been moved from October to June 16th-19th! We can't change the flights to go to Barcelona instead... So, we are going to Porto for a beach holiday, but are flying to Barcelona for 1 day, the longest day out ever... Jeannie really wants to see a show!

I have had several shows be rescheduled at the last minute, including Celje & Bergamo. I guess for the locals it isn't a problem, but if you're flying across Europe it is a right pain in the tits!


Back At It

7th April 2022 13:44

I've had a few weeks off. The only shoot I did since my winter trip to Peru was this one with Mia Sollis - well, I couldn't miss out on her! I'm starting again - got some big stuff coming up :)


Other Things Happening

19th March 2022 16:34

I haven't been shooting recently - too much going on in my life, and the rest of the world! That's also why I have't got around to blogging. Never fear, I'm still editing all the stuff from Peru. You'll never run out of new material!


Finally Home, But Not For Too Long

19th February 2022 11:52

It still seems to be winter here! Dark and miserable... I will be away again soon, 5 trips planned before the end of June. After that, I may go abroad semi-permanently. It isn't just the weather, I'm just not that keen on the UK right now.


Definitely Not A Fan Of Winter

8th January 2022 12:24

I can live with the cold, although it isn't great. I can live with the rain, but it isn't great. It's the dark that gets me. At the time of writing, it is all three!

Anyway, as usual, I am off to Peru for a few weeks. I'm not sure when I will be back, because of ever changing Covid rules, it isn't worth booking the flight back yet. I have a week in a big house, with a big garden and pool, where I will be shooting a whole range of models. Too many to list on the shooting schedule!

As usual, updates may be at funny times etc, but I will keep an eye on things. Come the spring, I will be home...


Happy Christmas

25th December 2021 08:28

Another Christmas! They do seem to come around quickly these days. All I can say is let's hope next year is better. I will be off to Peru in the New Year to avoid the worst of the winter, and do a whole lot of shooting :)


Travel Advisory

11th November 2021 18:25

I'm going away for a little while. I will be travelling for the next couple of days, so I'm putting this weekend's updates up early. I hope to do a couple of shoots, but nothing confirmed yet... As usual, I will keep an eye on things while I'm away as much as possible.


Perils Of The Junk Folder

22nd October 2021 09:12

There haven't been any new members for a couple of weeks, which is unusual. I've been busy on other stuff, and finally got around to investigating last night. In my junk folder I found a very important email from ccBill about new MasterCard regulations - as I hadn't seen it, I hadn't filled in the new form by the deadline, and my abillity to take payments had been blocked! Oh well, all sorted now.


What's With The Art Nude?

6th October 2021 13:28

I've been asked this a few times, and blogged before. Maybe I'll make it a sticky... Why do I put "art nude" on almost all the updates? It comes from an older site I did where I was selling photo sets and needed to specify how explicit they were. I just continued it here.

So... what is art nude? There are a lot of definitions of this. Traditionally it would be old style playboy nudes, legs together. However, I've had some models not want to face the camera, I've had others sit on the sofa and put a leg over each arm (er... "met-art style"). My definition is somewhere between the two. If a models legs are more or less closed she can be pointed in any direction, if her legs are open her pussy has to be pointed away or down, not at the camera.

So... why bother? Because some models are happy to be on an art nude site, but don't want to be on an adult site. So, I keep this place broadly art nude. I get a wider range of models, so do you. Simple!


Flying All Over The Place

6th September 2021 17:17

I had a month in Lima, doing so much shooting that I had to buy a new hard drive (raw files off my Q2 are enormous!). Then I spent 3 weeks travelling all over the USA - sadly my proposed shoots there didn't come off, but I saw a lot of baseball and attended to some family business. Finally I had the nightmare flight from hell home from New York courtesy of the remains of Hurricane Ida, I was literally a day late... Anyway, from the point of view of the sites, I have a collosal amount of new material to process, God knows when I will get it all done! 10 new models and 4 old ones! Joha, as usual, was a star.


Deya Vu

Well It's Been A Wild Few Weeks

6th August 2021 19:39

After a week in isolation in Lima, I have shot pretty much every day! If it all goes to plan, by the time I leave next Sunday night I will have shot 10 new models, and 5 old ones - with several shoots for some of them! Here's the delightful Deya Vu, from her second ever shoot :)


donkey

Sorry About The Down Time

20th July 2021 15:32

I agree, it's not good enough, and I am discussing it with the webhost. There seems to be a hardware fault on the server, but it comes on top of the performance issues. They need to do better, and I need to make sure they do!


aeroplane

Well, It's Been A While

16th July 2021 14:52

For the first time in over a year I am flying tomorrow! I will be going to Peru & the USA for 6 weeks. I have family business to attend to and will also be doing a lot of shooting :)

Most members won't have been around pre-Covid, when I used to travel a lot. Because of time differences & flakey internet in some locations, it is possible that updates will be at funny times. They will arrive eventually, and I will be keeping an eye on the system.


cinema

Video Settings

13th July 2021 10:24

As you can probably tell, my real skills are as a photographer. I'm kind of learning about video on the job. I've been concerned that my video files are absolutely huge, but I hadn't worked out how to make them smaller without reducing the quality of the video. Well, I signed up for a month on a very high quality porn site (just for research, you understand) and had a good technical root around looking at the videos I'd downloaded. I can now produce videos that are indistinguishable from the originals, but about half the size. You will have old style videos until October as they are already uploaded, from then on they will be smaller. I just wish I had worked this all out before doing the huge re-upload of the whole site earlier in the year!


Nearly Fixed

23rd June 2021 10:49

The performance issue isn't entirely fixed, but it is a lot better. I've removed the captchas on the various IP addresses that were hammering the site with ripping software. I will see how it goes - if it causes problems I will reimpose them.


donkey

Sorry About That

16th June 2021 09:56

The whole webhost was down for most of yesterday. It does occasionally happen. If it had been down for more than a day I would have gone through all the members and extended them (I've done that before). Anyway, it's back now! They hope to fix the switch that is causing the performance issue today - but they've said that before!


ribbon

Step Back A While

14th June 2021 17:32

An old friend is very seriously ill, I have to do some stuff to help her out. I probably won't shoot for the next month or so... I did a load of shoots over the last 3 weeks, so there is plenty to process. Don't worry, you will still get all the scheduled updates :)


dunce

Let Me Explain

4th June 2021 09:39

There is an ongoing issue in the data centre. They are working on it - I'm not thrilled by this, but there isn't a lot I can do about it. This doesn't affect the speed of the site, but it does affect the capacity. Normal manual access is fine, but the sites won't cope with people running site ripping software at the moment - these can make dozens of connections, all downloading zip files & videos at the same time. My experience is that people who use this software aren't really accessing the site for their own use, they are just downloading everything as quickly as possible so that they can upload it to pirate forums, so I don't exactly have a lot of sympathy. When I spot these types of connections I will have to impose a captcha on that IP address to keep the system running. If necessary I will block access.

Update 8th June 13:10: The webhost has promised to get it fixed this weekend - then again, they promised me last weekend too! Let's hope!