Hey everyone. So..the time has come. At the moment I am uploading my new website, and deleting my photographs from DeviantArt. I am not going to make this a long and drawn out goodbye and rant about what's wrong with DA but I will say a few things.

First off, this is an amazing community to get your foot in the door when it comes to art and community building. That being said, its a pretty horrible place for real photographers. I'm not going to mention names but too much "Photography" here is based on ones skills in Photoshop and not photography. While that isn't a problem in itself, too many people here claim they are amazing photographers, claim they didn't edit their photos, and then, interestingly enough, the community at large doesn't question these people. There are many great photographers who are also great at using Photoshop on this website, but that is less often than not. The biggest problem with this all is that too many solid photographers go un-noticed on DeviantArt because their pure photography pales in comparison to mediocre shots manipulated digitally and then claimed as pure photography. I'm not saying I'm one of those overlooked, I'm quite happy where I am on DeviantArt, but the community is moving in the wrong direction, and I don't really want to be part of it anymore. Of course there so much more than those issues that have changed over the last year or so, but its all done with, so why bother.

Anyways, with so many web based photography communities catering to pure photography, it makes it difficult for me to warrant the time DeviantArt requires. I will never forget all the things amazing people like LondonXpress taught me when I first got into photography, or the amazing self portraits by PinkCookie that has kept me entertained over the years. To put it simply, I wouldn't have gotten this far, photographically, if it wasn't for this website. That being said, it doesn't really have what I'm looking for, to get to the next level, so I'm moving on.

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NEW WEBSITE

For those that want to follow my work still, my new website LEIBOWITZPHOTOGRAPHY.COM is up and running. The store is also set up. Any purchases you make, I dontate 15% to The Nature Conservancy.

So, without further adieus, So Long and Thanks for all the Memories!