Hey, all, Just wanted to advertise that the newest addition to my Stone Magic series is now here! The previous three are also available in my gallery here. I'd love to get feedback and comments either here or in the Photography gallery where it's posted. I'm nowhere near the photographer a lot of the people here are... just a point-and-click digital camera, a tripod, and some pieces of cloth form my entire equipment and studio. :) Malenchite

Well that looks pretty good to me. It is very nice lighting and composition and the hand is outstanding. Some people can spend hours setting up a photograph in a studio, some can spend hours or even days waiting for the right light outdoors. Some just point and click and get great photo's... Colm...

I posted in the galleries, but I have to tell you this whole series is bizarre and beautiful..... Syyd

I just wanted to let you know that I posted my comments about this wonderful image over in the gallery also!!

Thanks for all the encouragement. :) I have to say, this is probably my favorite in the series yet. Every one I do teaches me more about Photoshop and the art of photo manipulation. To give a bit of background for those interested, I've always been into computer imaging for its capacity to simulate magic and other things that are rather difficult to find in every day life (same reason I'm into writing and drawing, for that matter). I'd always been interested in photography as another medium of expression, but I am just a poor college student living in the dorms, and camera equipment combined with scanning technology was way past budget. Last year, my mom came to the rescue by getting me a digital camera for my birthday. This also launched me into another topic I'd been discussing with a friend of mine: nude photography. A digital camera gave the perfect medium for private photo 'development' without needing my own dark room. So, this series started in my first model shoot ever, with a bag of stones I'd gotten (from the model!) as a present a few years ago. Amethyst and Symbol come from that session, where I was basically just brainstorming. Malachite and Quartz were individually developed, and Lapis should be coming along as soon as I get time. Okay, well that got kind of long... anyway, I'm glad that people have been enjoying the series. I may at some point come up with a story behind them. I've always been partial to stone magic and rune/sigil magic in fantasy settings... Malenchite