Raymond Dukes is an independent artist and photographer, as well as an avid gardener.

 

Please contact him for custom products, commissioned work, or the use of photography in printed works.

 

All photography and artwork provided on his flickr account are copyright © Raymond Curtis Dukes, all rights reserved worldwide.

 

He was trained in art, design, and photography at university and once owned and operated his own company, Yazooy, LLC. Many of his photographic works are typified by use of exclusively natural or available light, nature and outdoor scenes (birds, flowers, landscapes, and other natural scenes), layering of visual planes, reduced field of view, reduced depth of view, use of bokeh and blurred backgrounds, unconventional perspectives, either very high or very low contrast, usually with medium (just a little soft) to high sharpness, either black and white, or color often with warm tones perhaps with a leaning toward magenta, and are often photographed around golden hour or blue hour (though he enjoys photographing in the rain or under other conditions.) He enjoys using analogue film, digicams, as well as DSLRs, though of late (2023/2024), has primarily been shooting 35mm film using SLR cameras and rangefinders. Until 2019, he was primarily shooting with a DSLR camera using a modified enlarger lens on a custom made bellows, or using a 300mm macro zoom lens.

 

Until 2012, Yazooy, LLC used to provide professional quality Adobe Photoshop styles, actions, vector clip art, and stock photography. His company and digital products were advertised in and featured in several international magazines, including PSD magazine. His styles were also part of commercial CD media published separately by Digital Tropics, and by Yazooy, LLC. Some of his photos have also been published in scholarly works and as book covers, or on stock photography websites at one time or other.

 

Since shutting down Yazooy, LLC around 2010-2012, there has been little interest in his art. He continued to sell art occaisionally through Cafepress until 2018, but that mostly dried up, and RedBubble never worked out.

 

As of 2022, although he attempted to work full time in art since the 2019 pandemic, he has lost hope of ever making a living as an artist and has resigned himself to art and photography as just yet another hobby. AI certainly did not assist attempts to sell art, as the market became flooded with slop. He spent thousands of dollars during the pandemic on advertising and art supplies until his bank account dried up. No results. No sells. After much energy and effort. Even so, he enjoys nature, art, photography, music composition, making music, and computer programming. Lots of hobbies and skills that simply don't pay bills.

 

As of 2023, he has worked on Generative Art, and although regularly recieves approaches to make NFT, he still rejects NFT as illegitimate art. I have little time for photography, but still have a desire to photograph nature and nature based art.

 

In 2026, bills are piling up again, and he has started a Patreon account, giving access to apps, art, and music.

 

He continues to offer prints, but nothing has sold. After several years. Nothing. At all. Is his art so terrible?

 

If you are interested in prints, you can follow the links below. It would be nice to make at least one sale. Thanks for taking the time to find out more or to look at my work. I hope you enjoy what art and photography I've produced, and that at least most of it upbuilds or encourages you in a good way. Hopefully better than this synopsis.

 

Much of the Patreon account is geared toward a wider audience, and will feature music apps, art apps, pixel art, game sprites, sound effects, may include some generative art, and other materials.

 

Patreon

RaymondDukes

 

ArtPal

www.artpal.com/raysartsbyray

 

ImageKind

www.imagekind.com/artists/RaymondDukes706/

 

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RaymondDukes706

 

Pinterest

www.pinterest.com/raymonddukes706/

 

Buy Me a Coffee or something if you want...

www.buymeacoffee.com/rayOD