Hello everyone, my name is Abby, otherwise known as *AvalonSky here on DA and I am proud to announce the grand opening of the Wisconsin Photography Club!

This club is brand NEW and currently in the development process, so please be patient while I work on getting it all settled and all the admin stuff finalized. I have already created an Icon and ID, as you can see. Pretty original huh? lol When I get some time, I will try to come up with something fancier or maybe we shall have to have a contest for people to create one. We shall see!

Here are some brief FYI and Rules for you as they stand right now, I will be posting a separate rules and FYI journal once totally finalized. Please understand, most of what you read below is a standard set of rules that most clubs follow.

Who We Are:

Wisconsin Photography Club is a DA group devoted to the art of photography and more importantly, dedicated to all photographers from the state of Wisconsin, located in the USA. We are also open to Wisconsin Artists, whose artwork contains photographs, such as Mixed Media or Photo Manipulations, etc. Any submissions to the club should keep this in mind, so we stay true to our Club's title and theme.

The main reason this club was created was to offer a meeting ground for fellow Wisconsinites to have a place to hang out within, share their work with others and most importantly, to help others around the world realize that Wisconsin does indeed have a huge base of artistic achievement.

We are not just a state known for Beer, Cheese and the Packers.

(Although, let us be honest, that is not too bad of a rap to have. lol But lets start throwing art and photography as another huge export of our state. Hehe! )

Join Rules:

Anyone interested in becoming a member should send a note to ~WisconsinPhotogClub with the subject heading "Join". Once you have done so, you then should friend the club, along with posting the club icon or dev link within their journal.

To place the club icon type the following in with no spaces

:icon WisconsinPhotogClub:

It should look like this when you are done:

To place the club link within your journal or anywhere else on DA type the following with no spaces

:dev WisconsinPhotogClub:

It should look like this when you are done: ~WisconsinPhotogClub

As stated earlier, we are open to all DA Artists whose interest includes photography, whether through profession or hobby. ANYONE is welcome to join and/or watch the club, but please keep in mind, that this group is intended for Wisconsin Area Photographers. Photographers can be outside of Wisconsin or have some tie to the Wisconsin area.

Also, if you would like to join because you want to work with photographers from a Model perspective or if you are not a photographer yet, but want to start learning more, then feel free to join also. Don't forget to mention it to your friends and family, we would like to see this club take off as something more then just another club here on DA.

Club Goals:

We will be accepting submissions to the gallery and eventually featuring our Club's artists, with links back to their original works. We also plan on featuring club tutorials, news articles and even monthly photo challenges. There may also be at some point various meetups and outings offered for our group. We also will start incorporating a chatroom, along with contests, which in turn will be voted on by club members via DA polls.

Remember, this is your club, we all take a part and it can only be whatever you want to make it. So please any suggestions or ideas you have please let us know.

Submission Rules:

Currently you are open to submit up to 3 deviations when joining for the first time. You will then be limited to submitting up to 2 deviations per week. This may increase or descrease depending on how many members we eventually get within the club.

When sending a submission note, please provide a link or thumb to the deviation you want to submit.

Please also keep in mind, that you offer your best to the club, no snapshots will be accepted. A snap shot is a photograph captured with no thought to composition, lighting, contrast, color harmony, creativity or artistic thought. Any mixed media or photo manipulations submitted should follow the same rules.

At this time, because our club is open to all age groups, we will also not allow the following photography content:

No nudity accepted, unless covered or concealed.
No mutliations, blood or gore.
No weapons or illegal substances.

Wisconsin Photography Club is not responsible for any of its members galleries containing the above, anyone browsing individual member galleries does so at their own choice. We will not police our members galleries for the above excluded content, only the club's submisions and gallery.

All submissions must be the artists' own.

Any submissions sent in by a club member found to violate copyright will face club membership discontinuation and reporting to deviantART itself. Any mixed media or digital manipulations using DA offered stock are welcome, as long as original artwork credits neccessary stock artists and accounts. Offsite stock is also approved, as long as appropriate credit is given when neccessary.

Please remember, that if a deviation is declined, it is not personal, we just want you to offer your best work to highlight you as the artist and the only reason we would decline it is if it fails to meet our club guidelines as listed up above.

Any questions, comments, suggestions, complaints, etc., should be noted to the club versus posted on our main page. Doing so is the only way to ensure that you get a response.

Also, please remember NOT to any artwork within the Club gallery, instead please use the link posted with the club submission to fav and/or comment on the original artwork if you so choose. Comments are purposely turned off within the club for this very reason. Anyone faving a club submission, will receive a very polite note back redirecting them to unfav the club submission and to instead fav the club member's original work, if they so choose.

Administration Information:

We reserve the right to remove any member from our watch and also block them from the club, if such a member displays any activity that is not acceptable community spirit.
We also reserve the right to change the club rules and regulations at any time. If changes are made, club will be notified via journal notifications, so do not turn off journal notices from the club. Failure to read a club notice or rule change will not exclude you the club member from being subject to them.

Harassment of any Administrative staff and/or other club members will not be tolerated under any circumstances! At this time *AvalonSky is the only admin for the club, although at some point depending on how busy this club becomes, we may open the club to additional co-admins.

Administration will strive to not place any artistic views, opinions, or regulations upon your work beyond the above before allowing submission. We are not a club that will regulate what we do not like to our scrap area. Afterall, Art is in the eye of the beholder.

Anything submitted to the club will show within the club gallery when approved, which leaves the critique up to the rest of our club members when your photograph or artwork is submitted.

Thank you for stopping by and welcome to the club! And as always, if you have any questions or comments,please let us know via replying to this journal posting or via a note. Hopefully the above was not too complicated, sorry if too long but it all needed to be posted for member reference.

Enough for now and Happy Photo Hunting Wisconsin!