I am in a winter mood this year.

I haven't yet announced the official launch of my website here. {Night Fate Actions}
There are tutorials, stock images, textures, and photohop actions. Free and fore sale.

{Anna Designs} did a wonderful job! Everything is finished and alive!!!! But she's going to finish a few things, such as adding featured products to the page so it feels complete.
She's also available to do any designs for a Blog or informational site at a cheap price at the moment.

She has some clean skills and was fun to work with!

I have recently moved back to my hometown to reset my approach toward life. Trying to avoid the depression of living, I am going to work hard on promoting myself as a photography business, since I have been practicing photographing people.

here: [link]

The the old page was made back when I had no idea whether or not I liked my artwork, and it's exceeded the Like limit, so it can't have a name change that suites my official business name, so I decided to make
the new page and have it be fresh and new!

=ImaginaryRosse dedicated a beautiful artwork to me. Thank you so much!



I really appreciate it! It makes me feel more hopeful and motivated to be more active in the art world once again.



She's one of my favorite digital artists. Here's some of my personal faves from her gallery:

I normally avoid posting personal feelings, but perhaps that's the issue--that I've trusted nobody with my feelings, including myself! I have repressed so many thoughts and feelings that are not easy to "snap out of." If it was that easy, then I'd already be the person I've always wanted to be. I know that some of you will truly understand me, <3, which is why I am actually posting this….I want to hide nothing about me. I want to be that happy, funny, fun-to-be-around, honest girl again!

I know that I am loved and wanted by certain people in my life, so note that that's not the issue here. The problem is that I have a difficulty living up to other peoples' expectations when I have yet to learn how to truly live up to my own expectations; or our expectations are the same, but I have a slower way of reaching it, due to some weird hesitation that lingers inside my head. I am easily mistaken as a childish person to many people because of the things I have not yet accomplished, due to a disease called "anxiety," which hasn't really been bad lately. But I think that the problem is that I am in "neutral" right now, where I feel like I need to stop and see what I really want, but again, it makes things slower and people more impatient.

Everybody says I am young and have a lot to learn, but I'm still light years behind. I see change on the inside before I see it on the outside, meaning that I value my mind, and when it's chemically imbalanced to the point that I can't be my happy self, and I come off as some quiet, lethargic, strange girl, (with a talented, sweet heart and soul beneath the surface) I then become more concerned about balancing myself, that it makes me not show much interest in "reality" because I am trying to find where I belong with the flow of the Universe. It can take months. And when I begin to feel like, "Omg, I am doing it! I am finally progressing," that's when I am told that I need to work harder on "showing" initiative, then my energy goes downhill…again, because only I can see the mental change that was just starting to get me past my irrational fears. I need to learn a technique that will help me find myself from within while I work on accomplishing the requirements for reality.

I had myself convinced that I was ready to be a strong, confident woman that people would adore and want to be around. My friends and family got to know me as a silly, funny, goofy, energetic girl that loved to run and take photos as I journeyed fearlessly into the wilderness, alone and sometimes with friends. Well, the sad thing is that all the new people I've met (in person), have been left with a not-so-good impressions of me: a girl that has a lot of grown up to do, and doesn't go out and get what she wants. Yes, it is true (I'll get to that in a moment), but the thing that sucks is that they didn't even get to witness the "real" me. That was just the "I have a period and I suck at pretending to be okay." Seriously, why do I always get a period when I have a big opportunity to socialize with a group of people where I actually believe I can prove myself as being awesome and fun to be around? Perhaps that was out of context, but wow, I really need to control the mini-depressions I get from PMSing. Gah, if it weren't for that, they would've seen me as a funny goofy girl that wasn't afraid to speak her mind about what she wanted in life. However, in the last 8 months, I've gone completely downhill where I don't know what I want because I became so concerned about what other people thought, but thankfully I am beginning to focus on ME and not worry about what other people think they know.

Now get this: there are things I want out of life, but I become very hesitant because of a sudden overload of uncertain thoughts, or "anxiety" I guess. One hesitant moment can really, really give off a bad impression.

I know that I am strong, but my weakness is having to prove myself to others. Perhaps that's my stubbornness which is much easier to snap out of than the...depression that rise every now and again. Some people find it hard to believe and seriously think it's childish and easy to snap out of. I wish it were! Then I'd have my dream photography business, photoshop action business, and my own home!

I've had the opportunity to experience new adventures and to know what it's like to have reality truly hit me in the heart and in the head (not literally!) but emotionally and mentally. I'm sick and tired of being just a person that people "have" to include, because I'm there or I know that person or whatever. I am trying to make myself more appealing so that people want to know me and want to learn from me. I want to be Julia Starr, a multi-talented girl from Utah that has a passion for photography and teaching others--plus, she's fun to be around, happy, and energetic, and she's got a lot going for her! I was getting there…until I subconsciously and unintentionally became out of sync with the world.

I may be quiet at times (or most of the time when I'm feeling lost), but I truly do appreciate the people that I am with right now. It makes me realize that they do care about me, and now it's my turn to love and care about myself and live up to the full potential that I have. It's difficult to naturally be at a different pace than everybody else…light years behind, and I mean, literally lol. But the fact is that I know myself and what I am capable of doing, and once I have my mind and heart synced together, I have everything I ever needed. My goal is to do everything for myself and then make everybody proud, not the other way around, which is what I have been doing. =/

I know that the key to happiness is to love myself, to focus on me (but still care of others), and to rely on myself. Duh, that's obvious, but the task is to make it a part of my daily life like I had done practically 2 years ago, which lasted a full year! And it was amazing. This is really a challenge. But I feel better that I finally typed feelings that I've held in for awhile. I used to type a lot of journals about my thoughts and feelings, which eventually made me find myself and feel better about myself to get things done. So perhaps I am going in the right direction. It feels much better to not keep things to myself!

I made a flickr account ages ago, but never really used it, but today I decided to make a new one since I established a name for myself.
And I am going to try very hard to keep my facebook and deviantart accounts updated so I can build myself once again!

[link]

I am debating if I should sell some of my old actions and wallpapers. I've been very 'eraklfakfkjeghgj' about it because I have been waiting for my designer to finish my personal website. However, before I even upload the old actions for sale, they're not going to be as you've last seen them, because I have made many new changes and wanted them to be exclusive on my own personal website and nowhere else, but for sake of getting something out of the time, dedication, passion, quality and effort I have put into every resource I have ever provided, I might try selling them through the new Premium Content Platform to hold me off until my website is finished.

It's almost been a full year since I had someone start the website, then I had to find a new designer--it's been about 3.5 months since the "start" of the new site. I am now beginning to wonder if there's even a life for me anymore. I am seriously fading away from the things I used to love and I just don't know anymore. It's just nothing.

I am so not active online like I used to be, but I still offered to feature the winners of "The world is full of magic" photography contest hosted by ~thedaydreaminggirl




  1st Place

goes to ~amisiux




2nd Place

goes to *Nelleke



3rd Place

goes to *Obsessed-by

I am excited to now physically be a part of The Zelda Project ! It was a fun experience, however, very exhausting from all of the walking and constantly photographing and filming behind the scenes. It was fun to be next to ~Indigo76 as he photographed hundreds of photos, and it was sweet to watch *Adella be a funny, positive person as she portrayed Malon.

*Adella has uploaded a teaser while we work on the other photos. On my behalf, it was a last moment shot I took and I didn't consider it to be valuable, but
since it's posted, I feel happy lol. Just wait until you see ~Indigo76's shots! They are super amazing !



I have a lot of behind the scenes shots of Link and Malon, but I won't upload those because I don't want to give away the scenes.


Here's a few that ~Indigo76 photographed of me lol

I don't' type journals much anymore, but when it's 'that time of month' when I become extra, extra hormonal, it makes me feel the need to spill my thoughts and hear from any of you that can understand or have any personal advice.

So...I have been going through so many mental changes. I don't know how much crap I used to share back in my dramatic teen years, but I used to have cold thoughts, watched violent movies, and didn't mind violence or the death of others in movies or reality; I felt nothing, felt no remorse, felt emotionless...but at the same time I was artistically creative It lasted for years, but naturally I have come out of it during the last year and now I feel super squeamish about the littlest violent things or sad stories to the point that it makes me fear independent freedom (like obtaining the resources to get me out of the house, like a car and stuff) and a fear losing control of what I want to accomplish, or just working very hard on something and months later, I realize it's led me nowhere. True story.

When I was going through my cold resentful phase, it did make me super anxious about things, but at the same time, it made me stronger to not fear certain things. I walked around with the "so what" attitude as if nothing mattered all that much and I was able to get some things done. But with that mindset gone, it is good because I feel lifted of dark energy, but the disadvantage is that I was strong for so long in some ways, that I have fallen because I couldn't keep up with it and I am trying to get back to being myself, where I am full of confidence and strengths...but without having to have the bad emotionless cold energy and thoughts there to balance how I move forward.


Lately, like the last year or almost a year or whatever, I have sort of had ideas for new art, but I just feel anxious like I don't have time to do it, or if I do attempt it, I rush it just to get it done so that I can say that I did it. I have no original creativity right now and I feel no creativity after I do something. I just feel like I am doing it as if I am racing time. I feel intimated and insecure when I see artwork that I know I can do, it's just that I lack the true motivation to go out and do it, or a lack of a certain resource.

Here's another annoying opposite: When I didn't used to have the resources or access to good stock imagery, I was always flooded with ideas but couldn't make them because of lack of good resources...but NOW that I have had the opportunity to go out and take thousands of photos with ~Indigo76 , I now have all the photos I have ever needed for creations I wanted to make years or months ago...and now that I have good stock imagery I've gone out and shot...well, to "naturally" balance that out, I am lacking motivation, creativity, and feeling that time is suffocating me so that either I have to rush things or let it pass by and miss a chance.

It's almost as if not having the darkness around, is unnatural and leaving me imbalanced. Perhaps we all need a little darkness to help us see both sides, to balance our emotions. But without it, I just feel kinda empty like I am reliving irrational thoughts everyday, which are stopping me from getting a driver's license . Seriously, how the hell does one grasp the strength of getting out of these irrational fears?
A few years ago, I was deathly afraid of crowds and being around people, but not afraid to be in a car. And now it's the total opposite! I am not afraid to be around crowds or people in general (just shy naturally, but not anywhere near deathly afraid), but I am now fearing driving and being inside of a car even when someone else is driving. It's like, for me, everything has to be "either/or". Either you fear learning to driving, but feel okay around people; or you succeed at driving, but die of anxiety from being around people.

Ughh! Seriously! How the F do I grow up?!!!! lol This is so childish. I am 21 years old and I am mentally mature for my age when it comes to the deep outlook on life and seeing the world with no boundaries, but yet I am like 6 years behind on the common things that should already be done, like obtaining a driver's license, having a real first job, and confidence.

What kind of techniques will help me shift my mindset so that it's not "either/or", so that I can be confident to practicality do everything!
I know it takes practice and experience to gain confidence, but any advice or techniques to help get me focuse on the positive things would really help!

Basically, when I break it down, I am simply lacking confidence, a sexy positive attitude, motivation, and determination. It will come and go, as if I am a little bipolar, but I want to make it take over the negative thoughts and feelings. I bet once I can gain control of confidence and all that great stuff, then I will feel complete and accomplished more than usual.

Ughhh.....
Sometimes I ask myself: Is it an unfortunate waste of time that I am still fighting and looking forward to selling my resources whenever my website is finished? Or is it fortunate and should I keep working on it even though it's been months with many delays? Does it even matter anymore? I put so much work and dedicated time to create resources, that I am just falling way from my senses and it will just be another one of those things I put years of work into and then it just....doesn't happen, like my stories I spent 7 years writing. lol. Yes, a complete waste of life and I have to pretend it didn't happen because it's irrational and many people just don't get it =/ but it's what gave me purpose for those empty years. So it's as if I woke from a coma with a huge gap there. But those were more personal and rarely shared.

But what the hell am I supposed to do? Forget it? I don't have the money to frickin' pay somebody over a grand to make me a professional, custom e-commerce website and to get it done ASAP like within a month. The entire point to have a website, is to still continue being generous and providing even better resources than I've shared here, and to  sell my damn stuff so that I can actually make money to go towards my living expenses, and because I know I am good at what I do and people love what I do, so I am gaining confidence there. It's been over 4 years since I started providing actions, and over 5 years when I started stock photography. Slow gain of confidence, but I think I have enough to start selling it finally! Argh but when!!!!!!! I just want to eat a piece of creamy chocolate cake and then cry like there's no tomorrow.

Here's my website so far: [link] just a big test mode right now. Things aren't properly aligned and the store functions are not complete, etc. I don't understand that stuff and my lovely webdesigner is having personal medical issues, which I hope she recovers from so that she can continue to do what she loves. She sells some lovely digital scrapbook resources: [link] I suggest you check it out if you are a digital scrapbooker It's been awhile since she's worked on the site, but I am still very thankful she even offered to create it for free! but just to have my products in return and to give back to me for giving so much to people Well, I can afford that compared to $2,000+ which I don't even have!

I guess I am just upset at myself for not even trying to understand the complex functions lol. I can make pages and stuff, but when it comes to the store stuff and aligning content that can only be done in the CSS scripts, my brain explodes! It's like not my area of expertise.

Oh my, I just go on and on don't I? I need to be bitched slapped. Seriously! I am just having a day.

I didn't take many 'behind the scenes' shots, but this basically what it was like.


The water started looking like pee as the colors washed off and then it turned more green. I had the camera set up on a tripod as close as I could get, and then I used Live view on the screen and set the 100mm macro lens to manual so that I could manually focus it on the dripping water. (I had previously used the tinsel for some natural bokeh effects like in this shot: [link]
I was trying to take two different kinds of photos at once lol. It's better to start with one thing and then try the other.



This is what it looked like through Live view, and then when I shot random photos using the internal flash, I get random results. Once it's focused where the water is dripping, then it's not as frustrating...that is, if you're using a tripod. However, it sometimes gets frustrating that you can't really get as close with a tripod, then you find yourself trying to hold it steady and as close as you can get not fun!...unless you start to capture a few awesome shots that are in nice focus.



Here's some other examples:






It died!!!!!!!! So now I have to get a new one. I'm kinda anxious to try some new colors though--colors that are not super vibrant.




The fun part is that you can be lazy. It was a gloomy day today and I simply wore my pajamas.

I know I've been very distant from deviantart. I've just been going through a "what do I want in life" phase, ya know?  It has dragged on month after month, but every once and awhile I do find my creativity again. I post more on my facebook fan page and my personal website more than here, and one of my 2012 resolutions is to be more active in the artist community once again. I miss doing features of art. I also want to share more stock photos too, and feature stock there too. But after a lot of struggling with my creativity, it finally struck me after all these weeks and a few months or so, that I now have a friggin' nice collection of my own high res photos from various locations I shot since last year and mostly these last two months since I've moved to the west coast. And so....I have no excuse not to make art; I can make so much personal art with my own photos now. They are pretty naturally, but it hasn't made me feel entirely complete, and so I realized that when I manipulate my photos into a realistic scenery, but of something that is obviously fictional based on how I feel mentally and emotionally, that seems to make me feel more connected with myself. So I will try to have 1-2 things per week to share so that I can get back into the community since I worked years on getting to where I left off. I wasn't feeling satisfied with my art style. I feel like I am trying to find myself again. So hopefully 2012 is my year to shine again, hehe.



Anyway, here's a few features of some art that I personally enjoy!

:thumb276243437:


I normally don't feature myself, but I'm trying to be more confident about my work because it's changing as I change. I'm between photography and photo-manipulation.

I have been busy working on my blog website and making new pages for my tutorials, because I am going to rewrite  my tutorials from deviantart and post them into blog form and video later on.

I haven't had much time to experiment with photography, but I do have a few new blogs with some photos that are exclusively on there. Uploading them on deviantart would make them look average and boring. But on my personal website, they seem to be the only kind of their own and new from me, considering I always lived in a desert area and other stuff, ya know?

My latest experiment was shooting macros of oil and water: [link]
And the previous was my first experience visiting sea cliffs: [link]

Eventually when I actually plan these things, I will have some unique photos. I plan to take long exposure shots of the ocean. I found a lot of pretty beach areas with rocks.
So basically, I don't upload much on deviantart, because what I am doing right now with photography, is what most people would call, "seen it before; see it everywhere" or whatever. And so I feel comfortable with my photos posted on my site where it's not mixed with other similar art. It's just my own space exclusively sharing photos of new changes in my life, as for dA, many people would probably assume that just another photo of the ocean, is just another lame photo of the ocean and not understand that it's personal to  me because
it's so new to me. I am so thankful for blogs/personal websites!

I visit dA everyday but I don't really have much to say or do. It's not really my place anymore.
It's time for my own personal place.
I am going to work on actual photography for my www.night-fate.com , which I want to convert to
nightfatephotography.com , because some day, I will have awesome photos lol. The kind of photos that
people will buy commercially. I am determined to work on it and have a quiet, hidden passion for it.

And my resource site will be www.nightfateactions.com . I have no idea when it will be finished.
The logo is the only thing that's finished.
So I will have to convert my best tutorials into blog format and video format, and then I will take down all of my actions and share selected sets on my website, and then sell what I do. Because it's only fair that I do that now, so I can stop being taken for granted. Because no, my actions you see now will not always be there. I have to step out of my kind shy space and be a little feisty to get things fair on my end. So save them now, respect it, and back them up, because I am very annoyed when people keep asking me to give them sets they have lost. I've been kindly doing requests and given out sets people have lost for months now and it's very aggravating after awhile.

And then I will also sell some high res textures. But I will keep my ~night-fate-stock because I'm not too worried about making new stock. I am more concerned about getting actual finished artwork out there in the world. Stock doesn't do much for me anymore. I will still share some new stock pics, but not a huge variety like I've done in the past.

Anyway, whenever my action website is finished, and when I move selected actions over to it, then I will remove them from here, as well as my tutorials. DeviantArt was a great place to start, but after awhile you see things that begin to annoy you, and it's time for me to be a leader on my own site where I will have new never before seen resources that you can have for free for the sake of learning.

Until then, I don't really have time to create new art. I am busy working on the content for my action website, and then I do upload some blogs on my night-fate.com

But I will let you know when I have the site ready so you can find new free and exclusive resources.
Which makes me very thankful for everybody via Facebook who contributed photos ever so kindly to be a part of my future action community!
Yay, I was so shy to ask for favors haha. But that will sooo help me get things started and previewed professionally.

90% of why I uploaded a cat photo, was to see how much more it would be recognized than
other work that I put a lot of time into. I actually took time to think whether or not
I wanted to upload the photo, because I was thinking, "I dunno if I should upload this.
It's simple but so many people get orgasms over a cute-looking cat."
But seriously, I was also curious how much more attention it would get compared to
my hard work that I wish would get more, because my cat photo does not show
my emotions. I like cats and it does show I am a cat person, and it was a happy moment... but it's not showing a painful emotion that had hours put into it. I prefer people to relate to my art pieces that show pain.

The other 10% was just to share something new from me, even though seeing a cat is something we all see lol. But from my gallery, personally, it is something new, ya know? Throughout the deviantart community, it is by no means anything new. For example, taking the cat photo wasn't terribly tricky. It was a little hard cause she kept moving around, but it wasn't all that annoying to deal with her.

As for my nature photos, like the macro shots of plants or the landscapes, that takes more time and effort, considering I walk everywhere to take photos.
I spend hours outside under scary storms in a field, or under the hot sun. It gets very exhausting. Then coming home to edit the pics takes a few hours. And I am just very tired by then, with housecleaning to finish.

As for the photo-manipulations, I sit on my ass for 3 + hours struggling to find images and put together the piece, it requires so much more dedication and emotion for me to create a manipulation, especially using a model. Because the only time I really make manipulations now days, is to express deep lost emotions.
For me, now days, it's not necessarily blending the pics together that takes time, but to express it just right. But it's not as recognized like a cat photo.

Yikes! I don't think I want to upload another cat photo if it's going to get more attention than my actual hard work that I put time, effort, and dedication to complete.  BUT the viewers are the ones that choose whether they like it or not. I have no desire to be one who forces or spams people to look at my work. They can look at it if they choose to do so.

I know a lot of people like happy photos, and I do have a happy side now, and that's why else I have been uploading photography with warm inviting colors, because it doesn't take tears and mental screams of pain to create like some of my manipulations. Though, soon I will be photographing people to express those mental screams of pain . Until then, it's manipulations I can only express it through.

So it is official: an image of a cute moment of a cat, will get more attention than your hard, hard work that you put painful emotion into creating.

True story.


It does not look impressive to me. It was just simply something new to show I was having a good time, and feeling cute and happy.


I spent hours working on that and I was in the kind of mood it shows. And it's like a knife to my head that
my hard hard harrrrrrd work is just in the background.

I am beginning to help °matteo revive the forever-ago-created #PhotoshopTutorials group.

So if you would like to share tutorials, that would be awesome to get it going again.

But read the guidelines on the front page and understand that it is for TUTORIALS. not photoshop actions or stock photos. but Photoshop Tutorials. PHOTOSHOP.
Creations which require the use of photoshop.

Any tutorials containing terrible end results where even a beginner would know it was bad, or the use of copyrighted photography/celeb images, will be declined.

Basically a clean, readable tutorial using stock photos, your own images/concepts, will be allowed with no questions asked.

I thought I'd make a quick journal with my stolen texture


It's just annoying and maddening that all this really happened to a lot of people (by someone who got away with it for awhile).
My artwork and stock art have been stolen before, but mostly on stupid ugly websites where the people
have very little power and no idea how to remove a watermark.

The more research I do on the Chad Love Lieberman, it gets more and more annoying and absurd that such a creature exists.

I am currently working on my portfolio website which will have an awesome new blog. I am going to rewrite my old blogs with the best pics (probably about 4 of them) and then I am going to work on the  galleries. I have everything ready to publish, I just need to work on the template a little more.
It takes sooo much time but I hope to have most of it finished by the end of the week. The URL is night-fate.com but it's not viewable just yet.

I am beginning to work on my photoshop action website,
but I must know if my actions work in Photoshop Elements.
If they do, let me know from your experience. Do they install the same
as Adobe Photoshop CS + ( Window > Actions > then go to the palette and load them from there.)
Or do they have to be converted?
Are there certain effects that don't work with it?
I'd like to know. And if you have experience with both photoshops, let me know
which versions.

Now days I make my actions in CS4.

but ahhhh let me know how they work for you so I know which programs
they're compatible with.