For some years now, we've supported 'HD Photos' on BLUF, by which I mean photos that are of a fairly high resolution, and which we are able to display full screen, even allowing users to zoom in to see detail.

We added this because I believe that for a site like BLUF, where dresscode and gear is important to our members, we should allow them to show off. And because, as an amateur photographer myself, I realise that if I'm taking photos of someone in gear, I want them to be viewed in the best possible quality, rather than artificially constrained to a particular size.

We've further supported photographers by including listings on the site, to allow members to find people who can shoot them in their gear, and to browse portfolios of images from photographers who submit them to us. This, like most of what we do, is completely free; if you're a fetish photographer who wants to be added to the listings, please get in touch.

Going further

At the end of 2021, we collaborated with London-based photographer Matt Spike to produce the BLUF 2022 Calendar, which was put on sale through our two online stores - one for the EU, the other for the rest of the world.

We've extended this partnership by offering posters and fine art prints of the images in the calendar, allowing people to buy a high quality reproduction on museum-quality paper, to display in their own homes.

To make this possible, we've built software and systems at BLUF that now enable us to hook into Print On Demand networks around the world, so that people in many countries can order easily via our stores, and have calendars or art prints delivered to them with the minimum of hassle.

And now we'd like to extend an offer to other photographers and creators to work with us.

Join the BLUF stores

While the primary purpose of the BLUF online stores is to raise money to support the operation and development of the club, now that we have created a system that makes it possible to offer things like artwork and calendars easily, I also think that we can use that to help other people, if they wish.

If you have artistic material that you'd like to make available to people - as prints, posters, or other items, we're now happy to include it in the 'Art and calendars' section of our web stores, so people can buy your work easily, and effectively without your having to do much more beyond giving us a high quality image and agreeing how you want people to be able to buy it.

Obviously, we can't do this for absolutely nothing; processing online payments costs us money, as does the book keeping, and we have to submit VAT reports for products sold in the EU, which takes time. However, we believe that we can cover our costs, and make a small contribution to BLUF, with between 10-15% of the sale price.

So, that's our offer to photographers, artists and other creative people: we'll host your artwork on the BLUF store, handling sales, card processing, and customer service, for a small share of the sale price. If you're interested in taking part, please do get in touch.

And for the rest of the community, keep an eye on the stores - I hope you'll find some interesting work for sale very soon.