Welcome to Allurism.com. I’m David Avant, aka @theallurist. Founder, photographer, and publisher of Allurism.com. This is where I share the alluring subjects I photograph. People, nature, toys, and all the fun stuff that makes me smile. It’s taken me more than a few years to figure out how to put this all together, but finally, here we are!

I’m a very visual person and in such, I naturally seek out beauty. I love to travel, meet new people, and experience life in an open, take it as it comes kind of way. I like to consider myself pretty chill, very judgement free, and have a flattering presence which allows me to step into a very comfortable rapport with just about anyone. This makes photographing real emotion actually doable with people who aren’t professional actors. In my sessions I push buttons, talk shit, get in people’s heads, and provoke emotional and expressional responses that I then capture in my work.

What you’ll find on this website is a mix of beautiful women, cool places, and neat things like cars, boats, flying objects, instruments, electronics, guns, whatever I come across that I happens to be inspired by. You’ll also find the educational blog detailing how I got my start all the way to where I am now. You’ll find insights to the hardships, the successes, avoidable mishaps, marketing, psychology, editing, posing, and of course how I go about photographing my work.

Where this site stands out from other photography sites, is the focus and personal touch added to build a level of rapport with subjects where they can be themselves, be goofy, be vulnerable, and be a loyal client and friend.

Over the past few years, I’ve done a great deal of self educating through audiobooks, psychology blogs, and personal experience applying what I’ve learned to people in my photo sessions. Sessions with undivided one on one attention for hours at a time where I could literally say anything, so long as it was for an expression. I’ve been pretty successful at it, though in the beginning, some of those experiments went awry. Still, I’ve persisted, and have developed myself into a photographer capable of providing a great experience for all that I work with. In my process, I do a 10-30 minute warm-up to teach posing, non verbal cue’s, and get a baseline for the person’s personality, insecurities, sense of humor, and best poses. This process allows me to ensure my subject has fun, remains confident, and undressed of their insecurities. This allows me to capture the essence of my subjects’ being; their true goofy, sexy, confident, free, and uninhibited self. That’s the side of people I love most, so that’s what I bring out of those that give me the opportunity.

There are two ways to make a living as a portrait photographer. The first is to have people pay you to take content of them, their business, or something they need content for. The other, is to create content, and sell it. The first option worked well financially, but it didn’t make me happy being in a perpetual busy state doing other people’s bidding with no ample time to be creative in any sort of inspired way. After living that lifestyle for a few years, and quarantine to push me along, I’ve decided to take the leap, and go full time the second way. Slow at first, but with more time dedicated, traction is continually being gained. What I want is to travel, do the things that make me happy, then share that slice of heaven on earth with anyone who enjoys the same things I do. Yeah, I’m doing this for me, but also for those of you who can’t just up and leave your life, family, and job to go live like I do. If you want a little escape, you know where to find me. 

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