The internet allows for our inner (and often hidden) exhibitionist to come out. It's true that not everyone likes to be seen, but a lot of guys enjoy it when others are watching them, when they pay close attention to what they are saying, and if others are getting off while watching them, well that's a whole fantasy into itself, now isn't it...

Please meet Jay, aka VoyExhibBear. This handsome Bearish man discovered the pleasures of livestreaming on TubeBear. He told me that it's a real trip for him when others are watching him. I can understand why - he's got quite the body and an incredibly cute face. Jay then told me that he had some photos that he would like to share. I replied that the best place for that would be in the PlanetBears Galleries, in the Bear Amateur section.

So check out his newly added galleries and make sure to contact him, either via email or thru his profile. Also, keep an eye out on livestreaming section; Jay is on quite a bit and he looks real good live. And lastly, Jay stated that he makes his way over to Montreal sometimes, so I just might line up a photo shoot with him in the future.

As I mentioned in the article above, I've moved over all of the BearPress and Bear-Pics Amateur Galleries over to the PlanetBears Galleries. However, there was one that gallery I didn't add. It's not like I forgot it, it's just that... well... it consisted of only 1 photo, this one, of the incredibly cuddly, furry, puppy-eyed Mark.

Now if you check out the BearPress galleries, you'll remark that the smallest galleries have at least 3 photos in them (remember... these photos were sent at a time before scanners and digital cameras were common toys men had at their disposal). And as I mentioned before in another article, the real reason why I put these BearPress galleries up is because they are meaningful (to me).

However, this one picture of Mark is probably the most meaningful of all (to me) because this was the very first picture someone sent to me for my 'then' non-existent Amateur Galleries. I had made a call in the news asking guys to send me in their photos, and Mark sent me just 1, but it was the one that started things off for me. This was before I was photographing men and had any material of my own, so... as you can see... it's got meaning quite a bit of meaning to me... and darn, Mark's just so frikkin' cute...! Too bad he didn't send me 3 dozen photos. I just thought I'd share that with ya.

The Bear Amateur Galleries have been filling up quite nicely lately, however you just might not have noticed since all of this is happening in the Gallery section. I have been working hard at filling those areas up. The past few weeks, I've added over 3000 photos from exactly 100 different cute Bears who, at one point or another, have sent me their photos, some of them dating back as far as '99. Also, ever since I reopened the Bear Amateur Galleries, I've been receiving a lot of new sets as well and I have more to add. Here are some quick links to check these out ~ Gallery #1 - Gallery #2 - Gallery #3 - Gallery #4 - Gallery #5. And here are the BearPress galleries (from '99 - '00). Make sure to keep an eye out on these galleries as I will be adding more and more photo sets and yet I don't always mention that fact here in the news.

If you're interested in having your galleries displayed here on PlanetBears, just email me (Forrest - profile) or use the contact form, add your photos, and if you've got a certain Bearish look about you, then in exchange I will give you a membership to PlanetBears.

[Click Here] You know, there are some really hot looking men in this world and I thank our blue and green planet Mother Earth for that fact every day. That being said... I'm really honoured to present to you Scott. I have seen pics of Scott on the net for some time now (especially those of him next to his motorcycle), and have been a fan of his ever since my eyes came across his photos. I didn't know who he was back then, but then I landed upon his homepage.

Now here is one truly interesting Bear: he's a paramedic and he's right now working for a company in Afghanistan until the summer of '09. If you check out his homepage, you'll see some beautiful shots of where he's staying as well as some truly gross pictures of dead insurgents. Not that I'm a wuss or anything, I just decided not to place my attention on the results of war... instead I  focused my attention on Scott's incredible Bearish body. I also read his bio which is a really interesting read. He's open and honest; quality traits I appreciate in a man.

Scott gave me the permission to add his photos to the PlanetBears Galleries. Simply put, he's a Bear deity (heck, I'd worship him by sacrificing a few twinks). Seriously, he's got a body that doesn't stop and these wild green/blue/hazel coloured eyes that melt you like butter all the while burning a lasting impression onto your soul. I've been gawking at the 200+ pics that I added, and all I could think of is that I hope one day I might able to meet with Scott and work on a photo shoot together. He's got a body that I think my camera would love.

Click here to see some previews, and make sure to email him.

[Members - click here] Over the past couple of weeks (articles) I've been bringing over all of the Bear-Pics amateur photos over to the PlanetBears Galleries. That task is now done and there were over 75 different galleries that were added. Now some galleries had 3 pictures in them while others had 300. In total there's over 2500 photos. These were pics that cute Bearish guys had sent to me over the years while I was running Bear-Pics ~ between '01 and '06.

Well, I went digging a little further into my archives and found the original BearPress Amateur Galleries. These are photos that were sent to me between '99 and '00. In total, there's 21 gallery however there's only 85 photos. You have to remember tho, this was a time just before folks had digital cameras. Sure it seems simple now to add your photos to the net - just use your USB and plug and play... but a decade ago it was a process for guys to figure out how to get their images onto a computer. Also, slow connections didn't allow for hi-res, so a lot of these photos from the BearPress are just glorified thumbnails. Anyhow, the point here is that ~ back then ~ receiving 4-6 photos from a Bear was a big deal (for me anyhow).

Well, after I had finished adding the Bear-Pics Amateur galleries, I saw it only fitting to add the BearPress Amateur Bear pics as well - yet more out of nostalgia than anything else (altho the guys that had the galleries are cute, there's just not enough photos of them to fully appreciate what they have to offer). Nevertheless, as I was adding them, I began recalling the online conversations I had with these Bearish guys now dating back to a decade ago... ahh, memory lane.

What's next for the PlanetBear's galleries? I'm hoping you guys will once again start sending in your photos. I also have a few photo shoots lined up with some husky teddies, and I have a few other ideas, so stay tuned.

If you look at the top of this page, you'll see 5 thumbnail photos of cute guys... and when you click on any of those photos, it will bring you a preview image of their gallery.

Well you might be seeing more and more with the tag 'Amateur Bear Pics'... those are photos that have been sent in to either BearPress/Bear-Pics and now to PlanetBears.

If you wish to have your photos show up here on PlanetBears, simply email me or use the contact form, and if you've got that Bearish goodness, I will give you a year's membership to the site, which allows you access to all the Galleries as well as Videos.

GAME: just checking to see if anyone is reading or not. Now if you look at those top 5 images, you might see 1 or 2... maybe even 3 that have the 'Amateur Bear Pics'... here's a game - refresh the page and see if you can get all 5 saying 'Amateur Bear Pics'... if you can do that, and take a snapshot of your desktop, send it to me and I'll give you a membership for a month. You gotta be 21 years of age and older. This isn't impossible because it happened to me - all 5 had 'Amateur Bear Pics'... see if you can hit the BearPot...!

Everytime I mention GianOrso in the news, a thousand different praise words come to mind, such as; prodigy, excellence, beauty, style, master, professional, Bear goodness (that's 2 words), artistic, incredible... the list of words I can use can go on and on. GianOrso is just one great photographer and the photos he's taken of Bears over the years is just outstanding.

I have been graced simply by knowing this man. He and I have been in communication since '01 when he informed me that he was hoping to get his North American debut... and since then he has been an inspiration to all those who've seen his Bearish photos, making fans from all over the world.

I used to have a bunch of photos he sent me on Bear-Pics, and lately I've been bringing those photos over to PlanetBears. Today I put in almost 400 pics that he has sent me over the years, some you will not see anywhere else (and I'm also hoping he'll send more in the future).

You can view those he sent me in the GianOrso Gallery which is in the PlanetBears Galleries, and make sure to visit his website as well as his Flickr page. And if you care to send him a message like 'I'm not worthy, let me lick your boots', then check out his profile.

ps - that thumbnail - those 2 pics are both GianOrso... before and after the gray hair (wink).

When I first started doing Bear news back in '99, there was one site that I used to mention so often since it was updated a lot, and that was Lynn Ludwig's site ShutterBear.com (articles). Over the years, however, Lynn has been fighting hard with his health. Yet even tho his health has been challenging him, he still makes it out to Lazy Bear Weekend.

Now it's my bad for not mentioning this earlier since he added the photos back in August, but you gotta check out his pictures from Lazy Bear '08. Lynn's photos are one of the reasons why I started working in the Bear world because he was one of the very first who took pictures of the very best Bearish looking men. And you can always tell a Lynn Ludwig photo because he seems to capture the best in every man that strikes a pose for him. His images are bright and full of life, and the inner beauty of the men shines thru, bringing forth their outer beauty as well. It's a beautiful thing.

The following is from Lynn's news page: "So at least I made it out one more day and a few more hours at Lazy Bear '08; and that continues to be the limit of my events activities once again. But my garden is looking great and that activity continues to provide its own rewards. Still, it bums me out That a new 5 drug cocktail hasn't fixed everything. Blood work looks good, but a nasty pneumonia, a scary drug interaction, a fainting spell along with a damaged heart, a compressed spine and more drag me down and prey upon my spirit. Losing my cat and very best friend hasn't help. Enjoy the photos - what I can do does sustain me and I am always hopeful I will be able to do more down the long and winding road".

Ahh... Roger... I can write a novel about this man... actually I am writing a novel about this man (and my dogs) but that's not what this article is about.

If you've followed anything concerning the BearFoot site, you know it's had its ups and downs. Recently I was planning on giving some life to the site by adding all of Roger's photos into it, as well as the videos. When I met and fell in love with Roger back in February '07... well... if you've ever fallen in love, you know that it's really intense in the beginning. And since I'm a photographer, I took thousands and thousands of poses of him since we've been together. He's almost a muse (as well as being an angel).

Anyhow, I'm already running 2 sites - PlanetBears and TubeBear - and time just hasn't allowed me to work on BearFoot, so once again I have put BearFoot 'on hold' (I think I've put BearFoot 'on hold' at least a dozen times ever since I bought the domain name).

Now I had a bunch of Roger's gallery sets up on BearFoot and I mentioned in the news a few times in the past that PlanetBears members can get to visit the BearFoot galleries, all they had to do was email me and I would give them a user/pw. I then realized that really nobody reads what's on the net since I got like a 10% response to my calls - I even made videos saying 'please email me' and still only a small handful of members replied.

Anyhow, what I've been doing is that I've been relocating those galleries that were on BearFoot over to the PlanetBears Galleries (Roger's Gallery is here), and today I have added 4 of those sets which means I added over 200 photos (bringing the amount of Roger photos to almost 900). And there's also a few videos of Roger in the Video section.

Click here for some previews, and to chat with Roger, visit his profile.

Members, click the following updates - Gallery #1 - Gallery #2 - Gallery #3 - Gallery #4.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have brought over mostly all of the BearPress and Bear-Pics amateur galleries over to the PlanetBears Galleries (some photos dating as far back as '99). Well now I'm starting to add the newer material; Bear photos that guys have been sending to me recently. And today I have added 2 galleries ~ photos from Bubba Harley and from Stocky Welsh Bear. 2 fine looking Bears with some pics in high resolution.

I have more photos to add from some more gents who have sent in their photos in the past while so keep an eye out for the Bear Amateur Galleries. The new stuff will be going in Gallery #5 and higher. As for the older photos, check them out here - Gallery #1 - Gallery #2 - Gallery #3 - Gallery #4).

Once again, this is a friendly reminder that if you're interested in having your photos up in the Amateur section then by all means send them in. You can either email me or use the contact form. In exchange for the photos, I will give you a membership to PlanetBears Gallery and Video pages. It's an excellent deal.

In the past little while, I've been bringing over all the Bear Amateur Galleries that were on the Bear-Pics and added them to the PlanetBears Gallery (article #1 - article #2). You can see them all here - Gallery #1 - Gallery #2 - Gallery #3 and in today's update - Gallery #4. In total, I've moved over 1600 pics. Now some of them are really low-res (remember, some of these photos date back to the days before digital and good scanners). Yet there's some which are also hi-res.

The next step is to start adding galleries with newer models, and I already have a few cute models to add. I will start working on those next week.

And if you wish to have your galleries here on PlanetBears, then by all means email me or use the contact form, send in those photos, and in exchange, I will give you a membership to PlanetBears Gallery and Video pages. It's a very good deal. So gather up those photos of yours, send them in and have a great weekend.

Not only have I been adding the galleries but I've also been sorting them out a bit better. You can now browse the galleries by the Bear who sent them in. Not sure how many sets are up but there are already over a 1000 pics to browse thru. I still have a few more sets to migrate over which I plan on doing in the next few days.

Good news: I already have some new photos to add for the PlanetBears Amateur Gallery. Mickey aka Bubba responded to this article and sent in a ton of great photos of himself. I will have these online as well real soon (and a little 'by the way' ~ Mickey was one of the 1st guys that sent me photos way back when I was running BearPress... so almost 10 years later he is submitting some new ones. He looks different but he's even cuter a decade later. Bearish Men just seem to age better).

So - here I make the call once again - if you have any photos of yourself you'd like to share and you feel that you're a cute Bear, then by all means email them in or use the contact form and in exchange, I will give you a 1 year free membership to PlanetBears. Send in more pics later on, get another year. Win-Win.

Click here for some previews.

[Members - click here] When I used to run Bear-Pics.com (from '00 to '06), I had a section for Amateur photos. What this section consisted of was a slew of pics sent in by a bunch of cute Bearish guys. Over those years, this section grew as more and more good looking men sent in their homebrewed pics. However, once I closed the doors to Bear-Pics, all those photos were taken down.

What I decided to do today on PlanetBears was put these photos back up, and so far I added 498 pics from 24 husky hot guys. There's still more photos that I need to add which I will do very soon. I am also trying to figure out the best way on how I want to layout these galleries, however for now I just bunched them up and placed them into 2 areas.

Now on the flipside of things, I want to breathe life back into this Amateur section - so if you have pics of yourself you'd like to share, then email them in or use the contact form. If they get used, in exchange I will give you a year's membership to PlanetBears. Send in more pics later on and you'll get another year free, it's as simple as that.

Click here to see some previews.

My goal with that site was to add Roger's (galleries - videos - profile) photos and videos there, and I did manage to place a bunch of photos, a lot of them not seen anywhere else. Now, since I was putting my time and energy into BearFoot and not into the PlanetBears galleries, well I wasn't adding any photos to PlanetBears and some members were getting restless. So... I decided to therefore allow PlanetBears members to 'preview' BearFoot. I made a call in the news stating that all PlanetBears members should contact me and in turn I would give them a temporary user/pw.

Well, after making this call 2 times in the news and once in the newsletter, I would say only 1/10th of the PlanetBears members contacted me in order to get their temp user/pw... which led me to conclude that not many people read what's on the net. I could probably write anything I want and get away with it since people seem to be skipping the text in favour of looking at the pics and videos. I'm not passing judgement, I'm much the same way.

His real name is Joe Mannetti however many of you know him as Joe Falconi (photo - courtesy of Lee Friend of Talk Magazine) . He has been the heartthrob to many a Bear lover as he's appeared in quite a few photo shoots, magazines and Bear movies. You might even remember seeing him for a few seconds on Conan O'Brien (altho much to the dislike of CyberBears).

Well Joe has been a very busy Bear of late, especially with the ton of work he puts into the GLBT community. You should check out this article on The Complete Bear (website - profile) to see all the things he has been up as well as all the things he'll be doing.

Oh - he also just won the Mr. Los Angeles Bear '08 title held by BearsLA at Oil Can Harry's last September 13th. A huge congratulations goes to him.

On a personal note, I have always found Joe super duper cute ever since I first saw his photos on BearBound (preview pics of Joe - articles - profile). There's something about him that just captures your eye... and keeps it focused on him. I'm sure we'll be hearing more from him in the upcoming future.

Click Here to see a short video that Roger (galleries - articles - profile) and I (Forrest - profile) made one summer day (click here to see a list of all the videos). We tried something a little different when it came to binding feet; we also bound Roger's toes together, as in - his big toe bound to his big toe right down to his pinky toe being bound to his other pinky toe. It was then that I realized just how flexible his cute stocky feet are.

There's no sound to this video and it's a little short - about 3 minutes or so, but it's still fun to see. Here are a few quick snapshots as well (photo #1 ~ large - small) (photo #2 ~ large - small) (photo #3 ~ large - small).

There's some unrelated bad news, but there's a bit of good news as well. The bad news is that the external harddrive that I have all my videos of Roger short circuited, actually blackening the circuits, all because I plugged in the wrong AC adapter (they all look so alike). So I brought this external HD to the computer shop, and not to get into any technical details, they are working on it. The possible bad news is that I might have to spend a lot of money to extract the data, which would suck something seriously. The good news is that I still have most of the master copies on MiniDV cassettes so if they are going to ask for a bundle to extract the data, I'll just spend a couple of days loading all the videos into another external harddrive.

So, if you need to learn something today, learn from me: Buddha Bob says use the right plug for the right box, unless you enjoy the smell of circuits frying in the morning.

Back in '05, I had the chance to spend a day with René, aka OneDragon (galleries - profile). In that day we were able to take an incredible amount of photos, and our first stop was in a field near a sand mining factory. This field is pretty huge with a man-made lake next to it. There's also a lot of abandoned areas here and there, as well as a bunch of industrial junk lying around.

Anyhow, the photos from that shoot turned out great, so much so that one of the pictures inspired artist Brent D. Marr (website - articles - profile) to draw one of the photos - here is Brent's drawing and here is the original picture.

It put a huge smile on my face to see that image, and so I decided to make this photo set public. You can see all 69 images here. They are 800x600 and members can see the 1600x1200 ones (including all the other OneDragon photos).

[Members - click here] I've been going retroactive (maybe it should be called retropassive, since it means going into the past)... anyhow... I have been bringing over some of the bear-pics videos over to PlanetBears, turning them into FLVs (when you watch a YouTube flick, it's in FLV format).

In this update, there's 2 videos from the TickleBears (here and here) in which Blithwulf (gallery - photo - profile) and his buddy John take turns in this creative rack they built so as to tickle Bear feet. Then there is this video that I call 'Dildo Bear' (here) since this Bear straps a dildo first firmly to the floor then to a chair and goes to town on it. And finally there is a good old Mystery Bear video (here). Mystery Bear and his partner ran FurBear.net (now defunct) and they produced a bunch of videos of this cute Bear, making movies while strategically hiding his face. They had sent me a ton of short videos when I was working at bear-pics and now I cannot find them, which is a pity, however I did find one, so I added it.

I will try and add more from the bear-pics volume when I can find the time to do so. To see some preview pics of Mystery Bear and Dildo Bear, click here, and to see some older pics of Blithwulf, go here. To see all the videos, check out the Video section.

His name is Alan and he's angry... so much so that he made a site called Angry Alan. What's he so angry about...? Well I don't know really, however he is one heck of a photographer who takes all kinds of great stills in 35mm, 120mm, 4x5 and with a Polaroid. He can also make a print of anything you wish, or so he says on his site.

Oh... he also likes Bears. In his About section, he says he's angry and it's a long story, but he digs Bears, and wow he also takes some great stills of Bears too (photos here). He has a modest collection of very casual shots of Bears in relaxed settings, however the men he photograph are anything but dull... on the contrary, the men he's taken pics of are brilliantly sexy Bearish men. Great full body shots, all of them handsome. I really hope he plans to add more to this section.

I think... when Alan is among Bears... he isn't so angry, yet I'm just assuming.

[Members - click here] Here is a 9 minute video of the incredibly cute and husky Roger in 'Alone on the Shore'.

Here's the short synopsis: "Roger decides to take his boat for a little spin around the lake near his country place. It is a picture perfect afternoon. He comes upon a barren beach which looks perfect to him, so he directs his boat towards it, and once on shore he casts his mini anchor. Roger walks along the beach for awhile, finding a comfortable spot to relax... and that he does, relaxes until the point of release. Another fun video from Roger, shot in high definition so you really get to see the best of this gorgeous Bear".

Make sure to send Roger a message via his profile on TubeBear. Also to check out his gallery here on PlanetBears (with almost 400 pics of him). Below is a trailer of 'Alone on the Shore'.