DIY Photosphere

Ever needed a photo studio for some vanity stroking, uh, photographs? All the studios you know of are busy? Simple; construct your own photosphere! Sarah Nerd shows you how…. You will need Photoshop, GIMP or Paint Shop Pro to create the alpha-channel and other textures, or at least know someome who can make such for you.

This is a great thing for yourself, of course. To be shamelessly commercial about it, you could also link the whole structure into a single build, rezz up/take it back at will, and rent it out on demand to clients, thus making a possible income stream for yourself. You wouldn’t need any land of your own; just an open public sandbox. Or, if you have building rights and enough prims somewhere (this will take a minimum of 6 prims), set it up as a skybox. For this, I’d suggest making the cube more of a platform, with the sphere planted toward the back. That will give you a point outside the sphere to set up a telepad target.

Thanks to Teal Etzel.

Supplemental: I just discovered New World Notes links to Sarah as well.  She might be getting quite a bit of publicity here!

A Professional Portrait at Last!

Connie Arida, also known as Connie Sec, has been featured in Contact Sheet several times here, and with good reason. Take a look almost any night at her Flickr photostream, and you’ll see why; Connie takes pains with her composition, whether formal sittings or something as relatively impromptu as having some fun with the kitty kat at the Greenies’ house. So, when she invited me to sit for a portrait, I was honored and flattered.

The problem: this avatar is standing on her head in terms of time. In other words, mate, she’s Australian. That sort of puts us at the antipodes, to borrow from Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days. When I’m up, she’s just about to go down, and vice versa. And, since I work closing shift in RL most nights, and don’t get home until well into my A.M., that makes it difficult…. But I had a night off last week, and we came together, and things worked out!

Connie published this shot on her stream. (You can comment on it to Connie by following the link.)

She gave me copies of the others, and I’ve used one for a gravatar change, but I think the Veronica Lake look is actually starting to grow on me (grin).

Contact Sheet: Cajsa Lilliehook, Milana Henley, Faerie Hax, Chrisy Jewell, Emerald Eberhard

Contact Sheet is an irregular column of selected photographs and portraits from Residents of Second Life. Images used in this article are used under permission of the owners via their participation in the Creative Commons license; otherwise, all rights are reserved. Click on the links as necessary to go to the required blog, Flickr or Snapzilla page. Please go to these artists’ pages in any case to leave comments, if you have an account on the appropriate service.

Suggestions are appreciated; please send descriptions and links to me by in-world IM, notecard, or E-mail to harper.ganesvoort@gmail.com.

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The usual melange of goodies for this edition of Contact Sheet: a fashion shot here, a personal snap there, a few new faces and a few old hands to these columns. We start with the fashion….

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Cajsa Lilliehook, as noted elsewhere, is one of the photographers at MDR Photography, and seems to be one of the busiest shutterbugs on the Grid. In this sample, she gives us a lovely dress from MG Fashion with a flower-print skirt and a top with magenta mutton-chop sleeves. You don’t normally think of sleeves like that as still stylish, but this dress works, and so does Cajsa’s camera. I’m pointing you to her blog, as that gives several poses, but she includes a link there to her Flickr page.

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Chouchou seems to be a very popular region now, and newcomer Milana Henley celebrates it in a small series of “sun worshiper” photos.  Her Flickr collection is small, but it looks to be of high quality; for instance, another shot further down the stream contains a nice water-reflection piece from a build in Dolce Vita, and there are also several more in this series.

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For pure out and out sexiness, it’s hard to beat this photo from Faerie Hax.  Also a relative newcomer to Flickr, Faerie poses herself and a friend in a set of naga avatars.  What’s a naga, you say?  Go here first!

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Chrisy Jewell is back, with art coming out of adversity.  It seems that the region she had her house in was closed down for reconstruction for a time, and she had missed the notes warning her.  There she was, cast adrift, alone in an empty sea of non-rez, with only an umbrella and a carpetbag to her name (cue the violins and melodrama)….

I know, I’m laying it on thick.  Any road, she came up with this retouched shot, which many agree convey the feelings any number of people go through when their house disappears from beneath them, so to speak.  Incidentally, Chrisy has found somewhere else to doss down her avatar for now, and she should get her old house back soon enough, so all is well there.

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I came across this last night while preparing to wrap this piece up.  Emerald Eberhart has been uploading photos even less than my two other newcomers, but her pieces show talent.  This retouched image shows her in the circle at Stonehenge in Mystica, and reveals the energy sheeting off the nematons….

Contact Sheet — Chrisy Jewell, Connie Sec, Ryou Yiyuan, Torley Linden, et al.

Contact Sheet is an irregular column of selected photographs and portraits from Residents of Second Life. Images used in this article are used under permission of the owners via their participation in the Creative Commons license; otherwise, all rights are reserved. Click on the links as necessary to go to the required blog, Flickr or Snapzilla page. Please go to these artists’ pages in any case to leave comments, if you have an account on the appropriate service.

Suggestions are appreciated; please send descriptions and links to me by in-world IM, notecard, or E-mail to harper.ganesvoort@gmail.com.

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Chrisy Jewell knows more about Greek myths than I do, I’ll admit readily. She has a good reason — she’s Greek. Here, she has given us a piece she calls Aphrodite Tymborychos, or “Aphrodite the Gravedigger.” It seems there may have been more to the goddess of love than causing mortals to go mad with desire…. The picture seems to have been retouched just slightly to my eye, a sort of transparent “texture” layer, that gives the composition a feel reminiscent of the illustrations of N. C. Wyeth at his best.

While this, Stairs to Heaven, is not Wyeth — any of the Wyeths, who are grounded firmly in Chadds Ford School realism for the most part — but more of a mild surrealism. The first thing beyond the merits of the work that comes to mind is that photo of Salvador Dalí (done for Life, I think) painting in the air, with the swirl of water and a pair of cats flying through the foreground. (Of course, I tend to think of Dalí whenever I think of surrealism.)

Or, for pure (virtual) realism, go to Killerious Professionalis. The story says it all.

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Connie Sec decided a while back to channel her inner Jedi, and came up with Constanza Jade:

There is a slew of comments at the Flickr page, including some funny ones; go take a look by clicking on the image.

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More after the break….

Contact Sheet — iliveiSL, Anessa Stine, Hitomi Mokusei,

Welcome back to Contact Sheet. For this column, we have a fair mix of subjects; this time, we lead with an excellent landscape.

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I don’t rely on just Flickr and Snapzilla for photographs. Tag-surfing is a good way to come up with material for linking and cross-posting as well. I’ve been noticing articles from the blog iliveiSL in wordpress.com’s dashboard for some time here, and have had a mild interest as this avatar or group build a region. The terraforming work is finishing up in some of their areas, and their blog is advertising for realtors to work on commission.

They’re photographing the place, of course, and their shots show how good WindLight can be if your graphics card can handle the strain. I have just one example here, but give a look to the rest of their photostream to see more of it.

(Just to stay on the level, I’m not shilling for them; I simply like their photography. I haven’t even been to the region to look at it, since Hrosskell contents me completely.)

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Humor Department: I think Anessa Stine was feeling rather warm this day; but this is going to extremes to cool off….

And Hitomi Mokusei has quite a story behind how this plane got into her house. No, it has no relationship to The World According to Garp. (I offered to leave this out, but Hitomi wouldn’t (ahem) agree to a payment schedule [grin].)

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A newcomer to Contact Sheet: the blog SL Fashion Diva and contributor Rio Hamaski posted a lovely cocktail ensemble recently. The dress comes from Cachet; remaining details are in Rio’s article. I like most the skirt of this flirty dress, which reminds me of certain Eighties styles that for some reason many people decry today in RL; and the shrug about the model’s shoulders.

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Here’s a return engagement from Ryou Yiyuan, who I think has a preference for medieval and similar role-playing locations. This shot, of an expedition or raiding party, was taking somewhere called the Kingdom of Sand, and is just one of several she’s done here.

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Contact Sheet is an irregular column of selected photographs and portraits from Residents of Second Life. Images used in this article are used under permission of the owners via their participation in the Creative Commons license; otherwise, all rights are reserved. Click on the links as necessary to go to the required blog, Flickr or Snapzilla page. Please go to these artists’ pages in any case to leave comments, if you have an account on the appropriate service.

Suggestions are appreciated; please send descriptions and links to me by in-world IM, notecard, or E-mail to harper.ganesvoort@gmail.com.

Contact Sheet — Jhuzen Ketsugo, Ludmilla Writer, Katerina Kirax, angie.vita

Contact Sheet is an irregular column of selected photographs and portraits from Residents of Second Life. Images used in this article are used under permission of the owners via their participation in the Creative Commons license; otherwise, all rights are reserved. Click on the links as necessary to go to the required blog, Flickr or Snapzilla page. Please go to these artists’ pages in any case to leave comments, if you have an account on the appropriate service.

Suggestions are appreciated; please send descriptions and links to me by in-world IM, notecard, or E-mail to harper.ganesvoort@gmail.com.

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For this edition of Contact Sheet, I’m presenting some ultra-glamour couture from a regular hand and fellow blog publisher; art builds photographed by another Resident; a nice landscape; a bit of humor; and a case of the Eye has it.

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Blogger Jhuzen Ketsugo also goes by the Flickr handle of DJ Ket-su. Her blog, Virtual Fashion Addict, is known for its regular “Look of the Day” column, in which Jhu models an outfit in detail.

For this article, Jhu described being invited to a motel opening by a friend, who specified that the party was glam dress. She assembled a costume that fit the bill to a T, while being eclectic and ultra fierce, in her words. The two photos she used are also in the article; but it’s easier to work from her copies on Flickr (which is where I found them anyway). [Photo 1, Photo 2, Photo 3] The whole ensemble is great, except for (to my taste) the bracelet set; but note especially the earrings and the hairstyle.

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Zero Point, Kelham

I was shopping the other day for a facelight system that would stand up to the new client’s WindLight requirements, and was sent to the FaceFX store in Kelham region by good friend Ele Newell. (It works, by the way! Highly recommended.) After finishing up with my business there, I did my usual of checking out the neighborhood, and again a massive splash of color attracted my attention.

Zero Point, created by Sabine Stonebender, beggars any verbal description I can offer here. It’s a monumental art build, not too many meters away from the store, based in a pseudo-Greek colonnade. It seems to be made out of collimated energy, shaped into whorls and pyramids and streamers of flowing colors. The whole thing is constantly in motion, and has lots of surprises in store for a thorough explorer. Even the pictures I’m placing following the break don’t do this mobile build justice, for it’s constantly in motion like an electrified tornado.

The Magic Forest in Moldof

I’ve been playing around with my latest virtual toy — a jetski. It’s a lovely little baby; two seater, customizable colors — I set it to Harper blue, of course — five speeds, makes the spray fly when you cross region boundaries. (Your course also gets a little ragged at that point, until you stabilize in the new sim server, which leads to some occasionally interesting effects…:) Since I reside in a semi-coastal region, but without a marina, I figured this would be a good way to do some exploring in my “neighborhood” without having to worry about where to tie up the yacht.

It took a while to get the hang of the controls, and it’s still not plain sailing yet. But I did manage to work my way through a forest of coastal houses and developments, out to sea, and along the coast. Until a flash of vibrant color caught my attention, and I heaved to and turned to look at a forest you would not believe unless you’ve set foot there.

These photos are not retouched in any way, I assure you. The trees, lower plants, and even the rocks, are the creations of soror Nishi, the avatar in the first photograph of this gallery, and are located across two regions. What you’re seeing here is actually not at its best, as I think the Grid was having a grass frop yesteday morning. That would account for the flat grey ground in some of the images above. But the others are completely amazing — enough to blow your mind quite thoroughly. For a second, I thought someone had slipped me some acid, and I was on another kind of trip….

There is a teleporter near these coordinates, which will take you to a skybox filled with more sights. Make sure you hunt along the walls, or fly up farther with a jetpack so you can see where to come down, as one part of this skybox — the best, in my opinion — is off in a sort of alcove reached by a narrow little passage.

Contact Sheet — LayDeeBird Chastity, Faustine Pau, Galatea Zabelin, Zoe Zeffirelli

In this round of Contact Sheet, I’ve dug to find more names than just the usual cast of regulars I’ve been featuring. Of course, they may now join the usual cast of regulars (grin)…. In any case, four new photographers for your consideration:

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First up, a French avatar (or should that be a “Frenchavatar,” along with “Frenchman” and “-woman”?) named Faustine Pau. The two that I’ve chosen for the column are a landscape, “sky of glory,” and a full portrait of Faustine dressed as La Pompadour, in one of the nicest period French-court gowns I’ve seen yet. Faustine doesn’t have gobs of photos up yet (188 as of publishing), but give her time; her profile says that she enjoys SL photography. Several other of her portfolio show promise.

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Galatea Zabelin is from some Spanish-speaking country; this much I can say. (If you read this, Señorita, please let us know which country!) Two portraits show up here today: “Carnivale,” of Gala in a mask (there is also a B&W version in her stream); and the mysterious “JC Luna.”

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For our final two, Zoe Zeffirelli presents “Conflicts in Time,” which leaves you worried about what the consequences of landing in the other side of the hourglass will be like; and, possibly the best of the group, “Night” by LayDeeBird Chastity, with a regal bearing that I just had to compliment when I stumbled across this in one of my groups.

Thanks to all four photographers!

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Contact Sheet is an irregular column of selected photographs and portraits from Residents of Second Life. Images used in this article are used under permission of the owners via their participation in the Creative Commons license; otherwise, all rights are reserved. Click on the links as necessary to go to the required Flickr or Snapzilla page. Please go to these artists’ pages in any case to leave comments, if you have an account on the appropriate service.

Suggestions are appreciated; please send descriptions and links to me by in-world IM, notecard, or E-mail to harper.ganesvoort@gmail.com.

RL and SL merging?

Charlot Dickens at Charlot’s Web points out that it’s getting harder and harder to tell whether you’re in Second Life or the Real World at times, depending on where you are.

Her evidence?  Read the article and see the pictures….