The field shook itself out fairly rapidly for this year’s Oscar Fashion Photo Contest. As ever, thank you to all the entrants, and I hope you enjoyed the opportunity to show off your red-carpet chops.
The main difficulty this year was between First and Second Places. It could easily have gone the other way, and almost did. A fresh evaluation gave this order, however; and I’m pleased to welcome a new First Place winner this year.
So, with further non-ado, here’s this year’s placers ….
With thanks, as ever, to the Rose Theatre in Angel Manor for the ability to borrow their lavish halls.
We thought long on this one, considering last year’s performance, and whether we could pull off the publicity factor this year. But finally, tradition won out, and so the time has come once again. The Flickr group is open for submissions of your finest evening gown photos. Who will be the best-dressed avatar on the Hollywood red carpet when the Academy Awards are handed out? Around the Grid is accepting submissions for its 9th Annual Oscar Fashion Photo Contest!!
The contest group will open for submissions once this article is published, and the prize pool has been placed in escrow (so to speak). Time to talk to your stylists, find your hairdresser and book an appointment, call in favors at the jewelry stores, and decide what you would wear if you became a nominee for the little gold man. For those considered outstanding in their evening couture and artistic portrayal, there shall be (15 minutes of) fame, (a bit of) fortune, and hopefully fun in playing the game.
Entry is free; just submit a photo to the appropriate group on Flickr, or leave a comment with a link to your photo. (However, make sure to read all the rules, okay?) The prize pool is again guaranteed at over L$50,000. First place will receive L$25,000. So, if you want a chance at filling your virtual closet at my expense, come on and enter!
Last year, during my “rookie” period (lol), Harper introduced me to Fantasy Faire. Beyond the good work that will be done for the American Cancer Society, this event, maybe the biggest in Second Life each year, is just plain fun. I loved roaming around in costume last year, from full kimono to barbarian princess. In fact, the barbarian princess mode I was in was my inspiration for some of the costumes I’ve shot myself in since.
As of today (March 31), there’s 20 days until the gates between worlds open once more. Start saving your money, put together your most fantastic costume, and drop in beginning on April 20. Harper, Conan and I’ll be doing our usual photo work, as well as coming up with fresh costumes from what we pick up in the fifteen regions of the Faire. And, when you can, be generous in your giving to the Relay for Live vendors or kiosks. Cancer is something that’s touched almost all of us in one way or another, both in RL and in lost SL friendships.
See you at the Faire!
Here they come, sashaying down the red carpet — this years placing photos for the Oscar Fashion Photo Contest! The potential pool was disappointing this year in terms of size — the smallest slate of entries in the eight years of the OFPC — but the winners are deserving of their selection, and of the prize money (grin). So, with further non-ado, here are our choices for this year.
Last normal update before the contest closes in a few weeks. The good news is that we have enough entries for a contest. The bad news is that there’s only 13 entries so far. That’s way down from past years. I always work hard to get the word out, but it doesn’t seem to be taking this year. So I’m calling on all of you who haven’t entered yet, or who haven’t written anything up on the contest this year — help me out. I want to have the toughest judging year in the eight-year run of this contest! Start submitting entries to the group, and spread the word! With 50 grand in linden dollars up for grabs, half to the winner, it’s worth the time to enter — you’ll be able to afford a couple of Catwa heads and a substantial makeup suite, and still have money left over for a new dress! Plus fame and fortune (at least within Second Life). So enter now, and get the word out!!!
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Jem and I managed to snag a good box at the theatre for this year’s Academy Awards. And, even though we weren’t nominated for anything, well, this is the Oscars. You dress to the nines for this show!
Can you rock the red carpet and get your name into this envelope? You still have time.
For the first seven callers, we offer at no additional cost, fame, fortune and 15 minutes in the limelight!!!
This year’s entries for the OFPC can be described by an adjective a writer of my acquaintance used to refer to international mail in the 1970s and 1980s: “lentitudinous.” I can’t find a formal definition, even in Oxford, but I’ve always taken it to be a £50 way to say “sluggish.” This point in the competition always drives me up the wall, and makes me start worrying that I’ll have a small pack to judge. I’d rather have scads of entries than a mere handful. That sends me off into the convoluted coils of Flickr, looking for evening gown shots that aren’t necessarily on theme, but might be contenders.
Please keep me from buying a bottle of St. John’s wort this year. You still have time to enter! Of course, you should do so only if you want a shot at L$25,000 and an opportunity to bask in Hollywood-like glory for a time. You know how to find the rules (grin). And, if you’re on Flickr and get an invitation from me to enter, don’t turn it down. It’s no guarantee of placement; I give the invitation to anyone who has a likely looking photo. But it is an encouragement to take your shot — or do another shot, and submit that one officially!
With thanks, as ever, to the Rose Theatre in Angel Manor for the ability to borrow their lavish halls.
The time has come once again, boys and girls! The Flickr group is open for submissions of your finest evening gown photos, and the speculation is growing — who will be the best-dressed avatar on the Hollywood red carpet when the Academy Awards are handed out? Around the Grid is accepting submissions for its 8th Annual Oscar Fashion Photo Contest!!
The contest group will open for submissions once this article is published, and the prize pool has been placed in escrow (so to speak). Time to talk to your stylists, find your hairdresser and book an appointment, call in favors at the jewelry stores, and decide what you would wear if you became a nominee for the little gold man. For those considered outstanding in their evening couture and artistic portrayal, there shall be (15 minutes of) fame, (a bit of) fortune, and hopefully fun in playing the game.
Entry is free; just submit a photo to the appropriate group on Flickr, or leave a comment with a link to your photo. (However, make sure to read all the rules, okay?) The prize pool is again guaranteed at over L$50,000. That’s right, fifty thousand lindens! First place will receive L$25,000. So, if you want a chance at filling your virtual closet at my expense, come on and enter!
The limousine let us off outside the theatre, and we slid out with thanks to the driver for his smooth service. After running the gauntlet of photographers and reporters and fans along the red carpet, we got inside to the grand staircase, where Conan met us. “I hope you two enjoyed the limo ride.”
“It was fairly nice,” I drawled with a smile. “But I guess it’s time to pay the bill for it now, isn’t it?”
“Only if you want to do this insanity again. One year of judging photos convinced me you must be out of your mind to do this contest as long as you have.”
“It’s not that bad,” Jem laughed. “I enjoyed it. And the posing is always fun, of course.”
Conan just chuckled. “If you say so. Come on; we can go up here out of the way of most everything and everyone.”
“Lead on,” I said, and we climbed the staircase.
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Tomorrow is the day! Check Around the Grid at 7:00 a.m. SLT for a sticky article that will give you the rules for the 8th Oscar Fashion Photo Contest. There will also be (once I add the links during the day some time) a press release for immediate use, and a smaller photo you can use if you choose to write your own story about the contest. The Flickr group should be opened up shortly before the article publishes to the blog, to make sure it’s ready for anyone who’s already done their work during the teaser period here (grin). After that, it’s all up to you and you and you; and, in eight weeks, we’ll see who gets the long share of L$50,500 in cash!
When Jem and I got downstairs, and saw the limousine Conan had hired for us to get to the theatre, the best we could say was “Wow!” A classic saloon car nearly as old as the Oscars themselves, and it was a beauty, never mind the driver that held the door open for us!
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Two days to go before the Oscar Fashion Photo Contest opens up with the announcement and this year’s rules. As I said yesterday, there aren’t any substantive changes to the rules this time around. The only change will be to the duration — we’re adding on a week, since the Academy chooses to do the show so quickly these days. (You used to have eight to ten weeks to do your shot; now you’re lucky to get seven.) Two months is a bit of time, true. But it gives everyone a chance to select gowns or suits, work up their looks, and find a place to shoot. And we always expect good work from entrants; there’s a seven-year history of this, after all.
It also helps if you spread the word about the contest. I’ve been running our little series of photos in every Flickr group I figured I could get away with it in, and so far nobody’s complained. But it will still be a very good thing if you write up the contest yourself and link to the announcement and rules article on Sunday. The more eyes that see this, the better; and this thing is really open to anyone with an SL avatar or two and a good eye and hand for doing quality photographic work. If nothing else, you can link to the blog’s front page; the announcement will be sticky there until the contest closes. Here’s hoping for a record-breaking year on submissions!
At last, the preliminaries were over, and I pulled the really pretty stuff on! The gown from Byrne was a lovely minty pattern shot through with silver threads, and just legal for the television cameras if I made it onto the tube. I smiled at what might happen to my reputation if I had a Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” and one of my boobs leaped out from the deep slash of the bodice, but the gown was too nice to turn down. I paired it with white opera gloves from Sweet Tea, Hortensia heels from Glamistry, and the latest suite of jewelry from Lazuri, named Paris.
Jem nodded at me as I pulled on the bracelet and made sure the catch was done up. “Important jewelry, check. Perfect makeup, check.”
I laughed a little. “Dress ready to slide off my nipples, check. Or is that, ‘Nipples ready to pop out of my dress’? That oughta catch the photograpers’ attention!”
“You shoulda went strapless, then,” Jem replied with a grin as she turned off her e-cigarette. “No worries on this gown, even if I take a deep breath.” Jem had chosen a billowing purple ball gown from Gaall for tonight’s affair (we both purchased our dresses at the December round of Swank); and a queen would turn green at the fortune in diamonds circling her neck and wrists, as well as dangling from her ears (all done by Zuri Rayna), called Winter Symphony. KC Couture heels were on her feet, and she was elegant indeed tonight.
“Yeah. Could you have said that if you had gone dressed as Rita Hayworth, out of Gilda? I’ve done her twice in the blog; I know that dress.”
Jem deigned not to answer, but she giggled as she waved the black envelope in her hand and tucked her e-cigarette into her clutch. “You got it all together, Harper?”
“From the shoes to the perfume. And Conan has the limousine out front. Let us rock!”
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Are you getting ready to rock? The group opens in just three days. I will say that there won’t be any changes in substance from previous years’ editions of the contest; the three of us couldn’t come up with ideas we felt improved on the basic theme of the night. So if you’ve participated before, just review the rules and go for it. If you haven’t entered in the past, read the rules. It has been pointed out to me that they’re long, but we’re talking L$50,000 in prizes here. We’ve worked to make them as clear as possible, and we will answer questions.
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