134: New issue of Photography magazine

I'm always impressed when I see a new issue of Photography magazine, produced by Joao Batista, and the May 2015 issue is really exceptional. See it here. Beautiful new photography by, among others, my friends Joe Nussbaum and GiaCinta Angel Samael. Definitely worth checking out; 300 pages of lovely images.

106: Avi Choice Awards nominees

Recently I was urging my friends to look into nominating their favourites in a couple of awards categories of the 2015 Avi Choice Awards. I wish I'd been a little more forceful, or perhaps done an encouraging blog post, because I didn't quite realize that three nominations were necessary to get onto the ballot. I sent in a fairly full slate of nominations myself, but most of them don't seem to have made it through the screening process.

Cupric Router

     But now that the nominations are out, I encourage everyone to go and vote here. And in a shameless attempt to influence your vote ;-), I'll tell you that the names below are friends of mine, people I think are doing a good job -- and for some of whom I was one of the nominators. I've interviewed some of these folks and I'll link to what I can give you from their names below.

Holtwaye Gallery (Tea Party, Oct. 2014)

Favourite SL Radio Station: Radio Mosaic -- Cupric Router
Favourite Machinima Production: The Shorter Path -- Edward Nussbaum
Favourite SL Videographer: Boris Twist
Favourite Female Performer:  Samm Qendra (Okay, if you read my blog, you know I just heard her for the first time

Boris Twist

last weekend. But she's really good, and she's my favourite so far!)
Favourite DJ: Cupric Router (There are 56 nominees in this category!)
Favourite Art Gallery: Holtwaye Gallery (WayneNZ Resident and Holter Resident)
Favourite Photographer/Studio: Kellalily Resident

So, go to this link and vote for whomever you think deserves it.

Kella Lily

It has certainly occurred to me that someone like me who is interested in new and interesting experiences in SL could do worse than see if I could experience the efforts of these Residents in the next year. Frankly, I'm not absolutely sure what a "Particle artist/Performer" does, but I think I'd like to find out, because there are at least eight good ones whose work I can go

Samm Qendra

and experience. It would probably be worthwhile to go and see what these 56 DJs have to offer -- and all the experiences in SL like jazz clubs and dance performances that I've never sought out.

Joe Nussbaum [Edward Nussbaum]

000: Welcome to my blog!

Hi folks! My name is Rusty Redfield -- this is a shot I took of myself last night when I was out dancing at a club, the Grindery.

As you can see, I use the l'Uomo mesh body (mine is the "Bruce" type), which makes me a pretty big and muscular guy.  It also makes it pretty difficult for me to find clothes since they pretty much have to be specially made for my body type.  So that's one of the things I'll be talking about here.  There are a fair number of gay guys in SL who use l'Uomo mesh bodies ("meshies", as I've heard us called) and I hope this will be interesting to them.  There are some common problems with l'Uomo clothes and I'll talk about them and how I try to deal with them.  I'll also talk about the clothes themselves and try to put together outfits and stuff to show you.  (You may have noticed I have a big ol' black eye in the photo above.  I'm currently interested in damage -- how damage is represented on SL avs, and whether it is more interesting to look at than the usual perfect flawless av.  So I'm likely to be posting pictures of me with bruises, marks and scars.)

Like many SL residents, I'm also interested in taking pictures of myself, and the people and places that I encounter along the way.  And you know what?  I'm really bad at it.  So much so that I have kind of stopped taking a lot of pictures because I'm usually ashamed to show them to anyone.  But I've recently had some photographs taken by a really good photographer, Joe Nussbaum, and it's inspired me to see what I can do to learn how to take better pictures myself.

That's why I added the shot I took last night.  This is, pretty much, the average rubbishy snapshot that I usually take.  I'm not happy with the framing, especially unhappy with the lighting -- this, for me, is the zero point.  Some time in the future I think I may come back to this spot and take another picture and see how much better I can make it.

This blog will be rated X.  It's common in Second Life for avs of gay men to be nude and there will be plenty of nude photos, sometimes of highly sexual subjects.  I intend to make that clear to everyone before they arrive.

Your polite and non-commercial comments are welcome.