174: Photo tip (your own homemade light source)

I've been taking a LOT of photographs lately and, being the careless type I am, I haven't always remembered to adjust the available light. There are four choices: sunrise, noon, sunset, and midnight. Noon is my fallback position, but it's rather like taking a selfie under the million-watt overheads at a discount drugstore -- harsh and kind of yellowish.  Sunrise and sunset both have a reddish overtone that may or may not work with the subject matter. And midnight is, well, too dark for the most part.
  But I like shooting in darkness or semi-darkness; to me, it has a little bit of emotional content that adds something to the picture. Was there a way, I wondered, to create a little light within the darkness, so people could actually see what I was photographing? Quite by accident, I found a tip on the internet that seemed to apply to this and seemed like something I could actually do.  So I've made my own light source.

  Now, I am not one of your building types. The most sophisticated thing I've built in Second Life is a large flat prim upon which to place artwork textures. Trust me when I say, you can do this.  Access the Build menu and use the tool to rez a shape on the ground. (I made a ball shape; suit yourself.) Set that shape to full brightness. Then take it into your inventory and rename it from "Object" to "Light source". That's it.  If you don't have land, you can do this easily at a sandbox.
  You can see from the pictures that it's easy enough to rez "Light source" and move it to wherever you need it to be, then manipulate your viewpoint to have it outside the photograph but still casting light. And since you made it yourself, you can make it full perm and rez as many as you need; go ahead, turn midnight into your discount drugstore, if you want. I haven't experimented with making the light something less than full brightness, but that's easily done too.
  Hope this works for you if you like taking pictures in the dark!
  (And for an even more helpful hint about lighting from someone who actually knows what he's doing ;-) see the comment below from my friend Galileo Michalski!)

173: Clothes from Hassel

First, a booster juice.

While you look at the pictures telling the story of an afternoon at the gym for Alex Thaub and myself, followed by the inevitable carbohydrate loading session at a pizza parlour, all while dressed in clothes from Hassel, let me explain.
  The other day, I said that if you see me wearing it, it's because I bought it. I don't make deals with designers to promote their clothes. But I'm not going to restrict myself from being happy with Hassel85 Resident's clothes just because he was a nice guy and gave

Sign in at the gym.

me a couple of sweaters.
  Here's what happened. I was out wandering around at Gay Fun World and found the Hassel store, with these nice colour-shifting sweaters, like the one I'm wearing as we get into Alex's car.  Dark violet on the top, pale violet on the bottom, a nice thick wool sweater.  Very nice, I bought two for L$200 apiece, and in real life I have something like this too, so it was good to have a virtual one too.
  Went home and unpacked them and was quite pleased. Then I got a note

Alex showing off his upper body gains.

from the designer, saying, "You know, you got two sweaters for L$400 when you could have had the fatpack of all five colours for L$475.  Thanks for shopping at Hassel and I've enclosed the rest of the colours."
  Well, I thought that was a very nice thing to do, and said so. Then I brought Alex to the store to show him the clothes, and one thing led to another, and we bought a bunch of clothes. And then Hassel dropped us a thank-you note and gave Alex -- I think it was two pairs of shorts.

Carbing up after the gym.

  We both like these clothes. For one thing, I think the designer has realized that people are unlikely to wear the same designer head to toe. People use clothes as elements to create a look. These clothes are comfortable and the colours are great for bros, bright but a little muted. Some of the shirts are quite dramatic, like the "star" shirt Alex is wearing at the coffee shop. When you wear something like that the rest of your outfit has to be a little less dramatic, to let your "statement piece" stand out.

Off home.

  Anyway, we were trying on clothes and I said, "Let's go do a fashion shoot." These are literally the clothes I would wear to go work out and then out for a pizza, so that's what we set up. It was fun to do ... to try to tell a story and show off the clothes at the same time.
Alex's shirts, and my tank and sweater, are from Hassel. The rest is our own stuff.
  Please don't make Hassel's life hell by expecting the same thing from him. It was obviously a nice gesture but presents aren't mandatory ... unless perhaps you're prepared to do a fashion shoot to say thanks.  ;-) But if you need some versatile casual clothes, check out his store at Gay Fun World or his Marketplace listings.

172: Back in the blogosphere

In the last while I've been meeting people and discovering things within Second Life, and I keep thinking, "Gee, I should be blogging about this stuff." I seem to be in a better mood, and much less stressed, than I was six months ago; although I don't intend to pressure myself unduly to post every couple of days, as once I did, I think I'll try my hand at the occasional post.

To that end, I've had to consider exactly what it is I want to do with the functions of a blog. I've renamed my blog to reflect my focus more precisely; what I'm interested in is creative things and creative people within virtual worlds.

With my very first post, I speculated upon what sort of topics I hoped to cover; in retrospect I was fairly completely wrong.  Not surprising. I've given it a little more thought this time and I expect in a few years I shall look back at this effort also as short-sighted.  Nevertheless, here's what I think you can expect, at least in the near future.

• Interviews with interesting people doing interesting things. This seems to have been the most popular feature of my former blog, but I intend to be a bit more freeform in my questions from now on. 
• Photography. I think I'm getting better at it, and I like to tell a story with photographs.  I also have a very cooperative model on tap (thank you Alex Thaub!). 
• Mini-tours of places that interest me that I think you might like to visit. 
• Clothes, furniture, clubs, and other commercial products that I think are above the average and may interest you. I'll reiterate that I have a firm policy of not entering into any agreements with designers, etc., to promote anything. By and large, if I talk about it here, I've paid cash for it; if that's not the case, I'll let you know.
• Tricks and tips about how to use various aspects of Second Life. I've noticed that this is something upon which few people focus. I have to add that I am not claiming any great mastery of Firestorm, which is my preferred program, or anything else; on the contrary, it's precisely because I am such a doofus about technical things sometimes that I hope to save others my embarrassment. If I learn something useful, I'll try to share it with you here.
• Discussions about trends and current events in Second Life and virtual worlds. I'm interested in Sansar and will be trying to stay ahead of the news on it and other such endeavours. 

Things I rather doubt you'll see here in the future:

• Photographs of who was at what club when I went out dancing, unless there's a good reason. Other people cover those things quite thoroughly and well.
• Unfavourable reviews of anyone or anything. Honestly, I don't see the point. 
• News about upcoming events. This will almost certainly include some very good causes like charitable fund-raising events ... you will not find those things here not because I am a hard-hearted bastard but because, again, other people cover those things quite thoroughly and well. More to the point, you are used to finding that information elsewhere. I'll probably make exceptions for people whom I know personally; c'est la vie.
• Anything much about real life. That's why we have news portals. 
• Anything much about who is marrying, scrapping with, or screwing whom. Not my circus, not my monkeys.  

What I hope to accomplish is to find things to do that I will enjoy doing, and that you will enjoy doing too. You'll be seeing a lot of my husband Alex Thaub in these pages because he's a part of everything I do here.

So please return for a look over the next few weeks and we'll see how it goes. If you have comments or questions or suggestions, I'd be pleased to hear them below.  I hope you'll all be tolerant of me at the outset; after such a long vacation, I'll be a little ... rusty. ;-)

Going on hiatus

I've been having a lot of stress in my RL and I've reached a point where I have to cut back on my extra-curricular activities of many kinds ... unfortunately this blog is more responsibility than I can handle at the moment.  I'll be shutting it down indefinitely. Not ruling out returning in the future when I have a better handle on what to do and how to do it, but at this point you should think of this as my final post.
In the meantime, I'll still be in Second Life with my dear husband Alex Thaub but not undertaking any activities more strenuous than dancing and shopping and ... having fun.  Thanks, and see you around the multiverse!

171: The blacklight sessions with DJ Lledge

It's been a while! My real life and my Second Life weren't coexisting well for some time, but I have more time these days.  Lots of water under the bridge. Among other things, I managed to sneak in a surprise marriage to Alex Thaub along the way (he'd kept me waiting a year, so I surprised him with a ceremony on our first anniversary). That was fun! I'll tell you all about it later.
   Last night Alex and I were at the Friday night

Blacklight Sessions with tunage by DJ Lledge Eames and it was just such a good time, I had to share. I love house and trance and EDM, and the way I tell who my favourite DJs in SL are is by how much time I spend bouncing in my chair. I was bouncing pretty much for two hours last night!
   Hosting by my friend Novs Morlim -- who coincidentally did the ceremonial duties at that surprise wedding I mentioned -- means that everyone is so engaged in the open channel, joking and

having fun, that nobody feels the need to fire off a bunch of gestures. That's how I tell who my favourite hosts in SL are! And did I mention a bunch of handsome guys wearing little or nothing? You can tell from the photographs. Sorry I've been away from party blogging for a while; I didn't write down enough names. My friend Marly Moon was there ... for the rest, too many cocktails, sorry ;-(
   The Blacklight Sessions with DJ Lledge are at Ursa Oceanus (230,63,22) ... hope to see you there

next week, Fridays 7 to 9 PM SLT.  The smart thing to do would be to join Lledge's DJ group so you can be reminded of these things.  Alex and I have this event marked on our calendar for every Friday, but a reminder never hurts.

170: The haircut process

We'd both been talking about it for a while. Well, okay, I've been complaining about the issues involved in having long hair and Alex has been patiently listening. But I think he secretly likes me with shorter hair, so he volunteered to take the scissors to me.  I thought, what the heck, if he wants to have some fun ... I figured it would grow back.  Famous last words.
  He's such a smooth talker. He got me in the chair, and

just kept up a constant flow of chatter about current events, and who broke up with who, and that new club that opened. Every once in a while he'd step back and take a picture, and go, "No, needs more trimming," and the clippers would start up again. I was half asleep the whole time, I think. Finally he said, "Well, that's it!" I had a few millimetres of stubble and a whole new look. Well ... it will grow back, I guess.

Credits:
I finally found something that was worth cranking up a GIF maker for; this one was from GIFmaker.me and is both free and really easy to use.
   If you're curious, the hair credits are as follows (with Marketplace links to the demo as available):
Bryce: Saul
Exile: A.J.
Exile: Revolver
Mina: Waylon
No.Match: No.Horizon
No.Match: No.Perfection
No.Match: No.Rest
No.Match: No.Fail
No.Match: No.Access
Tableau Vivant: Smolderholder
   And thanks to supermodel Alex Thaub for being patient while I did this!

169: New eyes from .ID.

I bought these eyes the other day and just had a chance to really have a look at them. Don't you agree they're quite realistic? A combination of the pupil size and the light reflection and the sclera ... I don't know. But tell me what you think.
   The company's name is .ID. and these are their new mesh eyes.  If you buy the fatpack you get a HUD that lets you switch among all 18 colours. You can get a trial pair on Marketplace here.
   I don't receive payment or free stuff from .ID. or any other Second Life company; I just like their work and I think you will too.