My Cherished

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People who don’t inhabit virtual worlds like Second Life often don’t understand how two folks can meet and almost instantly find a connection when they only have avatars and text as their means of communication. Just because you can’t see or touch someone, though, doesn’t mean that relationship isn’t as real. I work as a host and shift manager at a rock club in Second Life (Breaking The Rules). My job there is to greet people, help them out and just be social, making sure they enjoy their time at the club. As such, I meet a LOT of people on a daily basis.

But sometimes, you just ‘click’ with a person and know that you share a bond that will always exist. A ‘sister of the heart’ or a BFF, to be cliche. Tylar Hemmit-Revestel is one of those amazing women whom I will always hold dear. The nickname “My Cherished” came from a Facebook app that listed your friends and how much they love you. Silly nonsense, but in her case, so true.

In our club, the tip jars project the Second LIfe profile picture of the host and DJ. And Tylar’s was, well…average 😉 It was a snapshot that wasn’t sized properly and you could barely make out her features. You certainly couldn’t recognise her beauty from that photo. One night, she mentioned she was saving to have new profile pictures done, and I immediately volunteered to do them for her. It took us a few weeks to actually get the time together for the shoot, but finally, one Friday night, I got her to my home and I flipped her through pose after pose, dragged her around my property to different locations and made her go through wardrobe changes until the poor girl was probably ready to shoot me 😀 I took over 70 shots and in the end, I presented her with 21 photos that I found acceptable. Not a bad strike rate, actually, but I believe that is because I know her so well and I was able to capture her moods and personality more easily.

I wanted to show the different sides of Tylar. And I’m proud to show the world how I captured those aspects of My Cherished.

Thoughtful

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Carefree

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Sensual

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Provocative

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And as My Cherished puts it:

Hello, World, Here’s Tylar!

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Oh, and that friend I mentioned in my first post who told me she loved how I had captured so many sides of her in her portraits? Who encouraged me to offer my services to others? Who gave me the confidence to do just that and as a result, begin this blog?

Yep. You guessed it. That was Tylar…My Cherished ♥

A Unicorn Followed Me Home…

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…and I fell in love ♥

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Actually, I found him at a sales event called Introducing Genre, the .la petite mort. unicorn prop. And I knew I had to photograph him.

One of my favourite things to do is to take the same image and apply different effects. Each photograph based on the same original shot can show a different mood or side of the person I’m photographing. That’s what I did with this shot of myself and my new friend, Percival (yeah, I named my unicorn 😉 )

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Even a change in how the shot is cropped can affect the mood and focus of the photo:

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I wanted each shot to have an ethereal feel to it, mystical, magical, romantic. I hope I captured those moods.

A short post, but I need to run. Percival has wandered into the neighbour’s garden and I think he’s eating the petunias!

Enter My Second Life

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This is me 🙂 Well, a version of me you will find in Second Life. That’s what this blog is about – the beauty I find there in photographing avatars.

I’ve been in Second Life for four years and have always been captivated by the amazing photographers I’ve come across in profiles, advertising, blogs and websites. Over time, I’ve learned by trial and error to stop just taking snapshots and frame photos, change windlight settings, and play with images in post-processing. I don’t use Photoshop or even GIMP. I use a few different web-based photo editors to create portraits that reflect a mood. If I’m successful, those portraits show a bit about the person I’m photographing. If I’m not, the raw shot gets binned (and to be honest, that is most of them!)

I’ve been taking pictures of myself mainly, along with candid shots of friends in clubs where I’ve worked. As I’ve gotten better, I’ve had friends ask me to do their profile pictures or take photos at events. I do it for fun; it’s a type of therapy for me. I can immerse myself in getting the right angle, the right background, the right lighting, even the right expression and any worries I have just seem to float away. I’ve been encouraged to offer my services professionally, but I’ve been afraid that the pressure of doing what I love for a fee would increase the stress that I have used photography to take away. And I’ve always said that since I do them for free, if they hate the finished product…tough *grins*

But recently I had a chat with a friend whose profile pictures I had just completed. She told me how she loved the different sides of her that I brought out in each photo. How each one told a story about her, reflecting her moods and her personality. How she had never felt so beautiful as she did when she looked at those photos.

I know I’ll never be as good as my Second Life photography idols Chic Aeon, Harlow Heslop and Strawberry Singh. I use different tools. I have no professional training (and yes, Berry, I know you are self-taught *winks*). But I believe I can set myself apart by getting to know the people I photograph and showing how special they are in every picture I paint.

This blog will be a showcase for Pics By Peep. Ready for your close up, Second Life?

Here I come 🙂

~ Peep