Second Life

Weekly Photo Challenge: Curves – The Nature Of A Woman

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1 2304 Rain Curves

In life, as in art, the beautiful moves in curves.
Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

When I look at photos of stick-thin women, I have to wonder, what is the appeal? What is more boring than a straight line? The gentle curve of the hips, the breasts, the shoulder and upper arm, soft and gently sloping, defines the feminine form. That women – and especially young girls – are conditioned to eschew this natural phenomenon causes more harm than can ever be expressed in a simple blog.

The Weekly Photo Challenge prompt this week is Curves. This photo not only shows a modern version of a curvaceous woman, but the framed print harkens back to a time when this shape was considered ideal.

There are other examples of curves in this picture, but the nature of a woman cannot be overshadowed.

Please click on the link above to see other examples of “Curves.”

Putting Me In My Place

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1 Runestone_026J

Yesterday I ventured in to Second Life with three goals:

1. To clear out the Arcade items cluttering my platform from my shoot a few days prior.
2. To post my SL Movie poster at LEA11 in Berry’s Monday Meme Gallery.
3. Do a landscape shot for my blog.

I managed to clear out the Arcade items (although not organise them in my inventory 😦 ) and popped over to LEA11 to put up my poster. I even managed to knock poor Vaneeesa off the platform when I changed the width of my poster to 170.5 metres instead of adjusting the rotation to 170.5 (sorry again, Vaneeesa! *grimaces*) So far, two out of three down…I’m doing great!

Then I hit the wall. I opened the Destination Guide and TP’d to three different locations, trying to find a landscape to shoot. Despite rezzing issues, I attempted several shots in all three places. I adjusted my camera angle, Windlight settings (even going so far as to edit the water and sky settings), flew or ran from area to area trying to find just the right location to shoot and just generally wore myself out attempting to do what I normally don’t do.

After a couple of hours of this (intermittently, getting up frequently to rest my back and un-numb my bum) I started going through my shots for processing. Overall, I took over 100 photos and they were all…well, to be blunt…CRAP. Sighs. I tried to do something with a couple in post-processing to make them blog-worthy, but alas, you can’t make a silk purse out of…CRAP.

It’s for days like yesterday that I worked ahead for the Avatar Blogger Month. By the time I finished I was disheartened and exhausted. So, I took a day off.

Today, I went at it from a different angle. Yes, I wanted to find a pretty location to shoot, but I decided to add me into the frame. This time, I was happier with my results.

I headed to a sim I have frequented over the years, Runestone, and I wasn’t disappointed. If you haven’t been there, here is the description in the Destination Guide:

Runestone is a special place to relax and enjoy the sights and sounds of nature. Dance, meditate, or cuddle with a loved-one, visit the quaint cottages, or explore the garden with its waterfalls, rope-swings, and hidden pirate’s cave.

I was much happier with these photos which include me, but still show off the lovely location. In fact, all I did was crop these pictures.

Runestone_035J

I’m not saying I’m going to give up on landscape photography, but until I master it, I’ll just have to keep putting me in my place.

My SL Movie Poster Challenge: It’s Nice To Meet You

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1 Peepless In SLeattleFinal

Monday again, and time for another meme (no matter what anyone else says) from Strawberry Singh! I KNEW this one was going to be a challenge, and it took me most of the day to find the stuff to put it together. Especially because my male avatar only has one set of clothes and one hair style and neither of them would work for this shot! Tom Hanks he ain’t 😉

I panicked when I saw this meme, not because I feared having to try to use Photoshop, but because I had no idea what movie to pick. Because I’m in Australia, it’s actually my Tuesday and I saw Berry’s meme just before I went to bed Monday night. I decided I’d play Scarlett and “think about it tomorrow.” What actually happened was I woke up at 3:21 AM and nearly shouted, “Peepless in Seattle!” – which turned out to be SLeattle as I was trying to re-write the blurb on the poster. Oh…and I managed to do it in Picmonkey, so I was able to get this done in one day instead of the week or two it would have taken if I’d had to use PS \o/

In case you live under a rock, I based my poster on Sleepless In Seattle.

If you want to play along, here are Berry’s instructions:

Monday Meme Instructions: The challenge for this week is to create a movie poster for your SL Avatar or SLife. You can base it off an original movie poster or think of a completely new idea of your own! Get creative and have some fun with it! Remember to leave your link in this meme’s comments so others can come by and see your poster as well.

Got to run…I have to get to the top of the Empire State Building before it closes!