Single Frame Stories

The Year That Was

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It is New Year’s Eve and a day to reflect on the year that has passed. For me, it has been a tumultuous year with lots of lows interspersed with a few highs. In terms of my real life I have seen so many changes that I am still attempting to process and come to terms with them. As for Second Life, it has been a better year, largely because of this blog.

And the person most responsible for it is My Cherished, Tylar. I chose to lead this post with this photo because it was largely her encouragement that led me to opening my photography business, which in turn led to this little publication that has become not just a showcase for my photographs, but also an exploration of my life in and out of Second Life. My Cherished, thank you for believing in me, standing behind me and for sharing so many of your wonderful qualities with me.

The rest of this story will be a taste of some of my favourite photos and posts. Some of them may not make a lot of sense to you; you won’t necessarily see only the best photos in terms of composition and technique. But each one of these holds a special place in my heart for one reason or another. This is going to be a long one, so if you aren’t inclined to spend a large portion of your day reminiscing with me, I wish you a happy and healthy New Year and I’ll see you on the other side.

If you are willing to stick with me, just click this link to take the plunge. Continue reading →

Single Frame Stories – I Believe: Love Is Not A Four-Letter Word

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Love is not a four letter word

I’ve been away from Single Frame Stories for a few weeks. I haven’t been inspired with any truly creative interpretations of the prompt word(s) until this round. The prompt is “I Believe”. And taking a look around Second Life lately, that has led me to create this image.

Love is not a four-letter word in the sense that it is not to be taken lightly or in haste. Bandying about the term when you have barely known someone for a week is a curse upon the meaning of the word. I’ve never been a believer in love at first sight. Lust? Sure? Infatuation? Maybe within an hour or so (excluding the times one might be wearing beer goggles). But to love someone you need to know what makes them who they are. You need to understand their warts and idiosyncrasies and still experience that depth of feeling only love can bring.

Love is all of the letters of the alphabet, the words of every language, every story written across all time.

Love is NOT as simple as a four-letter word.

Single Frame Stories: Creativity – Lessons From A Dead Poet

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Surprisingly, this week’s Single Frame Stories prompt, “Creativity”, pretty much stumped me. I’m not an artist. I take photographs and play around with processing them, but I am hopeless at creating anything from scratch. I have my own style, but it’s nothing ground-breaking or heart-stopping. It’s just what I do. It fills my time and it helps me relax. I just get in a zone and don’t see anything else. My senses are heightened, and they are fixed on what I am doing – trying to create my interpretation of the scene I have captured. Results may vary.

I was going to wimp out and skip this prompt. But then, ironically, I stumbled across this quote:

The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.
~ Sylvia Plath

So…feeling chastised by a dead poet, I intended to go into Second Life today and travel the grid, trying to find something that could tell the story of Creativity in a single shot. I was actually anxious about it, wondering what I could possibly come up with.

And then, I remembered a photo I had taken at Runestone, but hadn’t used in my original post. This painter’s easel has been at Runestone for as long as I have been going there. And it’s one of my favourite spots. I can never walk past it without grabbing a palette and putting brush to canvas, pretending to recreate the scene of the house across the water, playing at being an artist. When I opened the photo, I knew I could show in one shot how I feel when I am working to finish a picture: focused on the object, with everything else around me a blur.

I hope I succeeded.

If you want to participate in Single Frame Stories, you don’t have to be a blogger. All you need to do is upload your interpretation of Creativity, in a single photo, to the Single Frame Stories Flickr group. You can open a free account there, if you don’t already have one, and participate in this remarkable project. The deadline this week is Friday, so there is time to display the work at the Single Frame Stories SL10B installation. Go ahead…give it a shot. You may find yourself in the zone, too, once you’ve overcome your hesitation to share your creativity.