Windlight – Page 5 – Pics by Peep

Hazardous

Image March 1, 2013PeepSideshow DarkwardLeave a comment

This title could describe blogging: since I began about a month ago, I’ve learned that blogging is hazardous to my free time. It’s not just the time I spend actually posting the blog – it’s the time I take to shoot the photographs, select them and process them for publication. It’s also hazardous to my friends; one of these days they’ll get sick of my blogs and hold an intervention!

But this title actually refers to the name of the sim where I took these photos. It’s another place I found on the Second Life Destination Guide. The description provided intrigued me, so I had to check it out.

“Dream infinitely, remain fearless, but always seek hazardous adventures.” Hazardous is a mysterious and intriguing place to take a few photographs, hang out, dance, or just spend some quiet time reflecting. Seek it out.

And they weren’t wrong. I did find it mysterious and intriguing, to say the least. From the landing point on a floating platform you plummeted gracefully from to the main sim, I was immediately captivated.

I’m just going to share a few photos I took there – no commentary from me, other than to say, besides the last photo, I did very little processing (for me, anyway). The stark beauty of the sim just needed to be shown as simply as possible. I changed the Windlight settings, but other than that, these are what you will find if you visit this beautiful place.

The Graceful Rain

Image February 27, 2013PeepSideshow Darkward5 Comments

Rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life.
John Updike

Today I was browsing the Second Life Destination Guide and came across a sim called 2304 Rain. It intrigued me. Finding good “weather” sims in Second Life can be tough. This one seemed to have promise.

Oh, boy, did it ever. Wandering around, discovering the most surprising items scattered around, from giant rusty razor blades to a human-sized chessboard, to random photos propped against rocks, to an owl holding an umbrella 🙂

I just took photo after photo, taking multiple shots of each pose, changing my windlight constantly to try to get just the right mood. The setting just cried out for darker lighting, but with highlights of brightness. If I hadn’t made myself stop so I could do this post, I would still be there, exploring, discovering, trying to to do justice to this amazing setting.

I don’t normally post this many photos, so I apologise, but I just want to share this incredible place.

May your life be filled with graceful rain.

Weekly Writing Challenge: Image vs. Text – There’s More Than One Side To A Story

Image February 19, 2013PeepSideshow DarkwardLeave a comment

I actually started this post last night, and then ran out of time. When I saw the Weekly Writing Challenge, I decided it was the perfect reason to complete it!

Not for the first time, I found myself taking an old photograph and reworking it. Sometimes it’s an old favourite I want to experiment with. Other times it’s just for the sake of honing a new technique. And sometimes it’s to tell a different story with a single image.

This photo has gotten a LOT of mileage. It’s a very basic photo, so it’s easy to work with. This is the raw image. I actually shot this against a yellow, sunshiny background, but with changes to my lighting settings, I ended up with a black background.

My first instinct was to create a head shot from this photograph. So I cropped it closely and allowed my expression to tell the story. I appear wistful, perhaps thoughtful in this image.

When I started experimenting with overlays, this image immediately came to mind. The solid black background was perfect for adding a texture to tell a different story. One that shows me gazing into a window – perhaps wishing for a place like this to call my own.