Images

Black & White Portrait Challenge: Don’t Kill Me, Rwah!

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1 Waiting Once Again Sm

I am going to be in SO much trouble for this! Since I first discovered her blog several months ago, I have been a huge fan of Rwah’s black & white photography. If you read my blog regularly, you know this. I mention it often. She is one of the best Second Life Home & Garden bloggers out there, in my opinion. Yes, she occasionally sneaks her avatar in the photos, but she mainly concentrates on the “stuff.”

I think it’s time for her to show off her skills with portraiture. So when I saw Miss Berry’s meme this week, I thought I would take my life in my hands and issue a challenge to Rwah: I wanna see you do this meme!

Just so she (and you) know what I am asking her to do, I’ll be happy to help:

Meme Instructions: Share a black & white portrait (headshot) of your Second Life avatar. You can post a raw shot or process the image as much as you like. Don’t forget to leave a link to your image in the comments (of this post) and also share it in the Blog Memes flickr group.

In keeping with Berry’s format and a lot of others I have seen, I am including the colour version of my B&W photo.

1 Waiting Once Again 1

I’m actually not sure which I prefer. I do like the close crop of the B&W but I really am smitten by the wistfulness the pose in the colour version seems to add. I probably should have chosen a picture of me running for my life, because that’s what I’ll probably be doing when Rwah sees this 😉

I’m off now to buy a pair of running shoes and book a flight to a country that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with The Netherlands!

Pretty stuff I’m wearing:

Dress: Lark – Savannah Dress Polka Dot White/Black by Sienia Trevellion
Necklace, earrings: EarthStones Harmony Ball Set – Onyx by Abraxxa Anatine
Hair: *ARGRACE* RYO – Red by rika Oyen (New Release)
Skin: [PXL] Creations – [PXL] JADE SK Peach Lips MEB C2 by Hart Larsson
Eyes: Amacci Gaze Eyes – Ocean Blue by Carina Larsen
Lashes: Mon Cheri *MC* “Falsies” Eyelash by Freya Oliveri

Pose by [we’re CLOSED] daybed brown pillows by Wendy Xeno (apparently NLA – I couldn’t find it at the mainstore or on Marketplace)

Lesson Learned From Surrealism

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1 Uncommon Smile D

I consider myself to be a rather grounded, down-to-earth kind of person. So I almost didn’t click into the gallery for The Surreal Complex over on Seraphim to see what was on offer. Ah, in case you didn’t know about Seraphim, that is my shopping secret weapon. It is how I find out about the majority of sales events going on and gives me a sneak-preview so I can decide whether or not to fight the crowds.

But, being the dedicated shopper that I am, I took a peek. I was expecting something along the lines of nightmare-inspired items; instead, I found more quirky, clever and cute items mixed in with the more avant-garde. The event is divided into three categories: art, dreams and fairy tales. It is a fun shopping venue (although I did have trouble finding the teleporter back to the main level from the dreams gallery) and while it was busy, it wasn’t overly crowded, making it a very pleasant shopping experience.

My favourite items were the poses. I had to have the Butterflies set from UNCERTAIN SMILE, and immediately headed over to Two Moon Gardens to play with it. It was the perfect distraction while I waited the required ten minutes for entry into the Two Moon Gardens Booty Board competition (group membership required).

I guess this just shows that one should never judge a book by its cover or a sales event by its name. I have always believed the first; I am learning the wisdom of the second.

Pretty stuff I’m wearing:

Dress: *LACUNA* Racey Rib Tank Dress – S – Lemon by LacunaInc
Hair: *ARGRACE* KOZUE – Red by rika Oyen (NEW RELEASE)
Skin: [PXL] Creations – [PXL] JADE SK Peach Lips MEB C2 by Hart Larsson
Hands: Slink Mesh Hands (av) Casual by Siddean Munro
Hand appliers:[PXL] Creations – [ PXL ] Slink Hand Appliers SK by Hart Larsson
Eyes: Amacci Gaze Eyes – Ocean Blue by Carina Larsen
Lashes: Mon Cheri *MC* “Falsies” Eyelash by Freya Oliveri

Pose & butterflies prop: UNCERTAIN SMILE – BUTTERFLIES 1 by Isabelli Anatine (available at The Surreal Complex)

The Adventure Of The Gift Card

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1 Pics by Peep Gift Card Blank

After being officially in business as a Second Life photographer for over a year, I finally decided to offer gift cards for my services. Simple little task, you say. Not so! Well, I suppose it could have been if I had just done a simple buy board with my gift cards, but nooooo – I had to try to get all fancy!

I will spare you the step-by-step trials I endured trying to put a simple texture onto a photo frame, add an unpacking script (with pose), attaching it to myself so that I appeared to be looking down onto this amazing gift before unpacking. As I have mentioned on numerous occasions, I am not a builder. I don’t know how people manage it, to be honest. They must have the patience of saints. This little exercise nearly pushed me over the edge.

I did, in fact, manage to create the delivery box, attach it to my avatar, include the animation and updated script to the box, along with the gift card and information note card. I even managed to create different boxes for each of the cards I offer. I did a happy dance when I got them all set up in a vendor at my showroom and heaved a sigh of relief when my Marketplace store was online and ready to go. I even did a test delivery from MP and jumped for joy when the gift cards were delivered to me successfully. What an achievement! What a glorious victory over the technical side of Second Life!

…what an idiot I am. The one thing I didn’t do during this whole process was test that the delivery box worked for anyone other than me. Only after I had done all of these things did I drag my alt in to make sure I could transfer the box to her and it would actually deliver the gift card and note card. Oh, I could transfer it successfully. I watched in nervous anticipation as she gazed in awe at the delivery frame, heaved a sigh of relief when the folder appeared in her inventory and the box magically disappeared.

And then I nearly cried when I checked the folder and all that showed up was the note card. The gift card itself was nowhere to be seen.

I did the only thing a reasonable person could do – I took the vendor offline, unlisted my Marketplace items and logged off in a huff.

But I couldn’t let it go. I logged back in on my alt and rezzed the delivery box. Yep, the gift card was there. And when opening it manually, the gift card magically appeared in inventory. After thinking about it, I decided it had to be either the permissions or the script. To be honest, I was hoping for the permissions. Alas, they were set up properly. And since I read SL scripting code about as well as I do Sanskrit, I decided to cut my losses and remove the script and animation, reorient the frame so that it sits upright when rezzed (rather than being upside down and cock-eyed as it previously was so it looked like one was holding it). I updated the vendor with the new items and put it back online, dragged the new boxes to my Marketplace outbox and logged out. Realised I hadn’t actually uploaded them to Marketplace, logged back in to do that and amended the listings there with the correct boxes.

Finally, after I-don’t-wanna-know-how-many-hours, my gift cards were on sale. I may never sell one of these suckers but they’re never coming down after the adventure I went on just to make them available!

I may contact the script creator (or another friend who is a scripting legend) to see if someone can get it to work. I know if I do that I will have to relist the gift cards again in my vendor and on Marketplace. But after doing it several times already, I’m fairly adept at both.

Or, I might just leave it as is and leave this as a reminder of why I should stick to shopping, decorating and taking pictures in Second Life!

If you would like to give a gift of a photo session with lil ole me, you can click the link to the right of this post to access my Marketplace store or visit my in-world showroom and pick one up from the vendor. Heck, I’ll even give you the direct link to my Marketplace store here – no point in making you work as hard as I did just to get those suckers on sale 😉

PS – Cougar, now would be the time you can safely say, “Told ya so!” 😉

Credits can be found here.