Monday Meme: Exploring Second Life

Strawberry has another Meme Monday Challenge for us to share some of our favorite places in Second Life, and I love this idea; I'm always looking for new places to take pictures, so this challenge feeds my exploring bug like whoa. Taking a leaf from Strawberry's book, I uploaded these at full screen size for the full effect, but I reserved the right to have fun with the windlight settings. I have a lot of favorite sims, but I'm trying to focus on the ones I return to over and over again, the ones that sing to my soul, the ones that I return to when nothing else is fitting my needs, and one recent opening that I think deserves a lot more attention as it's an incredible resource for photographers. I hope you love them as much as I do.

I had to start close to home. I live and consider my home base to be Isle of Amras, a gorgeous roleplaying sim designed and largely built by my friend, Lerochelle Destiny / Charlie. He's been really stepping up his design with mesh, and just recently redid the view I'm showing, including my own apartment on the third floor over the infirmary. There is a lower keep with a bustling marketplace, a mountainous area over Charlie's store, an enormous keep area studded with hidden apartments and classy stores, the castle - which is festooned with roses - complete with garderobes and a really fun great hall, and an entire second sim of farmland with a swamp at the end. It is a roleplaying sim, but if you want to come around just to check it out or to take pictures, stick on an OOC marker and the residents will cheerfully ignore you.

Light Settings: TOR, MIDDAY - Vintage Village

The first sim I fell in love with was World's End Garden. It looked very different then, and had a single section on the bottom level with the gorgeous tree I'm showing above, but in darker hues. I used to come and play music and just look at the waves come in and out, simply relaxing in the immersive beauty. The sim now begins one in the basement, in a mass of filmy trees and secret places. The main floor is now a selection of locations making full use of the reflective nature of the water - this is where I take most of my pictures these days. And if you find the right door, you can find your way up here to the attic, to the genesis seed of the world tree and the sparkling sounds of beauty.

Light Settings: TOR, FOGGY - Das Fog

Bryn Oh and her Immersiva was the first artist I fell in love with. Her latest build isn't my favorite of hers, but I still love Immersiva and the melancholy stories she weaves for us to wander through. She also makes these amazing machinema to capture each build and tell each story long after the builds themselves are no more, and I think my favorite character of them all is the Rabbicorn, who simply wants someone to love and be with. The current story, a macabre and thoughtful one, begins with a challenge and takes a turn for the bizarre and amazing halfway through. To get to the bulk of the display, one has to walk up a thin staircase, either an easy to fall off one, or one which forms under ones feet. One can cheat, but I would certainly never admit to doing so. Not me. Partway through, Bryn added an amazing effect where  you sit on a feather which allows you to walk on the walls - to walk on the side, upside down, inside out. You're supposed to stand up now and then, but the first time I went through I saw how far I could get walking on things and it was a whole lot of fun. So yes, it's hard to get there (unless one cheats), but once you do it is so glorious.

Light Settings: TOR, BIG SUN - Good for Sailing

The LEA Machinima Open Sim Project is a fairly recent sim, but it is a photographers daydream. Chic has created hundreds of little scenes perfect for almost everything. The only flaw could be that with so many scenes on the ground, it can be a challenge to obscure the other ones in the background, but a sensible photographer can do a lot with angles, windlight, and draw distance. I always mean to come back and do a different picture in a different scene each time, but then I get caught up in the fantastic details and can't resist focusing on a single build. Also, there are snapshot sims in the air, teleportable to through the HUD. I particularly love the landscaping on the ground, though - natural seeming pools here and there with lovely buildings next to them; it's everything I love in a photographic area.

Light Settings: TOR, BIG SUN - Impire

Captured Moments offers photographers the opportunity to play with and use a lot of different props all in one place, for glorious effect. There is an outdoor area in the round available, as well as a ton of neatly placed together props with backdrops all in a pretty box in the sky. This is a perfect place for the blogger starting out, as it offers a wide variety of poses and platforms - a collection that would have taken a lot of Linden to bring together and which would be well outside the reach of a lot of people. They've all been placed together beautifully well, with enough room so one can take full advantage but without any wasted space. At regular intervals, there are also pose stands for dressing and undressing oneself. I had a lot of fun playing around here and jumping form scene to scene, and I really recommend everyone check it out.

Light Settings: Sim Default